In the vast expanse of the fishing world, where the ripple of every cast tells a story, I found my calling.
Hello, everyone. My name is Laura Ann Foshee, and I am a digital content editor at Bassmaster! I started working for Bassmaster on January 30th, 2024. Although I am new to Bassmaster, I am not new to the fishing industry. At the very young age of 15, I entered the fishing industry as a beginner.
How this all got started
I had gone fishing with my family a couple of times, but that was all. I ended up falling in love with the idea of joining a sport that called me to spend time in nature and challenge me in ways no other sport ever has. There was such a huge learning curve, which was very intimidating! However, my mother, Tammy Foshee, who was and still is my biggest supporter, saw how much I loved it and went in full throttle to learn all that she could about starting a bass club, being a boat captain, and the basics of finding fish. My mother is an analyst by nature and really enjoyed the challenge, and let’s just say the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree with me. We both didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, but we just took it one day at a time and really strived to use our resources around us.
The learning curve
Back when we had just gotten started, YouTube was a popular platform in all but it didn’t quite have the full plethora of how-to and tips and tricks and tutorial videos in the fishing industry that it has today. Most of what we learned was from making friendships with very well-established fishermen and asking lots of questions. There were topics such as fishing etiquettes, boat safety, and patterning fish that we sometimes just had to learn about from our mistakes because we didn’t even know to ask questions about those things in the first place.
And not only that, but we were also what seemed like 2 out of maybe 5 or 6 women at the tournaments at the time because back in 2013, you just didn’t see many women at all! We would walk in a tournament registration with hundreds of anglers, and everyone would look at us like we were aliens. Thankfully, there are lots of women in those spaces now, and it’s a lot more normalized than it used to be.
Hard work pays off
Thankfully, after lots of practice and hard work, I am proud to say that I achieved the award of All American Angler for Bassmaster High School in the year of 2015, and I was the first female ever to do it. Earning that title then also gave me the kind of exposure and credibility that led to an opportunity of receiving the first-ever full-ride College Scholarship for a woman in fishing. I then proceeded to fish the Bassmaster College series on the S.C.A.D. College fishing team.
I never would have thought that the fishing industry would provide such an abundance for both me and my family when I first started all of this. A detail I completely forgot to tell you about is the fact that my mom, along with my Uncle Scott and Grandparents Dennis and Joyce Montgomery, owned a fishing brand called Big Bite Baits and a fishing lure manufacturing company called D and J Plastics Inc., which were sold in 2023 to GSM Outdoors.
So, during my fishing career, I was able to learn a lot of valuable insight on “the business of fishing.” I had an inside perspective of what these companies were looking for from pro staff and what was considered a good return on investment. I learned the importance of marketing, content creating, and self-branding, which are all tools I use in my professional career today.
The most important lesson
But above all, the greatest lesson I have learned in all of this is the importance and value of our relationships. There is a theme that you might have noticed in every part of this article: someone valued a relationship with me, and therefore, someone helped me.
My mother valued our mother-daughter relationship, so she helped me get my start in fishing. Friends in the fishing community valued a relationship with me, so they helped me navigate the learning curve of fishing. Bassmaster valued a relationship with the youth of fishing, so they helped us by creating the wonderful All American program. Colleges valued a relationship with students, so it helped them by creating fishing programs where students could flourish in academic achievement and pursue the outdoors. And lastly, my family valued each other, so they helped each other build a wonderful business, and when the time came, they sold the company, making that sacrifice so that my grandparents could retire and spend time resting from all of their hard work.
Conclusion
You see, that’s just what life is about. Through this position at Bassmaster, my number 1 goal is to continue to nurture relationships in this industry and help everyone as much as I can. Especially the youth and the women in our industry because I know exactly what it feels like to be where you are!
