About - Terry Blankenship Fishing

How it all began

When I was three years old, my dad knew I would be a fisherman. We were at the lake for a family picnic, and I wouldn’t leave my pole – not even for lunch. Soon enough I was hollerin’ that I had a fish on, and dad watched it pull me toward the water. He yelled at me to let go of the pole, but I wouldn’t. By the time he got to me, I was at the edge of the water about to fall in. He got there just in time to help me land a carp that was over 10 lbs., almost as much as I weighed at the time!

Some of my favorite memories are fishin’ the small rivers with my dad and good friend Eugene. I fished Tavern Creek 20 years in a row during bass season. Some of the best trips we had were just about knowing that we had made forever memories.

Guiding

My day job was always working construction, so I didn’t have many opportunities to fish unless it was rainy or a weekend. Nonetheless, I was successful in tournament fishing and became known around the lake. The bait shop guys started to ask me if I did any guiding, and they recommended me to St. Louis Post writer Tim Renken. One thing led to another, and he came down to the lake so we could go fishin’ while he interviewed me for an article. The article was published on a Sunday and had a reach of around 3 million. Tim commented on how I had caught fish on my first 13 of 14 casts and made it look almost too easy. With his article, my guiding business was born, and my phone rang for 2 weeks solid. That was in 1994.

When I moved to the lake in 1998, I started guided evening trips in addition to part-time day drips. Then in September of 2018, I gave up construction to pursue guiding full time. I’ve never been happier.

“One of my greatest passions in fishing is understanding why the fish do what they do. Lots of fishing guides can understand seasonal patterns, but where it gets really fun is identifying their conditional patterns. ”

— Terry Blankenship

Fishing is Forever

One of the most rewarding things about fishing is figuring out what the fish are doing and why. It’s a weapon that gives you the unique ability to find them in other places.

I fell in love with crappie fishing for a few reasons:

It’s a great finesse sport: I love to go out and trick them into biting artificial bait. I only use one pole, and I haven’t touched a minnow in years!
There are a lot more fish to catch: You can almost always catch crappie!
You can fish on a budget: Unlike some other types of fishing, you don’t have to have high-dollar gear to go crappie fishing and enjoy a beautiful day out on the water.