Today’s Throwback Thursday historical news photo features writer W. Horace Carter. His deep and early career as a newspaper publisher led to a Pulitzer Prize for his paper back in the 1950s. But of importance to bass anglers and bass fishing history, it was his work in the outdoor space after he retired from the newspaper business in the 1970s.
Of particular note, readers might recall that he co-wrote “Hannon’s Field Guide For Bass Fishing” and “Hannon’s Big Bass Magic,” both published in the 1980s. Today’s photo features Horace holding one of his books while speaking at a local fishing club banquet.
Bass fishing was said to be his first love, and as you might imagine, based on his close association with Doug Hannon, he was deeply concerned at the prospects for its future. According to the story, much of his thinking was revolutionary. We share a few excerpts of his thoughts from the in-depth story that was featured in The Greenville News back in 1981.
> On bed fishing – “We’ve got to stop fishing off beds. Where are all the lunkers now, the old mossbacks? Carter believed they were being taken by a burgeoning population of fishermen far more rapidly than their growth rate can replace.”
> On size limits – “Enforce size limits almost opposite of what we are doing now. Let’s put the big ones back and make keepers legal somewhere in the middle-size range, what biologists sometimes refer to as a maximum length limit.”
> On tournament mortality – Carter concerned about bass tournament delayed mortality, stating, “We are still looking for ways to make live release more effective for tournaments.”
> On advances in electronic technologies – “Electronic concerns; he has no quarrel with depth finders. But advanced equipment used by experts can spot fish, almost read out a report on their size, and stop just short of actually catching them.”
