“AY!” You’re doomscrolling Instagram, unable to sleep. It’s 4 a.m. It was a tough day at the office, the kids kept you up, and the wife’s snoring next to you. Suddenly, ping! “Wetzel is live.” You know the sound. That familiar bellow breaks the static of your brain, and you settle in for the nightly rant.
Within seconds, you know if Bill caught fish. Tired and grounded? Probably a decent night in the surf. Fired up about pine beetles or someone wearing gloves? Montauk likely smelled like skunk. The rants aren’t for your entertainment or even for you. They’re Bill’s decompression … his lifeline. They’re how he stays awake on the drive home after another graveyard shift guiding on the planet’s most intense surfcasting terrain. He then clocks in a few hours later and keeps his family’s engine running.
The Grind Behind the Glory
Whether you’re new to fishing or a seasoned vet, we all pride ourselves on “the grind.” The sleepless nights. Bad food. Endless drives. The glue that bonds us to the sport is often pain. Grit. Endurance.
I’ll be straight with you. Fishing with Wetzel has left me more humbled than any other experience in my life.
I first got to know Bill in his home state of Ohio while working with the East Coast Lumberjacks. His son, young legend Cole, was playing. I had just come off a Long Island double-header, drove through the night across the Midwest, and landed in Loveland before sunrise. At noon, Bill was already into an IPA.
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We started talking fishing. He asked if I wanted to try to catch a catfish in front of Great American Ballpark that evening. I said, “Bill, I haven’t slept in 36 hours, man.” He chuckled and asked how old I was. So we went, and we skunked all night.
We sat there at 2 a.m., perched on the bulkhead with gas station bait and a two-piece spinning rod. Behind us, the glow of Great American Ballpark lit up the Cincinnati skyline, an iconic American backdrop to a shot-in-the-dark mission. The rod was junk, the bait was worse, but it didn’t matter. The buzz of the city, the silence of the water, the chance that something might hit … that was enough.
It was perfect. We had no chance. Both of us probably knew that, but the excitement in Bill’s voice, his full-hearted belief in possibility, reminded me of what it felt like to fish as a kid. That Angels in the Outfield “It Could Happen!” magic. And then it hit me. How does this guy, this father, this full-time worker, guide five nights a week and still love fishing like it’s his first cast?
Ohio Roots, New York Edges
Bill grew up in Ohio jugging for catfish and catching panfish on light line. He moved to New York City as a kid with his mom and stepfather. His stepdad, an expert marksman, joined the NYPD’s Stakeout Unit in the 1970s, tracking mobsters. That intensity runs in the family.
The past shaped him, sure, but Bill doesn’t live in nostalgia. He lives in motion. Always looking forward. Always fishing the conditions in front of him.
But here’s the part that’ll break your brain—fishing is not Bill’s only job.
By day, he works with severely mentally ill patients. Not just in a clinical sense. He deals in the kind of darkness most people spend their lives avoiding. Then, after a shift spent helping people hang on to what little they’ve got left, he heads to the rocks to chase bass.
Somehow, he still shows up with energy, with gratitude, with love for the process. The extremes don’t cancel each other out; they charge each other.
Bill hates excuses. Hates complaining. He’s smart, and at the same time, deeply simple. Not in intellect—he’s sharp as hell—but in focus. There’s no distraction. Just the wind, the tide, and the moon phase.
He’s a darn good fisherman. But that’s not what sets him apart. What separates Bill is what can’t be taught. The mindset. The sacrifice. The presence. The decision to just show up.
No matter the conditions, no matter the night. He’s there.
Montauk Nights and the Tesla Problem
Fishing with Bill out east is a different beast.
Our first night was a bust. One schoolie between us. That pattern held through several outings. My lack of success wasn’t just the bite—it was me. I couldn’t keep a line out. I couldn’t keep up.
Bill’s nearing 60. I’m 28. I’ve fished some rugged coastlines, but the Montauk night surf? That’s not terrain. That’s commitment. That’s consequence. The wrong step doesn’t mean a wet sock. It means a cracked rib.
Watching him move across the boulders was like watching a well-worn, off-road truck. Beat up on the surface, but as long as you keep turning the engine over, it runs smooth and sure. I moved more like a Tesla. Sleek. Powered up, but not built for the rocks. I spent more time trying to stay upright in the swells than actually working my plug. “This is light work!” Bill shouted. He meant it.
Long Nights and Lost Giants
Not long after I started this piece, Eric Guarino, my partner in Uncle Larry Outdoors, and I joined Bill out in Montauk with the cameras rolling. We were filming and chasing a bite we felt had to be coming. The fishing was slow, but we stuck it out, working bucktails through thigh-deep water in the dark, hoping to make something happen. It finally did. Eric and I doubled up, our first bucktail bass from the surf. Splashing around, dunking our waders in three-foot waves, trying to land our fish while laughing like idiots. We joked with Bill that it was Chapter 8 of Fishing the Bucktail—John Skinner had helped us. Bill rolled his eyes.
After that, the camera went away, and it was just fishing. Bill and I kept grinding, exploring, trading spots, trading stories. I started covering for cancelled guide trips on call like a volunteer fireman for striped bass. Always half-alert, waiting for the phone to buzz.
And we got skunked. Over and over.
The Turn of the Tides
Bill says it’s the worst state of the surf fishery he’s seen in his life. He’s not the kind of guy to complain, but it’s bleak out there. Still, I tried to bring fresh eyes. It reminded me of moving to Florida and hearing how a red tide had gutted the inshore bite. Locals said it was shot, but I didn’t know any better, so I explored. I hoped. I found fish. I brought that same energy back to Long Island.
One night, Bill and I fished until the sky started hinting at morning. The spot reminded me of a Tampa back-bay spit I used to dissect with soft plastics until Kai Richards showed me how to work a micro spook at first light for big snook. I did the same here. Florida Fishing Products reel. Same cadence. Same hope. And, boom, a massive blowup. Big enough that I leaned into it with no hookset, afraid to blow up my inshore setup. I should’ve hit it. That hesitation cost me what was probably the best shot of the season.
A few nights later, we went all in. Graveyard shift stuff. Wind, rain, miles of hiking, blown-down trees, ticks, warm Red Bull for dinner. Not a bite. We kept pushing, finally moving off the rocks into the back bays. I was fishing hard. Bill tied on a micro darter for me. I watched him catch a blue. He was pissed. “Waste of time,” he said. I thought it was great. But something shifted.
You could feel it in the tide, the pressure, the temperature. A weight in the air. One of those moments when you know it’s going to happen. Not hope—you know. It’s like a premonition. A weird crossing of the tangible and the mystical. That’s part of what makes surfcasting at night so special. You can’t prove it, but you can feel it. Sometimes, that’s enough.
That bottled-up desperation, all the hours, all the faith, the bad weather, the empty casts, it all boiled into one clean strike. Not a giant, but my best bass of the season. I horsed it in, laughing. Bill snapped a few quick photos. Good enough. The release came first, as it always does with him. I chuckled, thinking about the generational gap. How many of Bill Wetzl’s biggest fish have only ever existed in his memory?
Why He Does It
At some point, I had to ask him: How? And why?
He didn’t answer right away. Said he had to think on it.
Later that night, my phone rang. It might’ve been after another Instagram live rant. Maybe after pulling off behind the Shinnecock Canal for a quick nap before heading home.
He said:
“Since I was four years old, I felt like everything was gonna be over soon. Saw grandparents die. Saw a lot of death as a kid. There’s just … a lot to do.
“For me, I need six hundred years to live. We don’t have enough time to figure shit out. I feel like that’s about the right amount of time to figure it out. Maybe we’re not meant to figure it out.”
I didn’t write this to share Bill’s spots and I’m not here to tell you what plugs he throws or tides he fishes. I wrote this because there’s something more important than technique. Something harder to explain.
Bill Wetzel is a guy who made fishing his job. Not because it pays the bills, but because it feeds his soul. So many of us feel that pull. The obsession. The addiction. Bill just decided not to fight it. He folded it into his life, his work, his family. That’s the magic. That’s the lesson. No secrets. No shortcuts. Just show up.
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