Fraternal twins

Biologically identical, the Baldwin brothers share a fraternal bond and a love for fishing that burns hotter every day

These Midwestern boys are barrel-chested firefighters who dine on five-alarm chili and spend all of their spare time with their families, on a lake or in a deer stand. They are big boys, athletic in stature, with cheerful eyes and polite demeanors. They are workingmen who have each carved out a living in the Dayton Fire Department. They love their wives, their kids, their jobs and their fishing. They are ordinary people who embody the values and lifestyle of Dayton, Ohio, USA.

They are also winning fishing tournaments. Brad, who usually finds himself atop the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League’s Buckeye Division, finished second at the regional in September. In addition to that impressive run and great success in local events, he has fished in some BASS Top 150s. Perhaps even more importantly on a personal level, he also claims bragging rights over his brother and everyone else at the firehouse with his gold medal in angling at the World Police and Fire Games held near Indianapolis.

“My brother and I have fished in a lot of team tournaments in the past, and I fished a lot of local tournaments, but these FLW Outdoors tournaments have been great for me,” he said. “They’re larger-scale tournaments, but they’re closer to home, and I can fit them into everything else going on in my life.”

While Brad has found success in the Wal-Mart BFL where he won the points championship as a co-angler in the Buckeye Division, Barry has ventured into the EverStart Series Northern Division where he finished third. Although each of them has earned only several thousand dollars in FLW Outdoors-organized events, they have each shown signs of remarkable ability in just a couple of years fishing big-time tournament circuits.

Brad says that growing up in the sometimes bitter-cold climate of northern Ohio has somewhat dictated his fishing style. He says that over the years he has adapted a preference for flipping and usually excels when he can pick up on some top-water patterns. Over the past couple of years though, as he has expanded his tournament aspirations, he has become more proficient with spinnerbaits and crankbaits out of necessity.

“Whenever I can get them to bite the top-water baits, I always do really well,” he says.

Regardless of the fishing conditions, whenever possible the Baldwins tag-team the competition by sharing every bit of information with each other. They even share a boat and, when they both fish, they alternate who goes as the boater. Unfortunately, their jobs sometimes leave them flying solo.

“Our schedules are different,” Brad explains. “Sometimes it works out where we can travel and fish together while other times it doesn’t.”

Work is not the only part of the Baldwins’ lives that dictate their fishing schedules. Married to Jenny for nearly a dozen years, Brad has two daughters, 9-year-old Erin and 7-year-old Emily. Barry and his wife, Karen, have three children – Alec, 10, Ashley, 9, and Abigail, 3. Growing up as the youngest of five brothers, it is no wonder the twins wanted to have families of their own.

“It was a great way to grow up,” Barry says. “With Brad and me, we had our older brothers, but we also had each other. I had my group of friends, and he had his group of friends, and we had a group of friends together, so we always knew a lot of people.

“We always had a buddy. … It’s like always having your best friend with you. We’d fight like everybody else, but there was always somebody there to pass the ball with, or play with or, of course, go fishing with.”

“Other than people getting us mixed up a lot, it was no big deal being a twin,” Brad says. “We never knew anything any different, so it was normal for us. But coming from a family with five boys, something was always going on and for us, when you were doing something, which was always, you had somebody to do it with.”

The Baldwins’ father was a physical education teacher, so with his summers free, he and his five sons would travel as far away as Canada and Tennessee to camp out and fish. The twins, however, often found themselves as the odd men out when the boat was already full, so they would stay along the banks and wet their lines from dry land.

All of the Baldwin brothers enjoyed other competitive sports in their youths. For the twins, Brad stood out in baseball while Barry found a niche in football. As adults, careers in the fire department gave them one more thing in common. Brad recently accepted a position as a training lieutenant while Barry is a captain. You can hear the love for and dedication to being on the job in both their voices, a trait of firemen that has been brought to the forefront all too clearly in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

As much as they are dedicated to their jobs and families, the twins look forward to the day when they leave the firehouse behind and, perhaps, take fishing to yet another level.

“I think that’s definitely in the future,” Barry says when asked about the possibility of traveling to even more tournaments after retirement. “In 10 or 11 years or so, when our kids are basically grown and we can take the time, I can see us fishing a lot more. My wife and I are probably going to move to somewhere around Lake Barkley (in western Kentucky) where the weather is a little warmer and the fishing season is a little longer.”

Approaching their 39th birthday, his twin brother agrees, harking back to the memories of running along the shorelines with his brother, poles in hand, longing to be on the water like their brothers and dad.

“Once the kids are in college and we can retire, we’ll probably both step up our fishing,” Brad says, and then pauses to reflect. “You’ve got to look forward to something like that.”