By Bruce Stanton
While in journalism school at the University of Tennessee, we were taught that journalists walked with kings.
Some reporters and newsmen covered presidents, prime ministers and actual kings. They didn’t live like them, but they were close to them.
In the bass fishing world, some of our journalists actually were kings. They had loyal subjects and ruled with the mighty stroke of a pen (or keyboard).
Tim Tucker was one of those bigger-than-life writers. Tim was a big man from Gainesville, Florida, and he ruled the pages of BASSMASTER Magazine. If you wanted to have a cover story in the 1990s and early 2000s, one of the ways to do it was getting close to Tim.
To this day, one of the best covers I’ve ever seen was former B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year Timmy Horton posing with two five-pound smallmouth bass caught on the same crankbait. Tucker took the pictures and also wrote the story. One of his many talents was seeing the picture on the cover of BASSMASTER and then delivering.
In my previous life as a public relations manager for PRADCO Fishing, one of my jobs was to make sure Tim Tucker had plenty of our lures and plenty of access to our pro anglers. Mind you, there was no such thing as social media or cell phones back in 1996. We called writers on the telephone and either talked to them or left messages on their answering machines. Then they would do the same to people like me. If you are younger than 25 years old, this is not one of those fiction stories. This is how we lived!
Tim told me he would frequently “strip down to his skivvies” and get in the water to take pictures at bass boat level. This obviously took lots of coordination. He would have to find the right depth of water, be in the right lighting situation and have the right pro angler to work with him. Tucker was a master at this.
So one day while I was putting on a media event in Arkansas, the wind started blowing hard, and our pro angler was having a hard time holding the boat steady with the trolling motor while posing for pictures with a bass in one hand and a fishing rod in the other. Tim looked at me and said, “Stanton, this is going to go a lot better if you’d get in the water and hold the boat till I’m done taking pictures.” Being young, dumb and easily intimidated by Tim Tucker, I stripped down to my tighty whiteys and did as I was asked.
We had a great photo shoot – at least Tim and our pro did – and were about to finish up. Tim was in the front of the boat and yelled at me, “Hey, can you reach that Pelican case next to the back seat for me and bring it to the front?” So I jumped out of the water and leaned my whole body on the back deck of the boat – wet underwear and all – and grabbed the Pelican case. Then I heard the horrible sound of Tucker laying down on the shutter of the camera. He then chuckled and said, “I’ve got at least 30 pictures of you.”
A few weeks later, those pictures were sent to my boss at PRADCO, who gleefully passed them around the office.
The good news was PRADCO received a lot of photos in several issues of BASSMASTER from that photo shoot. The even better news was none of them had me in them!
From that point on, Tim was at the top of my list when writers events came up. He usually got his own cabin and usually got the pick of any pros he wanted at the event. He was The Man. It was like Christmas for a PR director when a Tim Tucker story showed up in BASSMASTER with photos of your lures and stories about how to use them!
On another trip, Tucker was joined by BASSMASTER Editor and Hall of Famer Dave Precht, Colin Moore of Southern Outdoors, Dave Ellison of Fishing Tackle Retailer and Matt Vincent of B.A.S.S. Times for a media event at Bienville Plantation in Florida. Some of my PR cohorts in attendance were Jesse Simpkins of Plano (now of St. Croix), Gary King of Pure Fishing and Gary Dollahon of Quantum / Zebco (now retired from Bobby Garland Crappie Baits).
PRADCO had a new brand of line called “Excalibur Silver Thread.” I gleefully took it to Bienville and gave it to all the writers while talking about its great abrasion resistance qualities. After two days, Tucker was fishing with Dave Precht and saw me on the other side of the bank they were fishing. He yelled, “Stanton, I’m going to start calling that Excalibur line ‘pow’ line from now on. Because every time I catch a fish on it, it goes ‘POW.’”
Tim liked giving it to you. But he was also a professional and worked very hard at his craft.
Tim died way too early at 50 years old in 2007. Deservedly, he was inducted into the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame posthumously in 2010.
Our industry and Hall of Fame is loaded with writers and editors who helped make the sport of bass fishing what it is today. I’ve been so fortunate to have worked with many of them, including Hall of Famers Dave Precht, Homer Circle, Wade Bourne, Steve Quinn, Steve Price, Craig Lamb, Steve Bowman and Louie Stout. Uncle Homer and Wade are no longer with us.
All those guys are and were awesome. And they are all Hall of Famers. But to me the outdoor writer who had the biggest scepter and crown will always be Tim Tucker. RIP, Tim.
