(Editor's note: This is part 2 of a 2-part story and Q&A with Jerry McKinnis about the final season of The Fishin' Hole.)

BassFan: The Fishin' Hole always had a certain intangible quality to it – a comfortable and down-home familiarity, alongside high production values. A lot of times, those two can clash, yet you struck a balance.

Jerry McKinnis: All my shows, up until probably the '90s, were shot on film. That's a big reason as to why this show – production-wise – was separated from everything else. When you shoot film, you really have to learn your trade. It's tougher to edit, but when you get done, you're a lot better at your business than you'd be if you were shooting video.

I'm sure the video guys these days would be offended to hear that, but anybody and his brother can get a video camera and be in the TV business if they want. To do it right – to do it on film – you have to invest more thought into what you're doing than with video. I think that was a big secret, and why it was such a big show.



When I started, I didn't think I was any good. I thought I sucked. I thought I was terrible on camera. But the people, even today, say to me, 'Man, you're so good when we hear you on TV. It's like you're talking right to us.'

I never understood what that meant, but I've heard it so many times, there must be something to it. Anytime I've been on television, I just sit there and talk. It's not very professional, and certainly not very polished, but I got away with it.

Another thing that has set the show apart is that when it started, and to this day, you fished a lot of backyard-style waters – stuff your audience could go out and fish.

Through the years – although I've gone on some fancy trips, and it's really neat to do that now and then – the basis of my whole television show has been pretty simple stuff. We've done an awful lot of stuff on little creeks, little ponds, lakes that aren't that special, and with people that you don't even know.

I've always done that purposely. I don't do anything on that show that I don't want to do. I just fish with regular old guys. Maybe that's where people get it, when they tell me I'm just like them. I try to make my guests feel real comfortable with me. And I always gravitated toward stuff I was comfortable with and knew something about.

There's one thing that I still, to this day, have done very, very little of, and that's fish on any kind of water that you can't go on. I just don't go to these private lakes where you can catch so darned many fish that it's kind of unreasonable. I've got on an airplane and gone to Mexico, but I've tried to make sure that wherever I went, you could go too, if you wanted to bad enough.

To switch gears a little, there was the early era, with you and Virgil Ward, Harold Ensley, the Lindners and Bill Dance. What would you consider to be the next era in fishing TV, and when did it begin?

I'd have to say it was in the '80s, when cable started to become a real thing. I started with ESPN when ESPN started, and they started in '80. And I think that suddenly, there was more opportunity for people to get on the air on a national basis, at a cost that wasn't prohibitive. And not even necessarily just on a national basis, because there were a lot of regional things happening out there (with cable). You could get an outdoor show, regionally, pretty quickly, while before, you couldn't do that.

I was syndicated from when I started, right up until ESPN, and boy that was a hard way to go. At one time, I think I was syndicated on maybe 130 stations. That means we had to contact 130 stations and sell them on our show being on their air. When we got ready to produce a show, it was like, "Oh my gosh, we have to get these tapes around to everybody." It was an absolute nightmare.

In the mid- to late-'70s, in syndication, I really was giving lots of thought to it, thinking there has to be a better living than this – this is too hard. That's when cable came along and kind of saved my butt.

And I really think, in that timeframe (when cable started), you see a big difference in the amount of shows that were on the air. And unfortunately, you probably see a big difference in the caliber – the quality – of the shows.

We started building our outdoor block at ESPN in the mid-'80s, and that's when production started cracking down on the shows, insisting we be better at this, or do a better job of that. I still didn't clean it up completely, but it began to change at that time.

So after the sea-change in the early '80s, what would you consider to be the next era? Would it be the mid-'90s, with more of a focus on tournament coverage?



Jerry McKinnis
Photo: Jerry McKinnis

Cable TV, and the launch of ESPN, gave McKinnis a way out of the syndication nightmare.

I think you're probably pretty close. We started with FLW Outdoors in the mid-'90s when ESPN2 went on the air. We had a coordinating producer by the name of Bill Fitz, who was a wonderful man – we were very close, and he did a lot of things to upgrade outdoors TV production.

When ESPN2 was getting ready to go on the air, I remember him calling me to say we ought to cover some competitions. And I remember him telling me, "It'll have to be better than what's on now" because what was on wasn't very good.

So we did a little show for a year called the Mariner Tournament Trail. It wasn't really about covering tournaments, is was just about tournaments, and bass clubs – about that little world.

We'd cover everything, from some little bass club in Knoxville, to a story on a guy who wanted to be a bass pro. It was almost like behind-the-scenes stuff about this world that wasn't quite as big as it was today, but was starting to grow.

The next year, I got involved with Operation Bass (later renamed FLW Outdoors). They had some selected sites that they were kind enough to let us come into and format it to where it was a little more TV-friendly. Then, at the same time, we got involved with Ranger. Of course, I was already pretty deep with Ranger. I have been my whole life. Forrest (Wood) and I were big buddies when we were kids.

That first year, it was kind of us and Ranger and Operation Bass and Irwin Jacobs all in there together, trying to develop this thing. The next year (1996) was when Irwin bought Operation Bass, and really started formulating it to where it is today.

Then I guess we did that for 5 years, and we did change things. I don't know about a half-hour TV show like The Fishin' Hole – I don't know if I would have changed something like that – but the way events were taken care of (on TV), we sure changed that.

You eventually parted from FLW Outdoors and began an involvement with BASS, right?

They (FLW Outdoors) left ESPN. We were there in the beginning because of ESPN, and we stayed there because of ESPN. Irwin likes to say we ran off and left him, but he actually ran off and left us.

What was your most memorable episode of The Fishin' Hole?

Well, there isn't any particular one that's my favorite, but there's no question that the trip I took to Russia with Ted Williams and Bobby Knight was like a twilight zone. Of course, about every trip I go on with Coach is a real adventure.

One that does stand out, now that I think about it, was when I went to Lake Eufaula at the tail end of the '70s, and Tom Mann was still making lures in his basement at that time. We became real good friends, and we were going to do a show out on the lake. We got ready to go, and went and fished a day on the upper end of lake.

The camera guys weren't there yet, and we did pretty good, but there were so darn many cottonmouths on those old flat banks in the backs of the creeks up there. I'm petrified of snakes. It was spring, and they were out. It made me about half-nauseous all day long.

When we got ready to go out the next day, Tom said, "Okay man, I know exactly what we're going to do."

I said, "Tom, I'm not going back up there. I hated that."

He called me Slokum, after a little old town named Slokum we went through. So he said, "Okay Sloke, we'll have to go to the other end of lake, but I haven't been down there in a while."

We went down and didn't do much the first quarter of the day. Then we went down the riprap of the dam. This was when Eufaula was really peaking, and we went across, and back and forth, and took maybe an hour to fish the whole thing.

We ended up with probably 15 fish better than 6 or 7 pounds, one that weighed 13 1/2, and I caught two fish on consecutive casts over 10. It was just unbelievable.

You see a lot of guys on TV catching all these big fish, and they fake it. I think probably, without a doubt, it was the biggest stringer of fish legitimately caught on film.

It was another of those simple trips that started as nothing special, but it turned out to be an incredible story.

What exactly do you mean by "legitimately caught on film" – you mean filmed as it happened?

I've never faked a shot. Everybody can't say that, but I really can. And when people do that (fake a scene), viewers think everybody does it. We haven't even gone back to redo anything. We're legit all the way.

If things didn't work out – if we didn't catch any fish – we had to suck it up, go home, and try another day.

There must be thousands of stories out there like the one of you and Tom at Eufaula. Do you feel lucky, in a sense, to have captured so many of your stories on film, so they're now a permanent record for history?

The bad thing is, I don't have it all on video. I sit around here, and I get to talking with Steve Bowman (of JM Associates) about something, and he'll be spellbound about a little story that I don't even think about.

And the stories that I've got, that Forrest Wood has got, Ray Scott, Bill Dance, and on and on, are just incredible. I really wish they were written down or something. I could tell you a hundred stories that relate to me and Tom Mann, and those will go away one of these years.

To think, in the last year, we lost Tom (Mann) and Jim Bagley and Billy Westmoreland.

Can you talk briefly about Bill Dance, and his early association with you?

Dance and I used to hang out together a lot of the time when we were both young. When he got ready to do TV, I helped him shoot his first pilot. And there again, we've got so many stories – he did so many kooky things, and some things he should probably be put in jail for.

And I always hung out with the Murray twins a lot. In fact, Billy (Murray) was my cameraman for 12 years. We both just learned it together. We traveled together in those days, when everything was just kind of wide open, and just so ready for guys like the Murrays and I to show up and start doing stuff.

I was really lucky, and very blessed, that I got to be in on the ground floor.

ESPN Outdoors
Photo: ESPN Outdoors

McKinnis plans to stay busy behind the camera – he wants to stay right in the middle of emerging ideas and technology.

So what's next for Jerry McKinnis?

I have to tell you, The Fishin' Hole was about to drop down to 6th or 8th on the priority list around here. I guess our biggest project is the Bassmaster show. Then we produce The Spanish Fly, the Redfish Cup and Timber Sports – we've been doing that one for 20 or 25 years now, and it keeps right on going.

There won't be any letup for me.

How about on-air appearances for you? Is that something you want to continue?

Last year I was kind of in and out of the Bassmaster show, and probably still will be, if I have something to contribute. I still don't think I'm any good on TV, and there's always been a little about me that's embarrassed I'm on the air.

I guess what I'm saying is, I won't go out of my way to be on TV, but I'll always be behind the camera somewhere. I love that. I love the ideas, and coming up with ideas, and doing new things and developing graphics. All the things that are getting better – I'd sure like to be in the middle of them.

Lastly, what will the final season of The Fishin' Hole be like? Any surprises for longtime fans?

The company here had a roast for me about a month and a half ago, and it was one heck of an affair. We're taking just little bits and pieces out of that, and involving them in the show.

The whole series this year is about things that happened along the adventure. And that's what the whole season is about. It'll be a regular 13-week series, then the end of it.

I think for the very last show, I'm actually going to go on a trip somewhere, and that'll be the official last time for The Fishin' Hole.

Notable

> The current season of The Fishin' Hole airs Saturdays at 7 a.m. Eastern on ESPN2 through the end of March.

> McKinnis fished six BASS events from 1969–1974.

> To learn more about his company (JM Associates) and the shows it produces, visit www.FishFactory.com.