New review of An Impossible Cast from http://bassfishingarchives.com

According to Terry Battisti, “The book is filled with the history of the sport at a time when there was no history. It’s a must read for those who are ardent historians of the sport and a “you need to read” if you’re a bass fisherman.” Check out the entire article here.

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Tulsa World review by Kelly Bostian!

Sunday, February 7, our book received a fantastic review in the Tulsa World. Check it out below!

Tulsa World Review

Also this month, this article (below) appeared in Midwest Outdoors, written by our good friend and famous lure collector, Dan Basore.

FISHING HISTORY

By Dan Basore

THE BEST BASS FISHERMAN

Do you want to start a debate? Just ask any group of bass chasers, Whose the best? And fur will fly. But some of the greatest names in bassin’ have no doubt it’s Glen Andrews.

Before there was BASS and Bassmaster tournaments the “World Series of Sport Fishing”  tournaments were conducted for ten years. It’s champions include well known fishermen who hosted television shows including Harold Ensley “The Sportsman’s Friend” that ran for 48 years, Virgil Ward of “Championship Fishing”, Joe Krieger, “The Joe Krieger Sportsman Show” and Jimmy Houston host of ESPN’s “Jimmy Houston Outdoors”.

But only one man won the title of “World Champion” more than once, Glen Andrews, and he did it for two years in a row. For the early years as I fished national bass tournaments, and made friends with the nations top bass fishermen, the name Glen Andrews was mentioned by so many as I asked, “Who was the best bass fisherman you ever knew?”

Bill Dance, (23 National wins, three time BASS Angler of the Year), couldn’t say enough about how Glen had taught him so much. In a letter to Shane Andrews, Glen’s son, Dance wrote, “It’s amazing to me how you can meet someone and it can change your whole direction in life. There can be absolutely no doubt that I wouldn’t be doing what I am today had our lines not crossed back then”.

First and a two time winner of the Bassmaster Classic and student of Glen, Bobby Murray wrote, “Glen is probably the greatest angler that no one has ever heard of. However his influence on modern bass fishing is unparalleled by any other angler”.

As we filmed a segment of the long running ESPN “The Fishin’ Hole”, Jerry McKinnis not only extolled the expertise of Glen but even pulled out one of his Twin Spin Lures to save the day with some of our best bass of the show while most other fishermen were skunked that day.

Jerry then introduced me to a friend of his that was moving to my area and Gary Clark became like a brother to me. As we fished locally and in exotic locals in other countries we often talked about Glen Andrews wondering what he was doing and even if he was still alive.

McKinnis wrote recently, “In my business you can imagine how many times someone asks, ‘Who was the best bass fisherman you ever knew?’ Your probably not going to know this man, but Glen Andrews is my reply. I had a wonderful career and I owe a lot of it to Glen”.

Ray Scott, the founder of BASS disclosed, “Glen Andrews probably is the best natural-born bass angler that I have ever met. When you’ve got it you’ve got it, and Glen Andrews has got it!”

Glen wrote the book, “Techniques of Bass Fishing” in 1974 and authored the syndicated “Angler’s World” newspaper column. He also held bass fishing classes.

Of interest to fishers, collectors and fishing historians, Glen was the founder of Andrews Lure Company. His friend Dave Hawk is credited with inventing the plastic worm, “Texas Rig”, but the Andrews Bait Company in Rogers, Arkansas, was the first to package, plastic worms, hooks and slip sinkers along with instructions on how to fish them. They also produced several other productive lures.

Some of the ways he worked lures were revolutionary and now mostly forgotten. For example during cold water periods he taught, “Cast my Twin Spin lure to a steep bank or bluff. Let it fall straight down to the bottom about 12 to 18 feet deep. Pull it gently away and allow it to fall on down the bluff continuing till it’s about 25 feet deep. Now pick it up and hold it-don’t crank it-don’t jig it-just hold it and let it swing all the way under your boat.. Most strikes will come about 10 to 15 feet from the bluff, but I have caught lot’s of bass after the Twin Spin stopped swinging and was just hanging. So always leave it there for a few seconds.”

Glen was a very successful guide for twenty years. The pressure to produce multiple limits for two anglers in the morning and many times two more in the afternoon was much more than catching a big limit himself in a tournament. Glen told me that, “Fishing a tournament was like having a day off.”

When it was time to choose between family life and tournament fishing, Andrews decided on his family. We can only guess what he could have achieved fishing bass tournaments.

There’s so much more to tell. This article can only introduce you to a small glimpse of Glen’s history and his perspective on the history of professional bass fishing that are captured in a new book written by his son D. Shane Andrews and Jeremy Miller and published by Dr. Todd Larson’s Whitefish Press. You can order it at http://www.whitefishpress.com.

If you can help with our search for more old lures or other fishing history, pre-level wind reels, casting tournament items, manufacturers catalogs, bamboo and wood rods etc., please write Dan Basore, Historical Fishing Display, 3 S 375 Herrick Rd., Warrenville, IL 60555, or call 630-393-FISH, that’s 630-393-3474 or toll free 1-800-FISH-LAKe, that’s 1-800-347-4525.. You can also e-mail descriptions and jpg pictures to OLLURES@AOL.COM. Thanks for your help and support.

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Bill Dance and Dad

January 24, 2010

Now that we are past the holidays, a sell-out book signing in Lead Hill, AR, and a pretty dog-gone good write-up about An Impossible Cast in bassfan.com, I need to fulfill a promise I made to you regular readers of the blog about the relationship between Bill Dance and Dad.

When I began this book project around 2003, I knew I had something special on my hands, but I didn’t really know how special. I cherished and recorded the stories that Dad had been telling me all the years, many times while sitting with him over the campfire we often burned in our yard set in a halved, rusted oil drum. But then the work began.

Stories and people were missing from the account of the World Series of Sport Fishing. After years of researching the “Series” in libraries all over the Midwest I discovered that Dad had not just been a spoke in the giant wheel of modern fishing tournaments, but he actually was the hub itself. Some of the most influential people in the industry today were influenced by the name Glen Andrews. Bobby and Billy Murray, Jerry McKinnis, even Ray Scott all built their empires from the cornerstone known as Glen Andrews. Dad even showed the ropes to the guy with the most recognizable name in the industry today.

Bill Dance’s name is so well known to the general public that people who’ve never dipped a hook in their lives have heard of him. With over 20 national titles, well-known tackle lines, and a TV show, it’s very difficult to not stumble across his renown at least every now and then. Bill was a young hardware and furniture salesman when he met Dad at a sports show in Memphis. Bill constantly picked Glen’s brain on how to catch bass. He and his cronies would follow Dad back to his motel room and keep him up always later than he cared for with their never-ending inquiries about angling. Dad grew to love Bill like a brother and taught him everything he knew to teach. Bill once told me in a recent phone conversation that “Seventy percent of everything I know about tournament fishing, I learned from your dad.”

After talking to Bill about my dream of a book on freshwater sport fishing history and the biography of Glen Andrews, Bill Dance sat down and, with reverence, respect and a deep brotherly love penned this letter and sent it to me signed:

It’s amazing to me how you can meet someone or simply hear something the person says and it can change your whole direction in life. The one person that changed mine back in the early days, particularly in 1966, and was highly influential in kick-starting my fishing career was a big ole tall, lanky, fishing guide by the name of Glen Andrews.

There can be absolutely no doubt that I wouldn’t be doing what I am today had or lines not crossed back then. This soft spoken, country gentleman impressed me so much by his uncanny fishing abilities and I can tell you for sure that my early tournament successes were greatly influenced by it.

Glen used to always tell me “strategy wins tournaments.”And he took the time to teach me how to read both shallow and deep water, the importance of using my electronics, how to read maps, how to locate key structural features and how to catch bass on them. He knew bass habits and habitat better than anyone I had ever met.

Glen Andrews was, and still is, my mentor, my friend, my advisor and absolutely has always been, among the top contributors to the success of the name Bill Dance!

Next time, I’ll tell you all about Dad’s relationship with world-famous anglers Bobby and Billy Murray.

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From inspiration to the page . . .

Dr. Todd sent the book to print a few weeks ago.  The physical copies should be ready around December 10.  In light of that I wrote down the story about how the book came about:

If you read the last blog entry, blog entry number 2, then you will remember that I made reference to Mira Kirshenbaum’s book, Everything Happens for a Reason. In it she provides “10 meanings of the events that occur in our lives.”  The list includes some things you would expect such as: “To help you totally accept yourself, To show you can let go of fear, To help you uncover your true hidden talent.”  But the one that struck me the most was:  “To show you how to live with a sense of mission.”  Since that time, my mission to tell Dad’s story and the history of freshwater pro-fishing in the U.S. seemed all the more important.  Kirshenbaum definitely helped me to feel more grounded about why things turned out the way they did for Dad… and for myself.

On a hot summer day in August 2003, I remember lying in bed in my one room cabin that Dad and I built just outside of Lead Hill, Arkansas when I watched Michael Iaconelli reel in the winning fish of the Bassmaster Classic, and shout, “Never Give Up!”  That fish made him a whole lot of money, and as he reeled in the fish, I couldn’t help thinking how much different our lives would be if Dad had reeled in a net full of money along with his winning fish in the ’65 and ’66 World Series of Sport Fishing tournaments.

I moved to Lead Hill in early 2001 when the corporation I was working for collapsed under my feet.  I was living in my Dad’s hunting trailer with only a few possessions and less pride.  Having had a similar experience with fishing, Dad knew what I was going through.  As we built my cabin together, he told me stories of his past successes and failures that I’d heard as a child, and they began to have more meaning.  Only after experiencing life myself did I begin to understand the heights to which my Dad had climbed and the depths to which he had fallen.  I began to find striking parallels between his story and mine.  I began to truly understand him and look to him and Mom to understand more of life’s lessons.

Watching Iaconelli reel in that fish, I became convinced that Dad’s bassin’ legacy should get similar recognition.  The world had to know who he was, how he shaped present day pro-fishing, and the part he played in the history of pro-fishing.

At the time I didn’t know how I was going to do it.  It never occurred to me to start writing it myself until my author friend, Jon Sheppard, encouraged me to.  I must have felt a little like Ray Scott when he concocted the idea of having the first paying bass tournament.  Determination was his only resource and he understood that he needed the help of others to blaze a path toward success.  As it happened for Ray, it too, happened for me by putting one foot in front of the other and realizing that some things had to be accomplished with other people’s help.

Several years of research and traveling all over the Midwest had revealed even more than Dad’s stories disclosed.  Not just that he became the only two-time World Series champ, but also of all the amazing people who helped him and whom he helped along the way – both famous and forgotten.  Dad’s story was monumental.  He was the hub of a wheel that had many spokes and history is amiss without the addition of his name.

Months turned into years, and many hours of boat sitting and deer camp fires reaped many stories of Dad’s humorous hunting trips and fishing adventures.  Eventually, I began to invite other friends to camp just to listen to Dad’s tales of yore.  It was then and there that I finally conceded to start writing.  A couple of years later I asked Jeremy Miller, whom I met while we were both waiting tables at the Olive Garden in Branson, MO, to co-author with me.  He just happened to also be an English teacher and his writing skills were very good.  He developed the story into a real piece of writing.

Thus, An Impossible Cast was born.

Stay tuned to the next blog entry and find out what the great Bill Dance and two-time Bassmaster Classic champ Bobby Murray said about Glen Andrews.

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