Jack Stallard

My dad would have liked Jim McCann, and that’s one of the biggest compliments I can give someone.

Don’t get me wrong. Dad never missed an opportunity to make a new friend. He liked a lot of folks.

But dad would have liked Mr. McCann enough to go fishing with him, and that list was pretty short. Heck. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been on the list if I hadn’t quickly turned into a first-class riverbank cook.

Dad was a trotliner, and I’d put money on the fact he hauled more catfish out of beautiful Watauga Lake in the mountains of East Tennessee than anyone who ever baited a line.

Mr. McCann fishes for bass, and he’s done more than his share to make sure the bass population doesn’t get out of hand at East Texas lakes — particularly out at Martin Creek.

Like my dad, Mr. McCann has always been quick to share his love for fishing with anyone who was serious about learning.

One of my favorite parts of my job as sports editor at the News-Journal is my weekly reports from Mr. McCann about the Tuesday Night Open Pot Bass Tournament during the summer months.

The tournaments started back in 1990, founded by a man named Dana Vinson. Mr. McCann and his partner, Earnum Rinkle, fished the event together for 30 years — but only after nearly having a black-eye discussion the first time they met.

As reported in a News-Journal story a few years back, Mr. McCann was out and about one day when he noticed a boat he was certain was his prized fish catcher being hauled around by someone else.

Mr. McCann confronted the man — Mr. Rinkle — and after they realized they both simply had the same great taste in boats, they became friends and fishing buddies for more than three decades.

Mr. Rinkle died at the age of 84 back in 2022, and Mr. McCann was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral. Mr. McCann is 82 now, and he’s still fishing — and winning tournaments.

His report from this week’s Open Pot Tournament can be seen in the Outdoor Notes on the LNJ and Tyler Morning Telegraph Outdoors page, but I’m going to spoil it. Mr. McCann and his fishing partner, Mike Ham, finished with a winning stringer of 19 pounds, 4 ounces.

Mr. McCann refused to take much credit for the win.

“If I hadn’t been with Mike, I wouldn’t even have known they were biting,” he reported.

That’s another trait Mr. McCann shared with my dad.

Dad caught catfish when no one else on the lake could, but he never bragged about it. I remember countless times pulling into the marina after a week up at the top end of Watauga Lake and folks running to meet us.

They would always ask how we did, and dad would say “We got a few stragglers” while we unloaded stringers and coolers and boxes full of catfish from our old, green boat and into the truck.

Mr. McCann ran the Open Pot Tournament for several years, but Terry Lindsay and his wife and son have taken over operations the last five or six years. That gives Mr. McCann a well-deserved break so he can simply fish and serve as the tournament’s roving reporter.

From the looks of his last report, he has no plans to quit any time soon.

“I see young men fishing with their sons now, and I remember them fishing with their dads,” he said.

Mr. McCann also remembers fishing with a writer I sent out for a story on him and his fishing partner several years back, and — since fishermen are a bit superstitious — he wasn’t upset when I told him that wasn’t happening this time.

“The last time you sent a young journalist out, it rained so hard we had to hide under a bridge from the lightning and thunder, and that night was the last time we won for three years. If you send someone, don’t send the unlucky one.”

My dad never said if I was good luck or bad luck at the lake, but he always let me tag along on his fishing trips and I wonder if Mr. McCann wants to take another chance on sharing a boat with a reporter.

Maybe I’ll wait a month or so to ask him, because Lord knows we’ve had enough rain lately.