When your passion is bass fishing, college may seem like a big speed bump on the way to a pro fishing career.
But several Bassmaster Elite Series pros tackled that speed bump before going pro. With the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series National Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops taking place this week, we thought it was appropriate to find out what the pros studied.
The Marketing Majors
Marketing is the most popular degree among Elite Series pros. It makes sense, of course, because they’ll spend their entire careers marketing themselves and working with sponsors, starring in commercials and coming up with names for signature lures they design.
Brent Ehrler is one of those pros. He may be a rookie on the Elite Series, but he’s been fishing professionally for many years and has some of the most lucrative sponsor rosters, likely thanks to his degree from La Sierra University.
Kenyon Hill, Brandon Coulter, Ish Monroe and Brandon Lester also majored in marketing, and Casey Scanlon in communications. And Mike Iaconelli was pretty close; he got a public relations/advertising degree from Rowan University.
The Outdoors Degrees
It makes sense that people who love to fish would study fishing-related subjects, right? Then it should come as no surprise that several pros found their niche in a classroom setting.
Brian Snowden graduated from Missouri State University in 1995 with a degree in fisheries biology, and Mark Menendez got the same degree from Murray State in 1987. (Menendez then started a master’s program in education before he gave up the school life and started competing professionally.) Charlie Hartley studied fisheries management at Ohio State.
Paul Elias graduated from Southern Miss with a recreation and resource management degree, and Stephen Browning got a fish and wildlife management degree from Arkansas Tech.
Greg Vinson got a degree in environmental science from AUM and — who knew he was such a smarty? — he was an Academic All-American while he was there.
The Numbers Men
Several Bassmaster Elite Series pros have minds that work well for math and engineering.
Matt Lee, the most recent graduate on tour, just finished up his industrial and systems engineering degree from Auburn, which is the same place that Steve Kennedy got his mechanical engineering degree back in 1992.
Chad Pipkens got a math degree from Central Michigan in 2007, and Andy Montgomery got a civil engineering degree from Clemson in 2004.
Businessmen
Business and economics are popular degrees among the pros.
John Crews majored in both for his degree from Randolph Macon College in 2000. Jeff Kriet got his economics degree from University of Oklahoma, and Bradley Roy went to Bluegrass Community College for business management.
Similarly, Dennis Tietje went to Louisiana Tech for his degree in agriculture business.
The Oddballs
This next set of anglers proves that if you want to fish for a living, you can major in anything you want.
Bernie Schultz, for instance, has a degree in drawing and illustration. If you look way back, you can even find drawings he did of bass for Bassmaster and B.A.S.S. Times. He got his degree from Florida in 1979, and like any Florida fan, he can’t tell you that without saying, “Go Gators!”
Russ Lane got his degree from Huntingdon College in 1996 with a major in kinesiology, now known more popularly as human kinetics. “It is the scientific study of human movement addressing physiological, mechanical and psychological mechanisms,” he explains.
In 2009, Brandon Card graduated from the University of Kentucky, where he was on the bass team. He majored in landscape architecture.
Kevin Hawk majored in literature and writing studies when he went to California State University San Marcos back in 2002.
David Williams went to Catawba Valley Community College to be a CNC machinist; Scott Ashmore studied trade and industrial education for his degree from Oklahoma State; and 2008 Classic champ Alton Jones started out at Baylor as a computer science major.
Sometimes, fishing gets in the way
For Jones, finishing the degree ended up not being in the cards. “My professors kept scheduling exams during the spawn!” he said.
Another Classic champ, Chris Lane, also couldn’t come up with a major. “I majored in fishing, LOL.”
Others finished but passed up on going to graduation. Jason Christie skipped his graduation at Northeastern State to go fishing, and Brandon Card skipped his at University of Kentucky to fish a tournament.
Same for Andy Montgomery: “I did not attend my graduation because I had a fishing tournament that day. I paid an extra $10 to have them send it in the mail!”
Degree not required
To be a pro angler, you don’t need a degree, of course. But it can help prepare you for some of the tasks you’ll need to accomplish as a pro. And besides, now college students have the opportunity to compete on a bass fishing team, and what better way to get prepped for a life of fishing competition than that?
