31-year-old Terry Gibson is a third-generation native Floridian, from West Palm Beach. Both his parents are avid fly anglers and bird hunters. They brought up Terry and his sister, Anne to know, love and protect the wild places remaining in Florida. As youths, they spent lots happy hours casting flies and lures on waters such as Fisheating Creek, the Loxahatchee River and the Everglades backcountry. He learned bluewater techniques fishing in the “Ocean River,” which flows against his home beach, in Lake Worth. Terry and Anne also grew up chest-deep in Lake Okeechobee shooting ducks, clucking at turkeys in oak hammocks, and chasing English pointers across pine flats. The pair still jokes about having, “bird dogs for siblings.”
Terry spent his high school summers working at Wilderness Experience fish camp, on Alaska’s Aniak River. There, wild salmon, trout, char and grayling schooled him in coldwater fly fishing. He discovered more coldwater adventures while attending the University of the South, Sewanee, in Tennessee, where he majored in English. There, smallmouth bass provided the action.
After college, Terry came back to his roots to teach high school English at Glades Day School, in Belle Glade, Florida. That was for him a profound but infinitely fun experience. He especially enjoyed all the time he got to spend on the Lake fishing and hunting with his students and their parents.
While teaching at Glades Day, Terry, a lifelong surfer, began writing for Surfer magazine, accepting summertime assignments throughout Central America. He says his lifelong goal was to write for Surfer and Florida Sportsman. And two years later, after a stint in South Dakota as a bird-hunting guide, Terry accepted his first FS assignment—a conservation piece about development scheme on a spoil island that would have opened hundreds of other spoil islands to development around the state had it not been defeated.
As a freelance photojournalist, Terry got to fish/hunt/surf in 14 countries and 21 states. In October of 2004 Terry came onboard as Managing Editor of Shallow Water Angler and Assistant Editor of Florida Sportsman.
In his free time, Terry is an active member of the Surfrider Foundation and Delta Waterfowl. He reads a lot, but prefers to fish, hunt and surf. Maybe that seems myopic, but he can’t get enough of the outdoors.
