In my family, most of the men are not exactly known for breaking our faces by smiling too much.
Around the office here at B.A.S.S., I have been referred to as “lovably gruff.” I have a sticker on my laptop that says “Happily Miserable,” and people tell me all the time just how perfect it is for me.
Trust me, folks. I came by it honest.
I’m not saying my father, Mike Brasher, is a sourpuss by any means. He likes what he likes — a lot.
However, the list of things he doesn’t like includes, but is not limited to …
Crowds. Mingling. Special attention.Virtually any attention at all.
So, as you can imagine, just visiting the Day 1 weigh-in for the 2023 Whataburger Bassmaster Elite at Lay Lake was a bit uncomfortable for him.
Going backstage with me where people he views as full-fledged celebrities might actually — gasp — speak to him was the stuff of his cold-sweat nightmares.
I knew that ahead of time, and I was amazed when the lifelong Bassmaster fan in him took over and superseded every single bit of it.
It may have helped that we were at Lay Lake, the fishery he and I have long considered our home waters. But whatever caused it, there was a transformation that day that spoke to the power of our sport.
First, my dad positioned himself along the ropes surrounding the weigh-in line and readied his iPhone camera.
One by one, he took videos of men whose careers he’s followed for decades.
Rick Clunn, David Fritts and Larry Nixon all filled some of the space on his iCloud storage — and he just kept telling me, “Don’t let me miss G-Man.”
While we were waiting for G-Man, aka Gerald Swindle, to make an appearance, he noticed some other faces he recognized standing outside the ropes and went barreling up to them with his hand extended.
I almost fell out on the ground when he actually asked a few of them if they were good posing for pictures with him. Except for asking me to serve as photographer, he seemed to almost forget I was there.
In the midst of his mingling, my dad took two steps back and almost walked into Seth Feider, who was facing the other way signing autographs.
My dad said, “Does Feider take pictures?”
Now tell me if I’m wrong, but that seemed like a weird question.
Did he think Feider was some kind of vampire who wouldn’t appear in a photo? Nope. He just thought he was such a celebrity he might not have time for trivial things like taking pics with fans.
That’s when I reminded him we were at a B.A.S.S. event, not an NFL or NBA game with $100 million divas at every turn. These guys all started out doing the same thing he does every time he goes to the lake — casting a line and hoping for a little nibble.
They’re all better at it than we are, but I don’t know a single one who’s too big to spend a few minutes with the fans who make them.
Feider certainly wasn’t. He threw his arm around my dad’s shoulder and said, “How you doing, Mr. Brasher?” I think my dad managed to get out, “Doing good,” but that was about it.
He had his pictures, he got his video of G-Man and his day was made.
Back in 1992, when I was working for The Birmingham News and the Bassmaster Classic was being held on Logan Martin Lake, one of the best sports departments in the world was doing its job and covering it like the giant local event that it was.
Mike Bolton, one of the best outdoors writers who’s ever lived, sent in story after story leading up to the event, and one of them included a line about autograph sessions. The hardcore sports guys who worked the desk kind of chuckled when they read that line, but I (at all of 19 years old) insisted that fishing fans are just as starstruck as any other sports fans.
That’s still true today — even for some you’d never expect it from.