The spark that drives people to fishing is something the three pro anglers also share – they felt it at a young age.
It doesn’t matter if they come from Alabama, Virginia and Wisconsin or they grew up in different circumstances and with different challenges.
The three men have one thing in common – a love of fishing – that overrides everything else.
This shaped their lives and drove their livelihood.
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This is why decades after their first cast John Crews, Pete Maina and Gerald Swindle are known to millions as professional anglers and are in demand as speakers on their favorite sport.
This weekend, three anglers’ paths crossed in West Allis for the 2024 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Show.
Each gave at least one performance at the show and gave fans a chance to see some of fishing’s biggest stars up close.
Even at a time when Americans struggle with sedentary lifestyles and an unhealthy level of attachment to digital devices, fishing remains popular and an important part of conservation, culture and the US economy.
Data released in the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s most recent National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation found 40 million Americans over the age of 16 fished in 2022. The number of anglers remained stable or increased slightly while hunting (14.4 million in 2022) has declined in recent decades.
Put another way, the survey results say 15% of Americans over the age of 16 went fishing in 2022, more than played golf.
And fishing contributes $148 billion in economic output and supports 945,500 jobs across the US, according to the American Sportfishing Association’s 2023 Economic Contributions of Recreational Fishing.
The report also details the importance of fishing to conservation in the US. Through excise taxes on gear and license purchases, fishermen in 2023 contributed $1.8 billion to conservation, according to the ASA.
Funding goes to habitat improvement projects, fish stocking, fisheries management and the maintenance and installation of public boat ramps and piers, for example.
It’s all part of why fishing is so relevant and important to America.
But the spark that leads people to fish is something more elemental. It’s something all three pro anglers have in common – they felt it at a young age.
Pete Maina learned to guide and pursue muskies in northern Wisconsin
For Pete Maina, it came in northern Wisconsin where his parents ran the Balsam Lodge on the Spider Lake Chain near Hayward.
“When I was a kid growing up in the ’60s, people went to the resort for one thing, fishing,” Maina said. “I was crazy about fishing as soon as I could hold a rod and I lived in one of the best places on the planet to do it.”
Maina credits his father, Tex Maina, for getting him started on fishing and then giving him the freedom to roam and experience the sport.
Maina started his fishing career by cleaning fish for resort guests. Then at the age of 11 he started guiding visitors on fishing trips. Trips are mostly for bass, walleyes and panfish, but occasionally for the larger, toothy species that are now most popular in Maina.
“Actually, my first guide job was for muskies,” Maina said. “Our normal resort guide didn’t show up and Dad said to the client, ‘Well, the kid knows how to paddle and he likes to fish.'”
Maina’s client that day wanted to go after muskies and caught one.
At age 14, Maina was guiding fulltime during the summer and after he graduated high school he stayed in fishing as a career instead of going to college.
“By 19 I was quite experienced in guiding and had many businesses,” said Maina. “I never really thought of it as risky because it was what I wanted to do more than anything and I’m already making money from it.”
Maina changed his personal interests and his business orientation to focus on muskies. He said it was partly an “ego thing” and that he wanted to target the “biggest, baddest fish in the water.”
Over time, he stopped guiding and moved into designing lures and hosting or appearing on fishing television shows, further increasing his reputation. In 2011, Maina was named one of the “Top 20 Anglers on the Planet.” He also chased muskies across the continent.
“No living humanoid than me has caught (muskies) in more places,” Maina said.
Along with catching muskies, Maina places importance on promoting fishing education and proper fish handling and catch and release practices.
These days in addition to writing, photographing and making videos for his YouTube channel, he continues to work on the television show “John Gillespie’s Waters and Woods”.
Maina’s appearances at the Milwaukee show are among the half-dozen he does each year. He’s looking forward to a challenge – showing a figure 8 at the end of a take – of performing on the Mercury Marine Hawg Trough Stage.
“It’s a fun deal but not the easiest situation to do some of our musky stuff,” Maina said. “Bottom line is it’s a great opportunity to see people and help them get excited about fishing.”
Gerald Swindle went from a small Alabama river to angler of the year
Around the time Maina landed his first client, about 1,000 miles south Gerald Swindle was learning to fish on the Locust Fork River near Locust Fork, Alabama.
“We’re poor,” Swindle said. “Any free time our family has is squirrel hunting or rabbit hunting or fishing. That’s all we know.”
Swindle said he can’t remember a time when he didn’t go fishing. The Locust Fork has several types of bass.
“My favorite thing was floating down a river in an aluminum boat with my dad,” Swindle said. “I thought that was the greatest thing in the world. That was my Disney World.”
Swindle’s fishing provided food for the family, yes. But over the years as his skills improved he also began to see a possible career path.
“I learned a ton of lessons on that river, throwing crank baits behind rocks,” Swindle said. “When I graduated from high school, I was framing houses, doing construction, but I didn’t like it. It made me work harder at fishing.”
Swindle said for several years after high school his typical schedule was to go to work from 5:30 am to 2:30 pm and then go fishing, often in a local bass tournament, in the afternoon and evening. Then repeat it the next day.
When he started winning several hundred dollars in fishing tournaments it was the “catalyst to the fire,” he said.
“Do it better, more fish,” said Swindle. “When I got to my mid-20s I made the change. I didn’t know if I could make it. For me I just wanted to make enough to buy a sandwich at the truck stop.”
He did a lot more than that.
In April 1998 he won the Walmart FLW Open and earned $150,000. During his career, he has been Bassmaster Angler of the Year twice (2004 and 2016) and has approximately $3 million in tournament earnings.
“After 1998 I knew I was going somewhere, even if it was wrong,” Swindle said. “And I know no one will work harder than me.”
Swindle includes “positive mental attitude” lessons in his fishing presentations.
College graduate John Crews decided to go into the fishing business
John Crews was also raised south of the Mason-Dixon Line and learned to love the bass at a young age.
For him it was a lake on the family property in Jetersville, Virginia.
“Not long after I walked, I wanted to go down to the little pond in my backyard and fish,” Crews said. “My dad has the pictures or I might not know it as well. But I definitely remember always wanting to fish as a kid. I loved it from the beginning.”
The crew branched out as he grew up and began fishing the region’s large public lakes. He said he was an avid reader of Bassmaster magazine and was “prepared to do it like the pros.”
“But I discovered it was harder than I thought,” Crews said. “The lakes are big so where do you start? Somehow I wasn’t discouraged, maybe because I was in the water and doing what I love more than anything.”
Like millions of other young Americans who watch pro bass anglers on television and read about them in magazines, Crews set his sights on a career as a tournament angler.
At age 15 he fished his first tournament and was hooked.
He continued fishing as a beginner through high school and after he enrolled at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. He started scoring top-10 finishes in regional bass tournaments and figured, even though he earned a bachelor’s degree in business and economics, he was ready to try a career on the water.
“About halfway through college it set in that this might be something I could seriously do as a profession,” Crews said. “I became more serious about fishing, and started doing better in competitions. I got my degree on time but when I graduated I just fished.”
After Crews graduated in 2000, his father helped him trade in a bigger boat to fish bigger waters that qualified him for the BASS Invitational Trail. It paid off. He finished third in the Bassmasters event on Lake Okeechobee in December of his freshman year.
He eventually earned his way onto all the top bass tours and has approximately $1.5 million in career tournament winnings. In 2012, he also started a fishing company called Missile Baits.
Staff said he considers himself a tournament angler first but lure design and manufacturing fills his time when not in tournaments.
He lives in Salem, Virginia and speaks on five to seven sports shows a year, he said.
“I treat the sport with a lot of respect,” Crews said. “I do see myself as an ambassador and it’s a privilege to be able to present to people. I hope that every kid who sees me wants to fish, too, and maybe even make a life out of it. That would be cool.”
The Sports Show is almost over
The 2024 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Show concludes Sunday at the Wisconsin State Fair Park Exposition Center in West Allis. Now in its 83rd year, the show includes seminars, exhibitors, demonstrations, food and entertainment. Hours are 10 am to 5 pm Sunday. Pro angler Pete Maina will appear at 11 am Sunday and bass pro John Crews will appear at 1 am Sunday. For tickets, schedule of events and more information, visit jssportsshow.com.
