Bass pro defies fishing stereotype
Black angler is role model for young, hip crowd
By Phil Bloom
Outdoors editor
Ishama Monroe has been told that the only word he could say as a 2-year-old was “fish.”
How appropriate to be recognized these days simply as Ish … like in fish.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, and that’s all I can remember ever wanting to do,” Monroe said this week in a telephone interview. “Just go fishing.”
Monroe is one of the hottest anglers on the professional bass fishing circuit, having opened and closed the 2006 season with bookend victories in Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (BASS) events. He won the BASS Elite Series opener in March at Lake Amistad near Del Rio, Texas, and then captured the Busch Shootout last weekend at Grapevine Lake, also in Texas. He is the second African American in the history of the sport to compete in the Bassmaster Classic and his 14th place finish this year is his personal best. Alfred Williams, the only other African American to fish the Bassmaster Classic, finished 10th in the 1983 on the Ohio River. Williams is from Jackson, Mississippi and that appearance was the only time he ever competed in the Classic, this year was Ish's second appearance, the most ever for an African American.
The $100,000 paydays from those two events made up the biggest part of his $278,800 breakthrough season with BASS that more than doubled his career earnings, which will help pay for the 4,000-square-foot home he’s building at Lake Amistad.
“My accountant says, ‘You need an investment,’ ” said Monroe, 32, who also has more than $100,000 in career earnings from the rival Forrest L. Wood Tour and has qualified four times for the Bassmaster Classic, the Super Bowl of tournament fishing.
Not bad for someone who grew up in San Francisco, being told he’d never make it as a pro angler because big city kids don’t do those sorts of things.
Especially if they’re black.
“I took it with a grain of salt,” Monroe said. “I didn’t think about it because one thing my dad taught me was you can do anything you want as long as you put your mind to it.
“I was going to do this. I didn’t care what anybody said. My father has been in full support of it since Day 1.”
Monroe was barely out of diapers when his father, Gregory Simpson, introduced him to fishing.
Simpson and Monroe’s mother, Wanda Monroe, had moved from Ann Arbor, Mich., to California when their son was only 2, but the only fishing came during summer vacations back in Michigan.
“In Ann Arbor, you could walk 15 minutes and find water, or drive in five minutes any direction and find water,” Monroe said.
San Francisco was different – guns, gangs, drugs – but not surprising to Monroe.
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“You’re thinking, ‘Catholic schools, everybody’s good, it’s cool.’ I remember guys getting on the buses with shotguns in their jackets, and these are guys I went to school with. They were fighting against other people. It was just a bad deal.”
Monroe turned his attention to what he enjoyed most – fishing. Nothing kept him from it.
“I had a girl, who was my longest girlfriend ever,” said Monroe, who attended summer school in order to graduate early from high school. “We were together six years.
“She still had one more year in high school. I had a tournament to go to, and her senior prom was the same time. To this day, we are still really good friends, but she never lets me live this one down. I went fishing and let her go to the prom with another guy.”
For his own good, Monroe won that tournament.
“She told me if I hadn’t won, there would have been more dire consequences,” he said.
Monroe eventually studied business and marketing at Contra Costa College, heeding earlier advice he was given on what corporations were looking for in pro anglers they sponsor.
He juggled part-time jobs with local tournaments, content that it was acceptable while knowing it was not all he wanted.
“To actually say I could make a living at this, you knew you had to fish (BASS) to do it, and it was just a tough haul trying to do it from the West Coast,” Monroe said.
The landscape changed in 1997 when BASS staged the California Invitational, an event in which Monroe finished 17th.
“That got me a little bit of confidence as well as a little bit of notoriety locally,” he said.
A top 50 finish at the next Western event opened the door to potential sponsors. One asked Monroe if he’d participate in the BASS Top 150 (since renamed the Elite Series) if he qualified for it.
“I told him I didn’t have the vehicle and didn’t have the money to do it,” Monroe said. “He goes, ‘Well, what if you had a vehicle and half your entry fees paid?’”
Monroe accepted the offer and proved his value with a fourth-place finish at the very next event.
“I’ve been doing it ever since,” he said.
Along the way he picked up nine top-10 finishes heading into this season and a historic, turning-point March at Lake Amistad. It not only resulted in Monroe’s first career victory with BASS but also marked the first time a black angler had won a major bass tournament.
Others are free to compare his achievement to Jackie Robinson in baseball and Tiger Woods in golf, but Monroe shrugs it off.
“I don’t consider the part about a pioneer really mattering to me,” he said.
Neither, he said, do his sponsors.
“I’ve had a sit-down, personal talk with all my sponsors, and I’ve asked the question, ‘Did you hire me because I was African-American?’ ” Monroe said.
“Everyone said no, it’s your marketing ability and your ability to catch fish. That made me feel good about myself, and I could tell they were sincere about it.”
That puts money in his bank account but also puts him in a position, he says, “to be a positive role model for inner city youth or any youth for that matter because they can relate to me.”
What Monroe projects is a crossover personality – designer sunglasses, tricked-out pickup, flashy graphic design on his bass boat, and an i-pod pumping hip-hop rhythms into his head.
He enjoys his chosen profession while not fitting the bass fishing stereotype in ways that go far beyond being a black participant in a white-dominated sport.
“Look at bass fishing and (BASS) and all the circuits out there,” Monroe said. “You look at the typical guy that fishes, and he’s not the young, hip-hop guy that wears baggy pants or his hat in the back or listening to the hip-hop culture.
“I think kids can more so relate to that. Look at it now. Hip-hop and the whole generation deals with everything, whether it be sports, whether it’s music, whether it’s the style of clothes people wear. I think kids can relate to that more.
“So, I’m hoping that it’s more that I’m a positive role model, and kids say, ‘Hey, if Ish can do it, he’s cool, he listens to hip-hop music, then I can do that, too.’
“If it helps in keeping just one kid from getting in trouble, it makes me happy.”
Ishama Monroe profile
Residence: Hughson, Calif.
Born: June 20, 1974, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Family: Single
Height: 5-11
Weight: 215
Hobbies: Basketball, movies, fishing
Favorite food: Sushi
Favorite music: Hip-hop. What, no reggae?
Source: BASS and bassfan.com
Ishama Monroe's Professional Fishing Stats-Click Here!!!
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