For me it's probably Hank Parker... just seems like such a genuine guy that would be a heck of a person to know and fish with.

 

When I was growing up my dad would be watching Jerry McKinnis and I'd be like why the heck are you wasting time watching that when you could just go fish. Now I can't even imagine what my girls think of me when I'm watching Zona, MLF (old days) or on YouTube watching pretty much every TacticalBassin video. Guarantee my poor girls know the names of more bass fishermen than pretty much any other girl their age not in the industry. ?

Livescope. 

 

Whoever designed the Yamamoto senko (a team refined the finished lure not just Gary).   Same thing goes for the designers who made the Vision Jr, the Rozante 77sp, hybrid hunter, Z-man elastic ned rigs, daiwa, shimano and other brilliant engineers who thought up and crafted the tools we use today. 

 

 

Clunn, Brauer, Nixon, Martin, Houston, Parker, Swindle, Evers, Castledine, Van Damme, Biffle, Blaukut, Hackney, Christie, Cox, Daniels Jr, Latimer, Stefan, Schulz, Poche, Welcher, Wheeler, Connell....and on and on.

 

Learn so much from all these guys.  And you guys!

 

-Pat

 

 

 The guy I fish with and myself challenge each other to fish better but I can’t say any professional or other fishermen inspire me whatsoever.   

The local tackle store owner taught me a lot of rigging and what to look for. I was maybe 13 at the time and took it all in. He show me how to a texas rig a  Ringworm  in Smoke with chart tail on 2/0 EWG hook with 1/8 sinker, 27 years later I still throw that bait. Show me how to rig a carolina rig he used brass sinkers  and until tungstentook over I still used 1/2 brass sinkers.  There is a local tournament here named after him.  

 

 

 

Inspired?  that is a big word.

 

Blanchard and Covid inspired me to start kayak fishing.  

Billy Westmoreland and Al Lindner have been mentioned a lot and they were both influential to some degree with me as a kid or a young adult.  Jerry McKinnis, unless I'm mistaken, has only been mentioned one time in this thread and he was BY FAR the biggest influence in my life from the standpoint of fishing and it's not close.   He went to great fisheries, loved to fish for many of the same species I fished for, fished with light line and ultralight rigs a lot and he was a genuinely decent man.   Like I said, for me not even close and I'd kill to get DVD copies of all of his shows.  You can find some online, but not anywhere near all of them and for the life of me I don't know why his family or BASS, ESPN or whoever owns those shows doesn't sell them as a package.  

 

Honorable mention is Lefty Kreh, but it's only been the last few years (since retirement) that I'd really call myself a very serious fly fisherman.  I did take a quick casting lesson from Lefty once and have my photo with him here in the house.   Great guy.

When I was a kid growing up fishing I had different inspirations and dreams than I do now. I used to like KVD when he was just starting to win with B.A.S.S. He would power fish first but knew how to slow down and finesse if need be.

 

These days I am inspired by the explorer/traveling fishermen, specifically Jeremy Wade and Jakob Vagner. This is how I want to model my fishing career going forward. Targeting different species in new water in strange lands. I used to have a goal of owning a bass boat. Now, I would rather be setting off in a canoe from a remote village in a tributary of the Amazon than launching a top dollar bass boat in a busy US lake.

Absolutely love Jimmy Houston but he'd be to high strung to fish with......all that fish kiss'n.

Doug Hannon and probably Hank Parker.

Hank Parker and Bill Dance were the two  I watched as a youngin. Always thought Hank seemed like a real good dude. 

My Grandpa and Bill Dance inspired me to fish. No one will ever top either of them in my world. As I've gotten older, others have inspired me at different times for different reasons. KVD, Gerald Swindle, Greg Hackney and Jacob Wheeler.

Some of my favorites to watch these days are Wheeler, Mark Davis, Ott Defoe, Brent Erhler, and Jesse Wiggins. 

My dad inspired me to fish but KVD took my love for bass fishing to another level.