BY MIKE STEVENS
This is not Tom Troop’s obituary.
I wouldn’t even crack the top-100 list of those who should write it. While I have known him since seventh grade (skater dude that all the girls liked), 90 percent of my interaction with him started over 20 years after our graduation from San Marcos High School, after I learned he was a passionate angler, and our paths started crossing during Show Season.
After some social media back-and-forth, the first time I saw Tom since high school was when he volunteered along with some of the Hookup Baits guys to help release a bunch of hatchery-raised, juvenile halibut into Mission Bay. I was there covering it for WON, and I cruised up to him on the dock, not knowing if I would have to identify myself.
I did not.
I was greeted by a guy with a big smile, stoked to be on the water and in a boat, and he wasn’t even fishing. While I wasn’t surprised at this vibe given when I remembered about Tom, as it turns out, that was how he always was, all the way to the end.
The next time I saw him was at one of the shows. He came up to the WON booth, now in a Hookup Baits (HUB) jersey with his name on the back and a straw cowboy hat that looked like something you’d wear on spring break at South Padre Island. Only someone that locked in to a lifelong aura that I recently described as “a volcano of positivity” could pull off such a hat. Same deal: big smile, full stoke and energetically sharing with me the magic of the HUB “donkey rig.”
From then on out, Tom was another partner in a sportfishing industry that is enormous and tight-knit at the same time. Tom and his son, “Bay basher” Cash, were competing in the family division of the Saltwater Bass Series (SBS). I watched the duo later known as the “Fish Doggs” combine a shared passion for fishing with an old, banged up boat to move out of the family division and evolve into serious SBS competitors. Cash’s signature “fro” shrank as their list accomplishments grew, and it was damn fun to keep tabs on.
It was after that boat finally met its end that the effect Tom’s vibe had on the local angling community became tangible. Anglers, gear manufacturers, boat outfitters and members of the outdoor media set out to get the Fish Doggs back on the water. Outdoor writer and CCA Regional Director Erik Landesfiend spearheaded that effort by holding a raffle for a long list of donated prizes to raise funds to get them back in action on a Mako skiff…that was also donated.
Erik (who personally custom wrapped a rod for the raffle) actually had go online and tell people to stop donating to the fundraiser as the goal was quickly met. Just another example of the players in this industry, from anglers on up, coming together to take care of a couple of their own.
The thing about Tom Troop that is unique in this day and age, is he knew the things that are important in life decades sooner than most, things most people finally realize are “the good stuff” when they are much older. Even before we all banded together to help him out with the boat, he was constantly voicing his appreciation for every little thing he was able to do, and every person who had a hand in making it happen. Hell, he was over-the-top-appreciative for me for putting their photos in the paper, and he was the one making my life easier by sending them.
The social post that broke the news to me that we had lost Tom included a picture of him with a big jacksmelt (of all things) that had choked on the Hookup Baits jig he sent down, like he had done a million times before. He was out there with the Chad Gierlich and a couple other HUB guys, and Tom (a guy with a library of photos of big salty bass and even tanker cutthroat trout from Pyramid Lake), in what would turn out to be his final hours on earth, showing off a fish no one targets unless it’s for bait, but it didn’t matter. The smile and the stoke (recurring themes in the hundreds of comments below dozens of announcements of his passing) was still there, because there was nothing he’d rather be doing.