Here is an article about Virgil that was written in the Kansas City Star:
Sport loses a legend, Virgil Ward
When I heard that Virgil Ward had passed away last week, it sent me on a nostalgic trip — back to the first time I shared a boat with the fishing legend from Missouri.
The sad news transported me back to the early 1980s, a sunny spring day when life couldn't have been better.
To someone who had fished for most of his life, I looked at getting a chance to be in the same boat with Ward the same way as some would view getting to play catch with Mickey Mantle.
Long before I came to Kansas City, I had watched Ward on his nationally syndicated “Championship Fishing” television show. And like many, I was hooked.
I looked forward to tuning in each week and seeing the mild-mannered Ward take me and other viewers on a fishing adventure to some exotic location I knew I would never see other than on television.
It was like hopping into a vehicle or a plane with your grandpa and going fishing.
Ward wasn't flashy like other TV show hosts such as Bill Dance or Roland Martin. And he didn't produce the laughs that Jimmy Houston or others did.
Still, it was hard not to like Ward and his soft-spoken mannerisms. To me, he seemed like fishing's version of the perfect gentleman. And when I got out with him that first time, I discovered that it wasn't an act.
He greeted me with a warm smile and a tour of his place in the country near Amsterdam, Mo.
When I had called him the day before, requesting a day on the water so that I could do a feature article on him, he understated, “I have a little pond out back where we could go.”
Well, that “little pond” was a fishing paradise. I could tell that when I first laid eyes on it.
It had about everything a fish could want. It was loaded with flooded timber and brush. It also had weeds and lily pads, rocks and stumps. And plenty of big fish.
We started catching those fish — bass and crappies — almost immediately as the camera rolled. Then came one of those signature moments that Ward and I reminisced about for years.
As I reeled in a half-pound crappie and let it splash around a bit, I looked down in the water and saw a shadow approaching. Then I watched as one of the biggest bass I have ever seen rose and inhaled that crappie like it was a minnow.
So I opened the bail on my reel and let the big bass descend, with the crappie and jig in its mouth. I counted to 10, then set the hook.
But when I did, the only thing I reeled in was the mangled crappie.
Ward immediately turned to the cameraman and said, “Did you get that?” And the cameraman smiled and said, “Every bit of it.”
Later, we went to his studio and played it back. Ward was as excited as a kid, eager to put the show on the air.
But that's not all I remember about that day. I also remember how he would insist on letting me have the first cast and how he maneuvered the boat so that I would always be in position to cast to the best cover.
Ward might have been competitive by nature, but he didn't show it that day. He was the perfect host. The perfect gentleman.
We started a friendship that day, one that lasted for years. We got together regularly for fishing trips, everywhere from western Missouri to the Ozarks.
Yeah, those were good times.
Virgil never sat in the boat and boasted about his accomplishments. But he certainly could have.
His “Championship Fishing” show, which started in 1964 and lasted 27 seasons, was seen on more than 300 stations across the nation. He also was a pioneer in the lure business, inventing, among others, the Beetle Spin that went on to become one of the all-time most popular baits.
Fishing lost a good man when he died of cancer at the age of 93 on Monday. I, like many, will miss him.
But his legacy will live on.
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