Zona Phases Out – A Little Later Than Planned

By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Mark Zona admits that his role as color commentator on Bassmaster LIVE! had become more difficult with the recent transitions that professional bass fishing has undergone. However, that's not why he ended his two-decade stint in the analyst's chair last weekend upon the conclusion of the final Elite Series event of 2024 at the St. Lawrence River.

"To be dead honest with you, the time has actually been coming for really half of a decade," he said Monday upon arriving back home in Sturgis, Mich. from the JM Associates studio in Little Rock, Ark. "When Davy Hite (joined the broadcast crew) and right before the departure of the anglers (68 Elite Series pros left to form the Bass Pro Tour in late 2018), my wife Karen and I had a plan to phase out. I was asked to come back and I felt like I had a duty to do so.

"For a long time, Bassmaster and (Zona's Awesome Fishing Show) have run parallel, and for the last 6 or 7 years I've wanted to be able to devote more time to Mark Zona, Inc. It's been pretty successful with the focus on it for only 50 percent of the year. Three weeks ago, Karin and I were out on a pontoon boat and she looked at me and we both knew it was time."

The 52-year-old Zona, a moderately successful competitive angler through the early 2000s, teamed with consummate play-by-play man Tommy Sanders to become the most notable broadcasting tandem in the history of the still-young sport. He knew what, how and why the anglers on camera were doing what they were doing and described it to viewers through a booming baritone voice. With his wry sense of humor thrown into the mix, he was easy for most fans to relate to.

He thoroughly enjoyed the work. He's aware that his high-volume, in-your-face style didn't always resonate with everybody, but credibility was always more important to him than universal popularity.

"Even if they thought I was (a jerk), I wanted it to be known that they weren't going to get any B.S. from me; that, to me, was the key," he said. "One thing I'll give JM a lot of credit for is they let me be me and they let me be honest, and I was critical in that seat. There were times when I crossed over into things like rule infractions where other people didn't.

"I gave it everything I had and I walk away happy and proud. I never took that chair for granted – it was a privilege. I got to work with two of my best friends in Tommy Sanders and Mike McKinnis (the head of JM and a fellow member of the 2024 Bass Fishing Hall of Fame class) and cover the guys who are, to me, the biggest bad-asses in the world."

He saw the sport undergo multiple seismic-level changes during his tenure. The latest – the emergence and preponderance of forward-facing sonar – has had a big impact on his job.

"The advancement of that technology has made it very hard to be an analyst," he said. "Before, the hardest was a sight-fishing event because everybody was doing the same thing. Now, in a pure FFS tournament, there's so much time to fill (with anglers fixated on their graphs) and it's certainly not easy."

There are some anglers who would've been happier with him if he'd been willing to stray from his honesty credo now and then. He said that as recently as last Friday, he was asked to bend the truth regarding a bait an angler was using at the St. Lawrence so that the angler could curry favor with a sponsor.

"If a bait wasn't (sponsor-aligned), I'd stay generic, but I never lied," he said. "I was very protective of the anglers because I understood what it is to be in their position, but that was a line I never crossed."

When he first got the LIVE! gig, he couldn't have imagined his relationship with Sanders evolving to the point it's at today. Zona says he now views his longtime broadcast partner the same way he would an older brother.

"He doesn't know how much he taught me," Zona said. "When we first started I did everything I could to get under his skin, but I found out that he's as big of a jackal or a hyena as I am and he fed it right back to me. I'm proud because I feel like I pulled some of that out of him.

"Other than getting married and having kids (his twin sons Hunter and Jakob are now 25), working at JM is the greatest thing that's happened to me in my life. Working with Tommy, Davey, (Elite Series emcee Dave) Mercer and the entire crew has been an absolute pleasure."

He said the feeling that overcame him after his final day on the set last Sunday was one he didn't anticipate. He described it as reminiscent of the title character in the movie Forrest Gump, who eventually determined that it was an appropriate time to stop running all day, every day, and that was that.

"I purposely live a very quiet life, and Bassmaster has always been go, go, go and the Zona show has always been go, go, go," Zona said. "Some people might think I'm just going to go sit in a tree stand, but I'm going to be ramping up the Zona content. There's a lot I want to do that, to this point, I haven't been able to."