In today’s Friday Finale historical photo, we go back to 1970 and take a look at someone we’ve mentioned several times before, but in a slightly different light.
As the South Carolina story states, “Floyd Mabry has a job that causes most fishermen to turn green with envy. He fishes, talks about fishing, and gets paid for it.”
Floyd was the famous Bomber rep who traveled the country promoting Bomber Baits, and teaching people how to use them. In this write-up, Floyd was visiting South Carolina, fishing Santee-Cooper Reservoir for largemouth and striped bass. The photo is a great one, with Floyd holding up a couple handfuls of Bombers and Waterdogs. I can only guess how much a large stash of those baits new would garner these days.
The story gives Floyd’s background, stating, “Mabry sold his bakery in Oklahoma in 1960 and went South to Texas to look for a good place to retire and fish. He bought a fishing camp there and it wasn’t long before he was known as the finest fisherman in Texas and collected the trophies to prove it. He is the only three-time winner of the Texas State Bass Championship and was recently named one of the top ten fishermen in the nation by a popular outdoor magazine.”
Mabry and his wife traveled the country in an air-conditioned house trailer pulled by a pick-up truck. Of course, he also brought along his fully rigged boat.
When asked about first accepting the position of being Bomber’s rep, Mabry said, “I told my wife, Irene, about the Bomber offer and asked her if she’d be satisfied traveling. Irene is as enthused about the job as I am…and I’m tickled to death.”
Cool story, cool photo. I’d like to know how old Floyd was when he was fishing tournies in Texas and working for Bomber.
Floyd won his first big fishing contest in 1955 when he was about 43 years old. In 1961 he bought the camp on Lake Belton (age ~49) and moved to Texas. He won the Texas State Bass Tournament 3 out of the 4 years between 1963-1966, aged 51-55. In 1968, he sold the camp and became the rep for Bomber, and would have been 56/57 at the time. I believe he passed sometime in the early 90s around the age of 80.
Nice post about another forgotten early icon of our sport. I can’t believe that Floyd Mabry, Fred Young and Dick Kotis have not been elected to the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. It was great to see Fred Arbogast make it this year, but I can’t believe that these other stalwarts of bass fishing history have not yet been selected, especially given some of the recent selectees.
I said the same thing, Mike. When I saw Fred Arbogast was one of this year’s inductees I was shocked that he wasn’t already in. But that kind of lagging occurs in every sport’s HoF. Maybe they have to pace putting these guys in because who knows if they’ll have a year when no one really merits induction, idk.