Hank Parker

Hank Parker — After many successful years guiding and fishing tournaments around the Carolinas, Hank Parker launched his professional tournament fishing career in 1976, when he began fishing the National Bass Association Tournament Circuit, winning that tour’s national championship in his first season. After competing on the NBA and American Bass Association tours in 1977, he parlayed his growing notoriety into sponsorships that enabled him to join the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society circuit in 1978.

During the course of the next 13 years, he competed in over 100 B.A.S.S. tournaments and finished in the money an astonishing 77 percent of the time.

A force in bass fishing from the beginning, he achieved stardom by winning the 1979 Bassmaster Classic at Lake Texoma, Texas, in only his second year on the tour. He qualified for the prestigious world championship every season he competed, from 1978 through 1990 — an amazing 13 in a row. He became one of the very few individuals to earn more than one Classic title when he won in 1989 on the James River out of Richmond, Virginia, claiming the crown by a 2-ounce margin over Jim Bitter of Florida. It was one of the narrowest winning margins ever.

He finished in the Top 10 in six Classics, never ending up lower than 19th. He won a total of five B.A.S.S. events in those years, including the 1983 Virginia Invitational on the James River, the 1985 Super B.A.S.S. tournament on the St. Johns River, Florida, and the 1988 Missouri Invitational on Truman Reservoir. He also had 32 Top 10s in his career.

Parker was the first angler to win the “Grand Slam” of competitive bass fishing titles, including the Classic, Super B.A.S.S., a regular season tournament, and the Bassmaster Angler of the Year title in 1983.

Bryant Gumbel, when he was host of the CBS Morning Show, described Parker as “the rod-and-reel answer to Michael Jordan, in popularity and talent.”

Despite all those achievements in competitive fishing, Parker is perhaps better known for the career he built as a TV fishing show host after leaving the B.A.S.S. Tour. His long-running “Hank Parker’s Outdoor Magazine” show, which aired on The Nashville Network, ESPN and other networks over the following decades. He lent his name and likeness to a fishing video game on the Super NES platform, “Black Bass with Hank Parker,” released in 1984.

Known for his integrity and loyalty, he continued through decades of competitive fishing and television programming with most of the same sponsors, including Ranger Boats and Mercury Marine.

In addition to his tournament titles, Parker has been inducted into the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame (in 2003), the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame and the Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame.

Even though he fished his first regional bass tournament more than 50 years ago, at only 16 years of age, Parker — like most hall of famers — has never grown weary of fishing. “Whether it’s largemouth, smallmouth, muskie, redfish, any fish . . . I never get tired of fishing,” he said.