The professor in his classroom

Wilson Frazier, the sonar whiz, puts in an appearance at the Forrest Wood Cup Outdoors Expo

I’m standing in the aisle of the FLW Outdoors Expo at the Forrest Wood Cup in the Gwinnett Convention Center, and everywhere I turn I catch glimpses of bass fishing history.

In the distance, under the Ranger Boats marquis, Forrest and Nina Wood are signing autographs. In the other direction, people are crowding into the booth of Karl White, the noted fishing tackle collector and authority, to ask him about the lures he’s got on display. Jimmy Houston walked through just a while ago; I heard that trademark cackling laugh long before I saw him. Hank Parker, hot and flustered from serving as the weighmaster at The Bass Federation’s Junior Bass Championship being held here concurrently with the Cup, just swept by – in a hurry as usual.

Everybody who’s anybody in the FLW ranks is here, as well as folks I didn’t expect to see. Wilson Frazier, an old tournament campaigner from the 70s and 80s, constitutes one such pleasant surprise. Frazier, who lives in Nashville now, is better known as “the professor” to the pros who have benefitted from his instruction over the years in the fine art of decoding what they see on a sonar screen and getting back to within casting distance of it if it’s worth a shot.

Frazier is here on business, like all of the 120-some-odd exhibitors who have booths set up in the Outdoors Expo. In the not-too-distant past the Texas native would have been standing by to troubleshoot any problems that anglers might be having with their Lowrance units, but such is the state of the equipment now that there isn’t much need of somebody with his technical talents. Now, mainly, he conducts seminars on how to adjust and interpret fish finders and take advantage of what they can tell an angler.

“What I teach you is what you are looking at, where you are looking at it, and how to get back exactly to where it is,” is the 68-year-old Frazier’s succinct sales pitch. He has one of those rare minds that can think multi-dimensionally. Figuratively speaking, he can see beyond a sonar screen, down through the wires and into the water. His understanding of the information that is displayed on the screen is equaled only by his ability to explain it to anglers in terms that they can understand.

Frazier has instructed, among others, Bill Dance, Ron Shuffield, Wes Strader, Mark Rose, David Fritts, Larry Nixon, Jay Yelas and Scott Suggs in the finer points of using sonar to locate and set up on deep-water bass around structure. His series of how-to DVDs (www.itainttv.com) on the subject are best-sellers. What he really teaches anglers is how to spend their time on the water more efficiently, and time is one of the most essential commodities to a fisherman, whether he’s in a tournament or just fishing for fun. Though marketing folk would have you think that finding fish and catching them is an easy process when you use a sonar of any type, it is seldom simple. When you do get to the point where you can figure it all out, however, it’s a beautiful thing. Frazier makes the learning curve shorter.

Wilson has toned down the outfits that he wears to “trade shows” these days. The gaudy clothing of yesteryear has made way for a more subdued wardrobe of regular street clothes with just a few well-positioned patches on his shirt, including one that proclaims him “The Professor.” No doubt he walks through the Outdoors Expo without being recognized by most, but Wilson Frazier has long been a man of substance in the fishing industry, and he’s a hall-of-famer to many of the Forrest Wood Cup contestants. After all, he helped a lot of them get here.