It’s been a minute since I did one of these…

Where have I been?

I guess the simple answer is, everywhere and anywhere. It’s been a crazy year. One I will never forget. I spent more time on the road and away from family since I have been alive. I have been from Vermont all the way to Arizona and pretty much everywhere in between on the east coast. Seen a lot of casts, seen a lot of fish catches, seen the highest of highs in professional fishing and seen the lowest of lows as well. Pro fishing is a grueling sport and one I truly don’t envy guys who do it as a living. It’s tough and stressful. It’s made me glad I didn’t try to pursue that career path as a professional angler.

All that being said, it’s been fun and I have made memories I will never forget. Created friendships that will last a lifetime and my days covering professional fishing I believe are just getting started.

For those that don’t know, I stepped away from my full time duties at Bassmaster and moved back here to West Virginia. At the time, living in Birmingham, Alabama and working in the BASS office just wasn’t the ideal situation for me. Let me make it very clear though, I absolutely loved that job and would do just about anything to do the same job from home in West Virginia. But, moving away eight plus hours away from home by yourself is pretty difficult and something I had to learn the hard way. I missed home, my family and friends. And as crazy as this sounds, I missed fishing.

I think a big misconception was that working at BASS you fish all the time, well that is probably the furthest thing from the truth. I could probably count on all of my fingers and toes (that is even a tough task for me) the times I have been fishing from October 2022 to October 2023. Fishing is a huge part of my life and I feel like I was losing that in Alabama as crazy as that sounds.

Albeit, I don’t want to drag you all down that road of self pity, but I will say this. I learned a ton about myself, life, the fishing industry, fishing itself and everything in between. It’s made me a better person … I think.

I kind of let things drift away from me while there. This page and brand is certainly one of them. And it’s my own fault. Got too busy focusing on other things. I kind of felt like I let everyone down. So it’s time to pick up the slack and get back to publishing. One thing that makes media outlet successful is publishing and that is certainly the direction I want to take DockTalk into the year of 2024.

I have a plan and for the most part I plan on sticking with it. Not going to try to do anything crazy on this page, but I think posting something once a week whether it’s actually WV fishing news, an opinion piece, bait reviews or tips and tricks. Something is getting published and 100% plan on making sure WV fishing news is spread to the people. It’s an important thing I have in my hands and I have direction on where I want to take this and hopefully I can execute it.