ESPN on ESPN

World's Greatest Fishing Show Airs each Saturday January thru March at 8:30 a.m.

We love our guests on WGFS. Some are experts, some are bass pros, some are fishing legends and some are just Zona's fishing pals… occasionally we get one that's all of the above. Over the course of the first three seasons we have been fortunate enough to shoot with an amazing collection of fishermen and I want to thank them all for putting up with Z and the crew.

If you think about it… it takes courage to jump in a boat with a bunch of cameras taping every second of your fishing day. We don't give these guys a safety net, any bad cast or hook set is fair game for TV. Then we throw on a microphone and expect them to start spouting off fishing knowledge while getting excited about every little fish that is pulled in the boat. They do this knowing the whole time that the odds are pretty good that the show is going to have some fun at their expense. Zona is a master at getting guests to loosen up and misbehave.

If WGFS had a guest "Hall of Fame" Jeff Kriet would be the very first inductee. Last season he and Zona fished on Choke Canyon where Jeff landed the biggest bass caught on WGFS… but that's not what people remember. According to Jeff, everyone he meets wants to look in his truck to see how trashed it is after Zona exposed the dirty truth…. and then they scream PEEK-A-BOO!

Jeff is a producer's dream guest; he is willing to do anything for the show. In simple terms, he get's it. When we asked Jeff to come to Falcon this year he was all in… in fact maybe a little too much. He and Zona started taking about what they could do on the show. A normal person would expect them to be talking strategy about location, patterns and lure selection… not these guys. I soon got a call from Z that went something like this:

Zona — "Hey man you got a second?"

Me — "Yeah what's up?"

Zona — "Grab a pen I need you to write this down"

Me — "Go ahead"

Zona — "Kriet and I just worked up the open for the show. I need you to get a donkey and wrestling mask"

Me — "A what?"

Zona — "A donkey and wrestling mask… don't you see it. I'll open the show in a sombrero, and get me one of those Clint Eastwood cape things… I'll be pulling the donkey and Jeff's going to ride it wearing a wrestling mask"

Of course I loved it! Although I admit it was a little awkward calling the Zapata Chamber of Commerce expressing an interest in acquiring a donkey and a wrestling mask… but when a guest like Kriet makes a request you do everything you can to oblige. I wish I could tell you that everything went off as planned, but that's not the way this show ever seems to work.

I sincerely apologize if I let you down Jeff… but at least that piñata thing was interesting.