My 2024 Writing Record
After two decades of writing professionally about fishing, I remain passionate about the creation process. As scary as it may be to admit, I often still go to bed thinking about the last piece I wrote and wake up ready to write the next one. It’s a constantly-changing industry, but I’m proud of the fact that I’ve bobbed and weaved effectively, such that I’ve yet to be knocked out. In fact, each year comes with new opportunities, and as Hanna and I approach retirement from our full-time jobs we’re setting ourselves up to take advantage of those things in the future.
I always find it useful to look back and grade myself on the year gone by. I didn’t make the most money I’ve ever earned in a single year from writing, but this year may have been one of the most gratifying. That’s partially because I got Hanna to be more comfortable with the process, but also because of my own achievements. Here are some that stand out, in no particular order:
First and foremost, we had new content here on HPFC every day. A few times there were late-developing pieces of news that couldn’t wait so we doubled-up. Perhaps more importantly, we’ve focused on the topics that we’d want to hear about as prospective traveling anglers.
I produced articles or advertorial writing for at least eight fishing industry companies, along with seven magazines or websites devoted to fishing. The latter included a return to Wired2Fish, where I’d been an original contributor but had not been published there for over a decade.
I continued my blog at Yamamoto’s Inside Line, under new management and admittedly slightly less frequently than in the past. As far as I know, it’s one of if not the longest-running blog in bass fishing, dating back to 2008.
I tried to improve my YouTube skills, and while I’ll never be particularly techy, at least the frequency has increased, along with slightly better production qualities. It’s fun to occasionally step away from the keyboard to exercise my creative brain in a different way.
BASS has let me continue with my daily “Elite Analysis” during each Elite Series event – a collection of notes, quotes, stats and non-sequiturs that I’ve wanted to produce for a long time. The feedback has been very positive, but mostly it keeps me engaged in each tournament as a moment in the history of the sport.
This one’s not writing, per se, but it’s media-related so I’ll include it: I was trusted to host several segments of Bassmaster Live Mix during the Classic in March and hope to get to do so again in the future.
I’m sure that I published well over 500 articles this year, but in case you missed them, below are ten that I’m particularly proud to have written:
