Ladson, SC (January 6, 2025) – For a Minnesota native the likes of Bassmaster Opens angler and freshly knighted Z-Man® pro Josh Douglas, a pair of passions have always come naturally—ice hockey and bass fishing. Among the various labels attached to hockey (snipers, grinders, goons, etc.), Douglas might best be described as a playmaker.
In hockey speak, it’s some of the highest praise attainable. A playmaker is the competitor who exploits opportunities others miss. It’s a term reserved for those rare athletes who work hard and play harder, who think their way through tricky conditions, and who excel and win with a balance of persistence, precision and intelligence. Moreover, the playmaker goes out of his way to help others excel in their sport via good-natured guidance.
Douglas, who grew up skating frozen lakes and slapping pucks at nets, eventually discovered an even deeper talent for catching bass. “Played a ton of hockey up through high school, but something about bass fishing just spoke to me on another level,” recalls Douglas, whose earliest goal was to play professional hockey, preferably as a centerman—aka the team’s unsung hero and master of offense and defense in equal measure.
“My father and stepfather were bigtime multispecies anglers—bass, walleye, you name it. But my uncle and grandfather both had a thing for bass, and their passion for it really awakened my own desire to chase largemouths and smallmouths for a living.”
Over a decade later, Douglas has excelled on all the top-level tournament circuits, with notable success on the Toyota Series and Bass Opens beginning in 2012-13, Major League Fishing Pro Circuit for six years and two years on the Bassmaster Elite Series starting in 2022. In 2025, Douglas plans to fish as many Bassmaster Opens as humanly possible.
You might assume a full slate of bass derbies would be enough to fill the intrepid angler’s calendar. But when the tourney season ends, Douglas returns to work as perhaps the top trophy smallmouth bass guide on his home lake, Mille Lacs, Minnesota.
“At heart, I’m a guide and someone who loves to teach people about bass fishing,” notes Douglas. “I get as much enjoyment watching folks hook big smallmouths as I do catching them myself. I was a guide before my tournament career, and I’ll still be a guide when my competition days are done.”
But when hockey seasons commence and lakes freeze over in late fall, rather than shuffling out onto the icy surface to wet a line, Douglas and his wife Bri make a beeline for the Sunshine State. “Battling Minnesota winters and fishing hardwater just isn’t my thing,” Douglas laughs. “Give me a Florida bass lake, a box of ChatterBait® bladed jigs or a flippin’ stick and I’m a happy camper. I’ll gladly listen my Minnesota buddies talk ice fishing all day, so long as it’s while I’m sitting in a bass boat on a 70-degree day on Lake Kissimmee.”
Beyond bass, Douglas says a strong background in the hospitality industry has served him well, opening the right doors to top-tier sponsors and key retail partners, such as Scheels. For many years, Douglas has served as the influential outdoor retailer’s top bass authority, conducting employee training, engaging fans at numerous in-store events and attending Scheels University—all key opportunities to share the Z-Man story.
“I’ve always preferred to represent and use lures and products by those true pioneer companies,” Douglas explains. “Z-Man was the first to give us ElaZtech® TPE baits, the Ned rig, the ChatterBait, and now, the Graph ShadZ™.
“It’s been clear from the start that Z-Man operates on a different level, doing creative things with ElaZtech soft plastics, for example, while others have just sort of followed along.
“In the water, Z-Man baits do crazy realistic things other baits can’t,” he says. “When most soft plastic baits hit bottom, they fall over and go lifeless. ElaZtech baits do the opposite; they rise up and spring to life. Even beyond its famed durability, that’s the real power of ElaZtech for bass fishing and the reason I started throwing stuff like the Finesse TRD™ years before joining their pro staff.”
Z-Man pro-staff and promotions manager Joey Prochazka appreciates the statement—a common trait among most of the company’s bass pros. “We’ve had our eyes on Josh for several years,” said Prochazka. “We quickly gained a lot of respect for his keen work ethic, friendly approachability among fans and his diversity of fishing industry experience—all of which matches his undeniable talent for catching big bass. We’re really looking forward to collaborating with Josh on new baits, too, and tapping his network of fans to expand the legend of Z-Man.”
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