Hooked on Fishing

For Brad Paisley, fishing is about relationships. As much as the country music singer loves the calm of an early morning river and the thrill of hooking a 10-pound bass, the reason he considers fishing his favorite pastime is the time it allows him to spend with loved ones and friends.

“Some of the greatest moments and best memories in my life have been spent with people I love out on a boat on a lake,” says Paisley, 31. “When someone asks me for a fishing tip, I tell them, ‘Fish with people you care about.’ That’s what fishing is for—spending time away from things and visiting with someone you enjoy being with.”

His advice comes from experience: He grew up fishing with his grandfather and father in Glen Dale, W.Va. (pop. 1,552). As an adult, he bonds with songwriting buddies by taking them out on a lake near his home in Franklin, Tenn. (pop. 41,842). He even romanced his wife, actress Kimberly Williams, by taking her on moonlit expeditions in his bass boat.

“My fondest childhood memories definitely involve going fishing with my grandfather and my father,” says Paisley, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt and sipping from a Diet Pepsi can while sitting on the banks of Percy Priest Lake, his home-away-from-home in Tennessee.

“If I knew we were going fishing, I’d be excited about it for days ahead of time,” he says. “Just getting on that boat and going down the Ohio River a little bit, that was the most thrilling thing I could do, and now I know it was because I was alone with my grandfather or my dad—or sometimes both of them. We’d get up early, and it would be a little foggy, and it was gorgeous.”

Partners in fishing

Paisley has worked hard to merge his primary obsessions: fishing and music. With his first royalty check, he bought a $10,000 bass boat. He even wrote a comical song about fishing, I’m Gonna Miss Her, about a man having to choose between his girlfriend and fishing. In the song, he offers his apologies to his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend as he walks out the door, tackle box and fishing rod in hand.

In real life, though, Paisley has the best of both worlds: a wife who understands his desire to get away from it all. Kimberly Williams, co-star of the hit sitcom Life According to Jim, good-naturedly starred as the spurned girlfriend in Paisley’s award-winning video for I’m Gonna to Miss Her. But her husband is quick to point out the difference between life and art.

“Unlike the song, my wife encourages my fishing,” Paisley says. “She understands and appreciates the importance of it to my sanity.” But that doesn’t keep the singer from teasing her about it—or making her the butt of an occasional on-stage wisecrack. “We joke about it all the time,” he says. “I’ll say things like, ‘Don’t make me choose!’ And she knows I kid about it all the time in concert. She gets a bad rap, but she doesn’t deserve it. Fortunately, she’s a good sport.”

Indeed, she’s a good enough sport to join him from time to time. “Even though she’s not a fisherperson—there’s a politically correct term for you—she likes to go out on the water with me,” Paisley explains. “Especially when we were dating, we’d come out here on Percy Priest Lake and sleep all night on the boat. We just put up a little awning over us. We bring a couple of sleeping bags and some junk food and anchor in a little private cove. On a clear night, it’s just so beautiful.”

He hopes someday to introduce his children to fishing, but he wants to be careful not to push it on them. “I’ll probably wait on them to ask,” he says. “I don’t think you can force it. But hopefully they’ll see me going, and that will spark their curiosity. I’ll just wait for them to say, ‘Will you take me with you?’ I think that would be a healthy way to go.

“I think when kids are young, doing things like that with your father is such a big deal,” he says, recalling that he first went fishing when he was 5 years old. “I can still remember when my dad surprised us by buying this used boat. I can remember when I first saw it and how ecstatic I felt. It was mustard yellow, and it had this 70-horsepower motor, so it was strong enough to pull me water-skiing. I pretty much learned how to fish on that boat.”

Fishing for time off

These days, Paisley’s status as one of country music’s hottest young stars keeps him from fishing as much as he’d like. His first two albums, which sold more than a million copies, helped him garner the respect of other performers, and his love of country music tradition and history has made him a favorite among veteran stars.

Three members of the Country Music Hall of Fame—George Jones, Bill Anderson and Little Jimmy Dickens—all joined him on his third album, Mud on the Tires. Dickens also appeared, along with actors William Shatner and Jim Belushi and The Bachelorette’s Trista Rehn, in the video for Paisley’s hit song Celebrity.

All that success doesn’t leave much time for hobbies. “My career takes its toll,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t get out nearly as much as I’d like these days.”

Not that he doesn’t get offers. Ever since writing a hit song about fishing, Paisley has been the constant recipient of fishing offers and tips.

“The song turned out to be a good way to make everyone aware of what I love to do,” he laughs. “Everywhere I go, every town that we play, there’s somebody saying, ‘Hey, you want to go fishing? Hey, you want to know a great fishing hole?’ I don’t often have time, but if I do, I know I can find out about a pond near the gig.”

He’s also found a way to combine his favorite hobby with his favorite charity. Paisley is now the host of a fishing tournament on Percy Priest Lake that benefits St. Jude Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Paisley began participating in the tournament when it was sponsored by a Nashville, Tenn., music agency. He eventually got asked to host the September event; in 2003 the name changed to the Brad Paisley Celebrity Invitational Fishing Tournament.

“The first year was great, even though we had to put it together pretty fast,” he says. “But we’re really focused on next year’s. We’ve already started making plans. It should only get bigger and better. The whole thing has got a lot of heart. Just to see how the kids react to it, it’s impossible not to be touched by that.”

In a way, his involvement in the tournament brings everything full circle. “I know what it meant to me as a kid to have someone willing to take the time to take me out on a boat on a lake,” he says. “That we can spend a day doing something we love that benefits children and benefits such a great organization as St. Jude’s, it’s hard to beat that.”

Michael McCall is a journalist based in Nashville, Tenn.

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