Kayak Fish magazine welcomes Florida-based angler and writer Jerry McBride to the top of the masthead. Jerry is an old magazine hand and kayak fishing enthusiast who spends most of his free time chasing seatrout and redfish in the waters surrounding his Panama City home.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with the first-class staff at Kayak Fish. It will certainly be a challenge to maintain the standard that outgoing editor Paul Lebowitz set,” McBride says.
Jerry has written for Kayak Fish since the magazine’s first issue, and logged more than a decade as an editor at Florida Sportsman and Shallow Water Angler, where he also hosted Florida Sportsman Television and conducted kayak fishing clinics.
“Jerry is a proven editor and a strong video personality who just happens to be one of the best kayak fishermen on the Gulf Coast,” says Kayak Fish Publisher Jim Marsh. “We’re thrilled to have someone with so much experience and enthusiasm for the sport lead our team.”
Jerry steps into the size-13 wading boots of Kayak Fish founding editor Paul Lebowitz, who has left the magazine to help build a scholarship endowment in the name of his son James, who died in January. He is also planning to advocate for autism awareness and the critical lifesaving importance of organ and tissue donation. His son James saved five lives.
“Kayak Fish magazine has always been a labor of love,” Lebowitz says. “It’s difficult to let go, especially in light of the overwhelming support the kayak angling community has shown me and my family.”
“I’m not going far,” he says. “Writing about kayak fishing is in my blood.”
Paul will remain on the masthead as Editor-At-Large, and contribute stories from time to time. The rest of Kayak Fish’s award-winning editorial team remains in place, including photo editor Aaron Schmidt, art director Parker Meek and executive editor Jeff Moag.
In his first letter from the editor, in the Spring 2015 issue, Jerry ruminates on his lifelong study of fish—his family tended 37 hatchery ponds in Nebraska—and the long odds of his becoming a magazine editor.
“My first job was walking the shoreline of our golden shiner ponds and catching green sunfish that weren’t supposed to be there,” Jerry recalls. “My dad paid me 25 cents for every hundred I caught–not exactly union wages, but no fishing class could have instilled the value of stealth, observation and proper lure presentations any better. When I returned to Florida years later, the lessons those tiny sunfish taught me at age 7 applied perfectly to giant snook and seatrout.”
About Kayak Fish
Kayak Fish magazine puts the fish first, with an editorial focus on gear, tactics and the self-reliant anglers who paddle their way to action-packed catches. From the publisher of Canoe & Kayak magazine, Kayak Fish is a publication of TEN: The Enthusiast Network. It can be found on newsstands nationwide, and online at KayakFishMag.com.