Entry 284-1
How to Make Your Living as a Professional Fisherman with Mark Rose
Editor’s Note: Mark Rose of Marion, Arkansas, tournament fisherman and Strike King pro, has paid his dues to become a national bass-fishing pro. Andy Andrews, author of “The Seven Keys to Success,” explains that one of the most-important keys to succeed in any endeavor is to endure without ceasing. “If you can’t do something, and you keep trying, you’ll find a way to be successful that most people who quit before you never find,” Andrews explains. Rose believed in his ability to become a tournament fisherman, and even when sponsors and tournament winnings were scarce, he didn’t quit. This week, Rose will tell us what’s required to go from a wannabe to a national touring pro.
Part 1: Getting Over the Hump
Question: Mark, you’ve blossomed into a tournament fisherman in the last 3 years. What has made the difference in your fishing?
Rose: Reflecting back, I now see that I needed to become a more-versatile angler than when I first started. I grew up in the Delta of eastern Arkansas, and I was a good fisherman in the backwaters of the Mississippi Delta. But I had to learn how to catch bass in the Great Lakes, south Florida and clear, deep lakes where finesse fishing was more productive.
At first, I was overwhelmed. I thought I knew how to find and catch bass because I was a pretty-good fisherman in Arkansas. But I learned that the world of fishing was far bigger than my backyard. My success in the last 3 years has been because I’ve learned how to fish differently in various types of water for bass that are entirely different from the bass we have in eastern Arkansas.
Question: You’re the typical bass-club pro who has made it to the big time. How much time passed after you left your bass club and your local fishing buddies for you to learn your craft as a professional fisherman?
Rose: It took 2 or 3 years for me to get enough confidence to feel that I could fish as a professional. 
Even through those lean years, the Lord allowed me to make enough money to meet my financial responsibilities and enter more tournaments. In those years, I’d have one or two really big wins each year to survive. I learned I had to be able to take those hard licks of losing, not get mentally depressed and instead prepare for the next tournament. Too, I learned that regardless of what happened in any tournament, I had to walk away from that tournament having learned more than I knew when I first started the tournament. I tried to learn why I lost, or why I fished poorly, and what I could do to improve. I studied what the winners did that I didn’t.
To become a professional bass fisherman is no different from becoming a professional in any craft. Regardless of what you think you know, when you decide to move from a bass club pro to a national tournament pro, you have to spend as much time on the water and learn as much as the best fishermen in the industry. I’ve put my career in the Lord’s hands. My motto always has been to go out each day in a tournament, fish the very best I can, lea
rn as much as I can and then leave the rest in the Lord’s hands. That works for me.
Becoming a national pro is like trying to make the move from high school to college. You think you know a lot when you get out of high school, but when you get to college, you realize everything you don’t know. You also realize why becoming a college graduate takes 4 years or 5 years. So, the best advice I can give to a local pro who wants to fish on the national circuit is to understand that the first few years you turn pro you’re on a quest for knowledge and experience. That time is not just about showing the world you’re a good fisherman.
Contents:
- Part 1: Getting Over the Hump
- Part 2: Preparing to Become a Pro Fisherman
- Part 3: Pick Your Mentor Carefully Because He Can Teach You Your Craft
- Part 4: How to Get Sponsors
- Part 5: How to Hold Them
