Today marks the 20th anniversary of a very critical date in my development as an outdoor writer. July 30, 2004, was the first day of that year’s Bassmaster Classic on Lake Wylie, and I was the media observer for Aaron Martens.

As I’ve written many times before, the late development of my writing career has paid countless dividends and I feel like it’s just getting started. I’ve had some great mentors, and most of the learning experiences have been relatively painful. I don’t know precisely what the future of fishing media holds, but I can tell you that there’s still tons of opportunity for savvy, hard workers.