John Murray

PRO ANGLER

BIO

John Murray has been hooked on fishing since the age of 9 when he participated in a tournament at an amusement park. He hobby fished as frequently as he could through grade school and college before perusing his career as fisherman. “You’ve got to have passion to become a full-time fisherman,” John says. “I’m very blessed. There are a few guys that make a good living at it, most are doing it because they love it. You’re not going to get rich; it’s got to be something you love doing every day.”

John likes to reminisce on how the sport has evolved over the last 40 years and is grateful for the technology. “We used to have to visually picture the underwater world and make it up in our heads and line up with trees,” he says. “Now you’ve got GPS coordinates and scanning depth finders. It's almost unfair sometimes to the fish because you're taking away all the mystery of fishing. It's sort of crazy how easy it is to find them. In the old days, finding them was the whole thing. Now, finding them is probably the easiest part of it, figuring out how to catch them is the challenge.”

John did a program here with Major League Fishing, putting in underwater structures to fish around with the high school team, which his son is a junior member of. They were catching fish living off those structures within four days of construction. John lives on a lake with his wife and son in Tennessee. He spends most of his free time with his son, fishing or watching him play baseball. He loves time at home with his family and fishing while they’re in work and school. He also does a couple guided fishing trips a week.