Photo by Milton Morris
Anastasia Patterson
Age: 27
Hometown: Sumter
Claim to fame: She’s one of the top up-and-coming female anglers in the U.S. and was featured on the cover of Bassmaster Magazine.
Founding member: She helped start the fishing team at Presbyterian College in Clinton and soon after won a college tournament. “That’s when I saw that this wasn’t just a dream, but something I could do for the rest of my life.”
Biggest catch: A 12-plus-pound bass that she pulled from a lake in Florida.
Not just fishing: When she’s not competing in up to 60 tournaments a year, Patterson works as a wedding and event planner and works at a jewelry store. “You make every minute of every day count,” she says.
Co-op connection: She and her family are members of Black River Electric Cooperative.
Anastasia Patterson’s happy place is on the water, especially during one of those early-autumn, cotton candy sunsets on Lake Marion with a jig hugging a water-logged cypress, waiting for a bigmouth bass to strike.
“I really don’t know myself without fishing,” says the Sumter native whose Southern drawl is as smooth as one of her casts. “If I didn’t have fishing, I’m not sure what I’d be doing, other than a whole lot of hunting. From a young age, I was out on the water. My first love was not a boy. It was fishing.”
Patterson got that love of fishing from her father, Wendell, an avid outdoorsman who would bring her along on duck hunts and put her in a deer stand. Her confidence comes from her mother, Patty Jaye, who was the first black woman to serve as the City of Sumter’s chief of police, a position she held for 10 years.
For many of her first 19 years, Patterson balanced being “just one of the boys” with competing in beauty pageants.
“One time, I killed a deer in the morning and then had to go straight into hair and makeup,” she recalls. “My dad is like, ‘If you kill it, you have to clean it.’ He had the deer hanging for me in the freezer when I got home from the pageant.”
Patterson is not afraid to step out of her comfort zone and compete in a male-dominated sport.
“It’s intimidating a little bit at times,” Patterson says. “But just because you don’t see people like you doing it or too many women doing it, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. Don’t let the voices of other people stop you from your full potential. You may be just one day away from your one big thing.”
It’s her goal to compete at the highest level—Bassmaster’s Elite competition—but she’s also fine with wherever the Lord takes her in life.
“I just really enjoy fishing,” she says. “Ten years from now? I really don’t know. Ten years ago, I didn’t think my life would be where it is right now.”