SCHULTZ: You’ve been at this game a long time and you’ve watched the sport evolve, especially with the media moguls getting involved…JM Associates, ESPN, and all of their resources. How would you compare today’s competitive venues versus those back when you started?
COOK: In the early days, print media was pretty much all we had. There was a little bit of television, but up until I won Super B.A.S.S., there was no TV show. After that The Bassmasters came along. It was the mid-80’s I guess when TV became a factor. But up through the 90’s, print media was still the big dog in marketing the sport of fishing. Obviously, in the last five to eight years, TV, video, and the Internet have become the dominant force in promoting the sport and the sponsors. It’s quite a bit different.
Now there are different avenues for creating value for your sponsors, or creating awareness for the sport, and it’s all good. For the most part, the changes have been good. I miss the importance of print a little bit. We still have Bassmaster and some other magazines, but TV seems to be the driving force in most of the marketing and sponsorships. TV and the Internet do reach a new audience and a broader audience certainly. It creates the opportunity for all of us to grow the sport as a whole, which in turn creates a larger market. This makes it bigger for everyone – including sponsors outside the fishing industry. I think that’s the biggest change.
As more non-endemic sponsors get involved, it will change the face of competitive fishing. But I hope it doesn’t grow to the point that it works against the companies that built the fishing industry: tackle, boat and motor companies – the companies that have helped me make a living.
SCHULTZ: Your wife Tammy is traveling with you again. It’s good seeing you both together again. Companionship on the road has to be a good thing. How is life on the road with your wife?
COOK: I met Tammy at a fishing tournament and we eventually got married. I won my first B.A.S.S. event while we were on our honeymoon so there’s a clue that we were both heavily into fishing. We quit our jobs after winning the Super B.A.S.S. tournament, and she immediately started traveling with me to all the events. We were on the road together for about eight years. Our twins were born in ’86 and we traveled with them all over the country fishing the (BASS) circuit until they were five and started school. Tammy stayed home for the most part over the past 21 years. Now that they are in college, Tammy has started traveling with me again. It’s brought me to a whole new level of fishing. I’ve always enjoyed fishing, but family is right there above it in my obsession. Now that she’s traveling with me, it’s made fishing fun again. It was getting kind of rough being on the road for weeks at a time, alone. Now it’s almost like a vacation. It’s what drives us both… to be successful at this, again. Life is good. It was always good, but it’s a whole lot better now.
SCHULTZ: So, to punctuate those obsessions, family and fishing. What did you name your sons?
COOK: Hunter and Tanner. Yeah, we didn’t want them to be Rod and Reel. (laughs)
SCHULTZ: Do they love fishing and hunting as well?
COOK: They do love the outdoors. Fishing and hunting will always be a part of their lives. However, they both decided to go into the medical field. One wants to become a doctor, the other a dentist. They’ve decided to go their own way and let fishing and hunting be their recreation, instead of a vocation, and that’s fine. We always encouraged them to do what they wanted to do…to create their own direction.
SCHULTZ: I have two sons as well and I try to encourage them to choose their own path.
COOK: Exactly!
SCHULTZ: This comes to mind; I remember taking the kids fishing and seeing a guy on the water with his kid in the boat. They’d been there all day and his kid had given up hours earlier and yet the dad still had him out there. I tried never to make that mistake. What usually happens is the kid ends up losing interest in the sport. They move on to video games or something else. I know it’s tough sometimes to leave the lake before you want to, but don’t you agree that’s good advice?
COOK: It’s about balance. It’s about the personality of the child. I’m not sure what it is that first lights the fire for fishing. I’ve had it since I was very young. I don’t think we made that mistake with our sons but we did make fishing available to them. On the other hand, I was gone so much, and they watched me work so hard at it. I can’t put my finger on why they chose something else. I know we teased them with some of the things you get to do in life, once you become successful; that made an impression on them. I believe my success has come from finding the thing that I liked and working hard to make a living at it. To me, that’s the definition of success. That’s the message we tried to share with our sons.