February 25, 2025
By In-Fisherman Staff
In lieu of In-Fisherman celebrating 50 amazing years serving anglers across North America as the authority on multi-species freshwater angling, Storyline host Thomas Allen sits down with his friend Mark Zona—host of Zona’s Awesome Fishing Show. The goal is to kick off a lengthy series called The Greatest Fishing Story Ever Told. During his early years, Mark was influenced by the In-Fisherman staff to learn how to fish, and then to teach fishing. A remarkable career exemplifies how much fishing means to this man, and no one better than Mark Zona to begin an exciting series to include guests like Doug Stange, Al Lindner, James Lindner, Gary Roach and all the cast of characters that were instrumental to getting In-Fisherman off the ground to where it is today. This is part 1.
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Truncated transcript:
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00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:17.200: You're listening to In-Fisherman Storyline, North America's top voice in multi-species freshwater angling. Here is your host, Thomas Allen.
00:00:17.200 --> 00:00:44.160: Well, it is early 2025. And this is a new episode, a special edition of In-Fisherman Storyline. And I'm excited about this. If you've been following the podcast for the last nine months that we've been doing this, I think we're pushing the envelope on 25 to 30 episodes, which high five myself. No friends. We're moving forward.
00:00:44.160 --> 00:01:01.800: And if you've wondered why you want to bother listening to another fishing podcast, this is why. What we're starting right now is something that I've dreamed about doing. And you've heard me tease it on the show a number of times. And we're going to dig into the In-Fisherman story.
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00:01:01.800 --> 00:01:26.960: And we want to create a progressive storyline, if you will, of the origins of In Fisherman and how that started. And there's a lot of characters along the way that have either contributed to where In-Fisherman is at today from the get go, somewhere in the middle, or ultimately been inspired by the In-Fisherman theme, the goal of teaching people how to fish.
00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:47.320: And there's a long list of characters. And when you talk about characters, the man that's joining me today, he's authentic. He's a friend of mine. We've shared some time in the trenches. And he's always been--I guess I probably deserve this-- but painfully honest with me about, hey, you need to do this. You don't need to do that.
00:01:47.320 --> 00:02:06.320: And I don't want to fluff his ego too much. But he has been a mentor and somebody that I consider a friend, Mark Zona, is joining me today. And we're going to kick off, Mark, the In Fisherman Storyline special edition that talks about everything that happened from the inception.
00:02:06.320 --> 00:02:33.320: And the reason I wanted you as the first guy to do this is because you're a northern angler. You're from the north. In fact, you're from Chicago, if I understand that right. And I did follow up on my assignment. And just let me be clear that Al told me that he grew up on the northwest side near the towns-- or I don't know if you call them towns-- of Belmont and Central. So thanks for being here. Does that sound like home to you?
00:02:33.320 --> 00:03:19.480: No, I was a south side. It was a little rougher on the south side than it was on the northwest side. But yeah, that's kind of where it all started. I attacked every single-- I think I got kicked off every single golf course pond that I trespassed on throughout the '80s. And it's weird, Thomas, because I'm honored to be on here to talk about Al and Ron and really the whole group that started because I didn't know it then. But it kind of almost gave a weird template of my career and my life…
Click here to listen to the entirety of Episode 23.
