Bilby with some of his collection of more than 170 fishing rods at his home in Richmondville. Photo by Chris EnglishRoy Bilby aboard one of his two large bass fishing boats at his home in Richmondville. Photo by Chris English.Roy Bilby with a big bass he caught during a recent tournament on Saratoga Lake. Photo courtesy Roy Bilby
By Chris English
RICHMONDVILLE — To hear Roy Bilby talk about fishing with such detail and passion, you would think it was the No. 1 love of his life.
Not quite.
"Third," said Bilby, 66, in a recent interview from his home in the Town of Richmondville. "I'm a Christian, so that's first. My family is second and fishing is third."
But it's clearly a solidly entrenched third, as it's obvious from even a short talk with Bilby that fishing is never too far from the forefront of his thoughts.
"My Dad (retired mason contractor Charlie Bilby) put a cane pole in my hands when I was about two years old and he had no clue he was creating a monster," Roy continued.
That one cane pole has over the years grown into a collection of more than 170 fishing rods of all types, five fishing boats (two large ones for bass fishing and three smaller ones), several sponsorships from national companies and a reputation for angling prowess that seems to grow every year.
Bilby has now won 13 bass fishing tournaments and finished in the top five 57 times out of the 240 tournaments he has entered over the last several decades. As of July 20, he had caught and released a grand total of 37,670 bass since he started keeping count in 1986.
The path to all that fishing accomplishment started at a very young age and was inspired by his father and many others. A 1977 graduate of Richmondville Central School, where he was Salutatorian of the Senior Class, Bilby remembers taking several study halls during his senior year because he didn't need that many more credits to graduate.
"When I was in study halls, all I wanted to do was learn about the outdoors, so I would read Field and Stream and a bunch of other magazines," he said.
"Before that, I remember really getting bit by the fishing bug when I was 12. I wanted to learn about different species and catch different stuff and learn how to do it. The bass thing happened when I was 15 years old and it's taken on a life of its own that I didn't expect."
That early love for fishing has grown and evolved and gotten only stronger for Bilby through work, marriage and raising two kids (daughter Renee, now 41, and son Ryan, 39) with his wife Rebecca. His fishing career has seen some dramatic turning points, one of the earliest involving renowned fisherman Rick Clunn.
"He had a 50-year tournament career and was a very intellectual fisherman," Bilby explained. "He had won a tournament in Texas and I was watching him being interviewed on this TV show about how he had won and Clunn said he knew the bass would be in the back of the creek."
Clunn, previously a computer programmer for Exxon, recorded results from 300 tournaments and what the first, second and third-place finishers did to catch their fish, Bilby continued.
"That huge database showed him patterns," he said. "In the fall, in the South, 90 percent of tournaments were won on the backs of creeks. The reason was, bass in the South feed on Shad, and Shad in the fall do a migration to the backs of creeks."
That experience from the mid 1980's inspired Bilby to go from a rather random to a much more scientific approach to fishing. He started keeping detailed, meticulous journals and made an entry every time he fished. That practice has since grown to the point where Bilby writes down the location, date, time, moon phase, air and water temperature, water clarity, barometric pressure and prevailing weather conditions for every time he fishes. He also records the number of bass caught and released and the running total.
Doing the journals led to a steady year-to-year increase in the number of bass caught and released.
Another turning point came not too long afterward in the 1990s when Bilby decided to take a three-year break from tournaments so he could improve and expand his fishing techniques. Keeping the journals was not enough, he concluded.
"I needed to get better with other techniques like crank bait, big jig and Carolina Rig, I needed to get better if I was ever going to win a tournament I decided," he said. "I needed to put more arrows in my quiver, so to speak, so I could compete better no matter the conditions. So I did that and took the time off, and then started doing tournaments again and actually won the first one I entered."
Another key for Bilby's tournament success has been testing himself in tough fishing conditions.
"I have put myself in the most negative conditions you can imagine, when fish absolutely should not bite," he noted. "Schoharie Creek, in March after a snow melt when it's four feet high out of its banks and you can't hold an anchor. The water is chocolate milk and 33 degrees. I will go out and force myself into that condition to figure out how to get them to bite when they shouldn't.
"Because, when you fish in tournaments, you don't get to pick the day or conditions. You have to learn how to catch them no matter what nature throws at you. Most of the tournaments I've won have been on those really tough days when it's hard. I like it when it's tough because I know I'm going to do well."
Through all the fishing, Bilby also had to earn a living, choices also influenced by his father. Most of his career has been comprised of 20 years with Morton Buildings (many as a crew foreman) and then 20 years as carpenter/locksmith at SUNY Cobleskill before he retired from full-time work three years ago at age 63.
"The summer between my junior and senior years in high school, I wanted a motorcycle and my Dad had always taught me if you wanted something you worked for it, no free ride," Bilby recalled. "So I worked for him that summer and got my motorcycle but decided right there and then I never wanted to work as hard as my Dad did."
He kept that vow to himself for a short time, working for Burton Windows near the SUNY Cobleskill campus for three years right out of high school.
"It was easier but it was barely above minimum wage and I wasn't getting anywhere," Bilby continued. "So I got hungry and decided if I ever wanted to make a decent living, I needed to work harder, so I went with Morton and ended up making a living working as hard as my Dad did."
Though Roy's mother Janet Bilby passed away several years ago, Charlie Bilby is still alive at age 91 and still lives in the same house on Bear Gulch Road in Richmondville where Roy grew up. It's about a mile away from Roy's place on High View Road.
His two siblings, older sister Susan and younger sister Marge, both live in California. Susan is retired while Marge still works and is the editor of three newspapers out there.
Fishing pervades so many aspects of Roy Bilby's life and always will. He has fished all over the Northeast— in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont— from small creeks and streams to large rivers and lakes like the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, Saratoga Lake and Lake Champlain, to name a few.
As his reputation grew, Bilby many years ago started doing fishing seminars all over the state.
"I've been doing seminars for about 25 years now," he said. "When I do them, I have to paint with a broad brush and remember that not everyone is a hard core bass guy. I have got to talk about general angling."
His sponsorships have also grown steadily to the point where they now include several national companies. His complete list of sponsors is: Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, Mercury Outboards, Berkley, Grapevine Farms, Iron Skillet G, MPB Plumbing & Heating, Landis Equipment and La Bella.
The sponsors provide him with equipment and professional apparel, and pay his tournament entrance fees and other expenses in exchange for advertising like Bilby wearing their names on his fishing jerseys, putting their decals on his fishing boats and making available their business cards at his fishing seminars.
His relationship with Bass Pro Shops has grown since its start eight years ago to the point where Bilby is now a regional pro staffer for the company and gives talks and fishing demonstrations at Bass Pro Shops in Utica, Auburn and Bridgeport, Conn. and also soon at the recently-opened Bass Pro Shop in Clifton Park.
While he's not naturally a Social Media guy, Bilby with the prompting of Bass Pro Shops and the help of a cousin now has an Instagram account— instagram@roybilby— that has almost 3,200 followers. A podcast started 18 months ago— "The Angler Within"-- drops a new episode roughly every two weeks and can be viewed on Spotify, Apple Music and other sites where people watch podcasts. Bilby can be reached by telephone at 518-231-7335 and by email at rabilby@yahoo.com.
"It's been kind of amazing," Bilby said of the attention his fishing achievements have drawn. "Not long ago I was at a Stewart's about 4 a.m. on my way to a tourney and this guy comes up and says 'Good luck today Bilby.' I had no idea who he was."
Bilby never eats the bass he catches but does enjoy fishing for other species he also eats, including Perch, Crappie, Bluegill and Walleye.
A few years ago, when Roy's father broke his leg, his sister Susan came out from California to help with Charlie Bilby's care for a while. Using Janet Bilby's old recipes, the family started a weekly fish fry on Mondays at Charlie Bilby's house, a tradition that continued even when Susan went back to California.
If Roy Bilby's life were a quilt, fishing would be prominent among the fibers.
"It's a passion," he said. "That's why I do well with my seminars. I get caught up in what I'm talking about because I've lived it, and I've been documenting it for 40 years. I'm talking about what I've learned in 40 years, putting it in a funnel, and what pours out is the gold I'm going to give you in the next hour. I'm here to shorten your learning curve. I have learned that I have a passion for sharing what I've learned to help people catch more fish."
The sport has given him more thrilling and enjoyable moments than he will ever be able to count.
"The difference between now and 40 years ago is that back then my approach to catching fish was random, and now random is nonexistent," said Bilby, who has lived in Richmondville for all but two years of his life.
"It never gets old, that feeling of striking on a fish," he continued. "I have a friend, my tournament partner, who says 'the tug is the drug.' It's about getting that strike."
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