The Angler's Anecdote

Jimmy Jacobs

For as far back as he can remember, Jimmy Jacobs (B.A.'70) has had a passion for the outdoors. As a kid, he hunted and fished every corner of his uncle's West Georgia farm.

“That's where I discovered fly-fishing,” Jacobs remembers. Since then, he has been hooked.

These days, as editor of Georgia Sportsman, Tennessee Sportsman and Florida Game and Fish magazines, Jacobs makes his living in the great outdoors in search of the perfect hunting grounds or fishing hole.

When he isn't out in the field or stream, he's editing manuscripts, organizing photos and designing graphics for upcoming magazine issues. In 2008, he took on yet another assignment when he became the outdoor columnist for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

With all the time he spends documenting the wilds, he says, it's nearly impossible for him to take a real vacation. “My eye for a story never seems to sleep,” he said. “I always have my eye open for new material that can somehow be turned into newspaper columns, travel articles or even book ideas.”

Jacobs has published four guidebooks on trout fishing in the South, and his work has garnered several awards, including the Excellence In Craft Award from the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association. His guidebooks break fishing down to a science, such as when and where exactly to fish, what equipment to use and what to expect. His goal, he says, is to give his Southeastern readers all they'll ever need to know to net a lunker and have a great time doing so.

When he was a student at GSU, Jacobs was filling up another kind of net — the one on a basketball goal. During his career with the men's basketball team, the crafty guard scored a total of 1,078 career points, then the most in school history.

In 2007, the Colonial Athletic Conference selected Jacobs as a CAA Basketball Legend, the first Panther ever to be honored for the award.

“I was surprised and pleased,” Jacobs said. “I wasn't the biggest, quickest or most talented, so I felt I needed to play harder and smarter.”

After tirelessly fishing the waterways in the Southeast for more than 40 years, Jacobs' passion for the outdoors is still as strong as it was during those days back on his uncle's farm. He does, however, admit to having other aspirations. “Novels,” he says. “I have several book projects that have been simmering on the backburners, and I'm about due to turn up the heat under one of those.”