Jerry McKinnis

Jerry McKinnis (1937 – 2019) Jerry McKinnis comes to us as one of the elite few who will ever be inducted into the Hall of Fame, who did not make his living as a full-time tournament fisherman. Instead, he made it through almost forty years of providing outstanding television programming to millions of viewers around the world. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, and still a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, he came into fishing rather naturally when he moved to the state of Arkansas at an early age.

He began his fishing and business career on the famous White River where he was one of the more popular fishing guides to be found. As his business knowledge moved forward, so did he. After moving to Little Rock, Jerry found that his fishing prowess provided him ample opportunities to “get in front of the camera” when he started giving fishing reports from area lakes. Wanting to provide as much coverage to fishing as possible, he purchased a film camera so that he could show his audience his weekly catches. From the mid 60’s until 1979, his man’s weekly fishing program, “The Fishin’ Hole” was seen around America, in spot markets. In 1979 he and his business partner Jim Manion took “The Fishin’ Hole” to a national audience, when they signed on with a relatively new sports broadcasting network called, “ESPN”. In march 2000, “The Fishin’ Hole” celebrated it’s 36th season on the air and its 20th year as being the anchor of ESPN’s outdoors block. “The Fishin’ Hole” is the second longest running program on ESPN, behind the wildly popular “Sport Center”.

ESPN’s programming director, Gary Morgenstern, has even said that this man’s production company, JM Associates, “is this network’s best friend.” In addition, JM Associates produces a number of different fishing and outdoor programs for ESPN, inc;uding: “The Spanish Fly”; “The Guides” with Bobby and Billy Murray; “The Bass Class” with Denny Brauer; the Citgo BassMaster Tournament Trail and Rick Ruoff’s “Orvis Sporting Life”. JM Associates also produced the Iditarod sled dog race; the Wal*Mart FLW Tour; ESPN’s Stihl Timbersports series; the U.S. Open Racquetball Championship; Great American Events; and countless other specials. In the late 60’s, when fellow Hall of Fame member Ray Scott was getting his Bass Anglers Sportsman Society off the ground, Jerry found time to compete, and succeed, with the early day heroes of bass fishing. While the prize money wasn’t what it is today, our inductee did take home checks in two/thirds of the tournaments he competed in.