GLEN ANDREWS DOESN’T forget much. Even at 91 years old, his memories of fish catches are etched in his mind with the clarity of scenes forever chiseled in stone.
There was a time when Andrews was considered the best bass angler in the world. He had the credentials to prove it. But the memory of who he was has quietly dwindled from the annals of bass fishing. Andrews’ impact on the sport of bass fishing, though, along with his memories, have stood the test of time.
“I believe my dad is the missing link,” said Shane Andrews. “He trained Ray Scott. He trained Bill Dance. He trained Bobby Murray and so many more. Nobody knows that, and he’s the one who kind of slipped through [time’s] fingers like sand.”
To understand that statement, you have to go back to the 1960s. Professional bass fishing as we know it today was still in the womb, incubating and growing for its birth in 1967 at Beaver Lake. Andrews was one of its fathers.
There were tournaments back in those days, but few that were strictly centered on bass fishing.
“It was freshwater fishing; it wasn’t just bass fishing,” Andrews said. “We could catch crappie. We could catch perch. We could catch catfish. We could catch walleye, trout, bass. But bass was the No. 1 thing. If you weren’t a good bass fisherman, you didn’t have no business in the tournament. You couldn’t win nothing. Because that’s where the big points were. Points were a lot bigger on bass and trout.”
Each species was weighed separately, and each ounce was worth varying amounts of points. For instance, crappie were
