(Editor's note: This is part 2 of a 2-part Q&A with BASS legend Roland Martin. To read part 1 of this interview, click here.)

BassFan: Throughout your career, was your approach to the sport different than how others approach it today?

Martin: As a professional fisherman, I always thought you could fish the tournament trail to get the credibility, use it as a springboard, then branch off into things like marina businesses and tackle businesses, if you so choose. Or in my case, I did a television show very successfully for some 30 odd years.



But today, with the demands of your time on the pro circuit, if you follow the guidelines of fishing all 11 of those tournaments, and then the Major tournaments on top of that, and the (Bassmaster) Classic, you can't do anything else. You can't fish at that level and put out a good television show and do both well.

You can do a little bit of both, but you can't do both well.

When you look back to when you first started, it's a good bet no one will ever put together as dominating a run as you did for those first 2 or 3 years. Can you talk about that for a minute? Was there something that clicked in your head? Was your skill level just that much higher than the other guys around you?

I came off of 7 years of guiding at Santee Cooper, and I was really on top of my game. What I'd been doing at Santee primarily was catching big fish. My whole gameplan for my guide career was catching monster bass. I didn't care about little fish. All I wanted was big fish, so I had big-fish lures and big-fish patterns and I really studied the big fish.

And in doing so, I became really a good fisherman. And when I came into the tournament trail, seriously, there were about 12 of us that were on top of the game. Bobby Murray, Bill Dance – there were a dozen or so really proficient guys.

We could cast and navigate, and boat control was just exquisite. I could stand on one foot and just twirl a boat every which way. And just being fast on my feet – I used to be a fast running-and-gunning guy. When I was 30 years old, I was fast.

That made a difference, but those kinds of things change, and you lose those abilities to be fast.

And there were tournaments where I would think ahead, 'What if the fish were getting on a crankbait? Not that they had, but I'd better have the right kind of crankbait. What if these fish start schooling today? Well, I'll put a couple of schooling lures out. Not that I've seen a fish schooling all week, but I'll have them just in case.'

And that happened the last day of a big Ross Barnett tournament I won in September. The moon was full. I knew the bass always school with a full moon. I knew they'd be on the river channel. So I said, 'I'm going to find some schooling fish.' I told Bobby Murray that day, and he said he hadn't seen any schooling. I said, 'Well, I'm going to find some.'

And I found a big school of fish and won the tournament. So that was the kind of thing I had the confidence in doing and I had the experience to do it. Nobody else knew what I was even doing. They didn't have a clue what I was up to. I was light years ahead of the rest of the deal.

That scenario doesn't hold true anymore. See, the other thing I've done in my career is I've passed along information. That's the only way I seem to make the dollars I've made in this business – to become a mentor and teacher. And I've had to be an educator in general. I've had to give my secrets away.

So whatever advantages I had in the little secret deals, I've long since given them away.

Which is a credit to the figure you became in bass fishing – you were as much a fishing educator as a competitor.

Now put the shoe on the other foot. There's a group of guys out there now – and I don't want to mention any names – but there's a group of guys out there who don't share secrets. There really are.

For example there used to be a complaint lodged by a few of them that they didn't want to have the information on these films.

You know how (Jerry) McKinnis goes out and films everyone? Pinpoints their locations? They were raising all the Cain in the world about it. 'I don't want you to tell. If you're going to be out there filming me, then turn around and show on the map where we're going to be, this is just an unconscionable thing. I don't want everyone to know. We might come back here next year. I want to have a secret spot.'

So they were all concerned – a number of guys that just can't stand to divulge that kind of information. And consequently, they're top fishermen, but they're not at the very top.

What do you think is the one thing that's changed the most in pro fishing that over the past 30 years?

The status of the sport has changed. When I first started out, my parents were alive, and they were killed subsequently in the late '60s in an auto wreck. But the point was, they thought fishing was a bum sport. They thought a guide or professional anything to do with fishing was a waste of time.

They were both professional people – mom was a schoolteacher, dad was an engineer. They thought that my pursuit of fishing was the worst, most useless thing in the world.

Now that perception has changed. It's now recognized as a fairly status-filled type of thing. Professional fishermen can hold their head up. They're not some old bum that's just a kind of a derelict to society.

And that's another thing about this sport. You don't find a bunch of drug-heads and a bunch of drunks and a bunch of lowlife people in it. You really don't. In general, you find a fairly educated group. And that's one other big change I've seen in the personnel, is that the educational level of the pro fishermen today is much higher. And he's younger. And he's more dedicated.

And these guys are coming into the sport well-versed. They've read every book on bass fishing. There's a plethora of knowledge they have now as a 25-year-old guy getting into it. He has so much more information at hand than we had when I was 25. It's just night and day.

As you look back on your career, there's so many records you've set. Is there one thing you look at that kind of stands out as the achievement you're most proud of?

Winning those Angler of the Year (AOY) titles were my bread and butter, and that's the big argument I used to have when I was doing it. I just thought it was more of an accomplishment doing a year's effort than it was just wining one tournament like the Classic.

And so I kind of downplayed the Classic, and I really made a mistake doing that. I didn't really prepare for them. I didn't really give them a lot of thought for the first six or eight Classics I fished. I didn't put as much effort into them as I should have.

Is that disappointing to have never won a Classic?

Oh yeah, it's very disappointing. I've had some opportunities, so it's extremely disappointing.

Was the lack of a Classic title one of the things that kept you going the last few years?

It could be. That's some philosophy I hadn't really thought about. But it could be. It makes sense. Not that I acknowledged that, but thinking about it, it might have made a big difference.

Notable

> Martin was born in Albany, N.Y, but grew up in Maryland. He then guided at Santee Cooper, S.C. for 7 years before starting his competitive career. He currently lives in Florida.

> Right now he's busy rigging "a $30,000 swamp buggy. It's really slick. It's got every gimmick on it in the world and I'm getting a special radio for it." He plans to use it for hunting and camping in the Everglades.

– End of part 2 (of 2) –