ESPN

Fishing has always been a family tradition for award-winning multi-media artist Anna Jean Lang Holmes.

"We used to spend Thanksgivings on the piers at Outer Banks (North Carolina)," recalled Holmes of her childhood. "We were curled up in sleeping bags and eating turkey dinners from Styrofoam containers while fishing for flounder."

She no longer goes on such extreme outings with her family, but fishing still influences her life and artwork. Her father, Jim Lang, is tournament director for the McKinley Bassmasters, a BASS Federation club in Ohio, and husband Rick Holmes Sr. is the club president. Their oldest son, Rick Holmes Jr., 15, is also a member of the club and youngest son James, 10, won a medal at the Wooster, Ohio, CastingKids competition and advanced to the Ohio state finals.

The Navarre, Ohio, artist used to fish a lot, but she has taken a sabbatical from the sport to raise her four children. "When it became baiting more hooks than actually casting, I decided to wait until they go to college and then take up fishing again," she disclosed.

Her artwork also keeps her busy. She rates woodcarving as her best medium, but she also dabbles in sculpting clay, glass etching and painting in five different mediums.

Born and raised in North Carolina, the self-taught artist became interested in art when she was about 12 years old. She has always painted bass or trout fishing scenes as Christmas presents for her family. In the past four years, she has been working on fishing graphic designs and recently created a fishing cartoon entitled Bass Em's, which depicts the life of a bass family.

"The Bass Em's are kind of from a female point of view of fishing, so it doesn't limit the cartoon to only fishermen," described Holmes. "Anyone can read and appreciate it because it is more from an outside point of view."

Examples of the Bass Em's cartoon strip and her other artwork can be found on her Web site www.art2bseen.com. "The cartoon on the Web site just popped into my mind as a last-minute birthday present for my husband," she said.

The cartoons haven't been published yet, but Holmes plans on sending some to the Ohio BASS Federation to use for various purposes. The artist is selling her Bass Em's images on sweat shirts and T-shirts and has designed Bass Em's shirts for the McKinley Bassmasters. She is also sculpting molds for the development of Bass Em's soft plastic baits.

Her artwork and children keep her busy now, but Holmes hinted she might become more involved in a new family tradition and join the Federation some day. "I have thought about it seriously," she said.

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