Biography:

Having been raised in a small town in Tennessee and surrounded by the influence of a family of fishermen, a life of fishing was destined to permeate his very existence. The biggest contributors to this passion were his grandfather and father. Thadeus s' blood runs red with fishing. He spent many days with his father and brother motoring around the muddy Hatchie River waters jumping stumps and dragging their 14 ft Jon boat over slough runs to get to the best honey holes. His father taught him how to fish for catfish, bluegill, and crappy in those sloughs. His grandfather only reinforced these skills by taking him to the local lake where they would walk for what seemed like miles tracking through mud in green rubber knee boots to that perfect spot where they would pull out fish after fish on telescopic rods.

The bass fishing side of fishing came mostly from friends and extended family members and most of all Bill Dance's TV show which gave him the basic techniques to try out in the local lakes ponds and rivers that he was all so familiar with. When he was eleven years old, the first artificial lure he ever cast in the water was a three inch floating rapala jerk bait. His first bass erupted from the surface of the water to engulf that bait and from that moment forward, his life was changed forever!! He was hooked!!

He'd been chasing the dream of making a living fishing his whole life. The question was how he would pay for his dream until his dream pays him back? The simplest answer was to use his striking good looks, of course. A small modeling agency in Nashville introduced him to a NY agency. An eighteen year old country boy from a small town makes it big as a fashion model in NYC. What a crazy combination right! His first photo shoot was for Versace! He went on to do other campaigns such as Armani, Armani Exchange, Abercrombie, and Levi's. He travel to many different countries for work as a model but fishing never left his mind, in fact, most of the time he traveled with a collapsible bass rod and reel. One of the most interesting and influential places of travel was Japan. On one of his catalog jobs he worked at a house overlooking Lake Kawaguchi near Mount Fuji. As he walked along the beach of the lake with this beautiful model who was his pretend wife for the day, he noticed a Japanese man casting a large Zara Spook like bait and working it in about four inches of water on a bright, hot sunny day. So he looks over at the girl and says in a cocky and a little too loud of a voice " that guys not going to catch anything with that" and to the astonishment of both of them the man looks back at them and says "I'm practicing". Being very surprised that the man spoke English, Thadeus apologized promptly for the rude comment. It was lucky for him he did say something towards the man because the very nice Japanese invited him to fish from his Ranger boat on Lake Kawaguchi. That started a wonderful long friendship which resulted in Thadeus spending lots of time on lakes in Japan learning how to fish finesse, Japanese style.

After about 10 years of traveling as a model, Thadeus decided Miami would be the ideal location to live where he can work as a model and pursue his dream of becoming a professional bass fisherman. He has resided in Miami since 2002, and is a licensed Captain and bass fishing guide in the Everglades and owns Glades Bassin guide service. He fishes about 200 days a year and has placed in more than 20 bass tournaments since 2007. He works for Bass Pro Shops catching fish and modeling for their catalog photo shoots and has been featured in numerous articles about fishing in newspapers and magazines.