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Outdoor sports pioneer Jerry McKinnis is one of the most influential figures in the industry.
McKinnis was born in St. Louis, Missouri. By the late 1950s his name was already appearing in the sports section -- as a minor league baseball player for the Kansas City Athletics. But Jerry had a passion for fishing too, and a magazine article about float fishing Arkansas’ White River particularly intrigued him. He saved up for that trip, which turned out to be with an equally young guide by the name of Forrest Wood. The two were a perfect match.
Jerry soon traded his bat for a rod and moved to Arkansas to try his hand at guiding. One day at Little Rock’s Lake Maumelle a local TV sports anchor noticed Jerry coming back to the dock with a huge stringer of bass, and suggested he and the fish show up at the station for the evening’s newscast. That first appearance led to a weekly five-minute fishing report, and though Jerry wasn’t sure what to make of it all, he sensed it was a great way to increase business. He rented a movie camera and began to film himself fishing, which led to a new hour-long show called Arkansas Sportsman. For years Jerry shot footage, rushed to the station to have it edited, and was on the air 15 minutes later.
In 1963 McKinnis traveled to Indiana to assist with a new TV show, but once there he was convinced to do the show himself. This was The Fishin’ Hole. From the beginning Jerry struggled to keep the The Fishin’ Hole at a national level, which in those years meant syndication, which in turn meant constantly negotiating with individual stations to carry it. In 1979 the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, began. In the beginning ESPN had plans to show movies mixed with sports, since no one would think of watching sports 24 hours a day, but they soon learned they couldn't buy the movie rights. Jerry saw an opportunity and met with the ESPN executives in their office (a singlewide trailer). By 1980 The Fishin’ Hole had joined the fledgling network and was on its way to becoming a permanent fixture in the national media.
The Fishin’ Hole broke the typical fishing show mold. It featured an ordinary angler fishing with ordinary guys for smallmouth, trout and crappie on creeks, ponds and lakes in the country’s mid-section. The episodes revolved around places Jerry already loved or dreamed of visiting, and he always chose material he was comfortable with and knew something about. Viewers embraced the laid-back presentation and The Fishin’ Hole became the longest-running outdoor show: final episodes aired in 2007, 44 years after the series’ debut.
McKinnis branched out from The Fishin' Hole to become one of the most influential producers in television outdoor programming. Asked by ESPN for a tournament-type show, he introduced The Mariner Tournament Trail in the early 1990s. When ESPN2 began in 1993, Mariner Trail expanded to an hour, a Red Man event was covered, and a few years later Jerry began producing and co-hosting the FLW Tour’s made-for-television bass tournament series. JM Associates became one of the most prolific production companies providing television programming to the network, regardless of sports category. Literally hundreds of short features, half-hour, and hour-long programs were developed each year, including the popular ESPN Outdoors block of programming on Saturday mornings.
Jerry had fished six B.A.S.S. tournaments from 1969 to 1974, and in the late 1990s he began producing programming for the organization. In November 2010, the longtime B.A.S.S. member teamed up with Don Logan and Jim Copeland to purchase the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society from ESPN, becoming the fourth owners of the organization founded in 1968 by Ray Scott. The three successful businessmen have brought their collective experience and passion to the 46-year-old organization, which heralds an exciting new era for B.A.S.S.
Jerry remains one of the most recognizable faces in fishing and is often approached by people anxious to tell him what The Fishin’ Hole meant to them over the years. He’s a 2003 inductee of the Pro Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, was named one of the “35 Most Influential People” by Bassmaster magazine in June 2003, and received a 2013 Legacy Award from the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame.
The IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame applauds Jerry McKinnis, an architect of memorable outdoor television and a champion of freshwater anglers.
