Before most of us ever knew his name, Albert “OG” Medina was already grinding through the infamous City Park Bass Circuit. You know the one. Lincoln, Echo, Legg — the kind of fisheries where you earn every bite, where a good day meant leaving with your money, your gear, your catalytic converter and maybe a bass or two. If you’ve put in real work at the city ponds, you know the deal: light line, small baits, zero room for error. These days the industry calls it “BFS,” but OG was out there sniping bass with finesse tactics before companies figured out how to brand it.
Like every angler who grew up chasing trouser tr—sorry, stocker trout — soaking mealworms for bluegill, or pulling bonita off the jetties like they were yellowfin — Albert eventually felt that undeniable pull toward those squirrelly, big mouthed, green-backed fish that seemed to eat anything not big enough to eat them first. And with the help of the same old-school city-park mentors we both grew up with, his bass fishing obsession took off like a rocket. (It helped he can’t fish the salt because he gets sicker than an Offer Up mattress whenever he gets past the breakwater.) He started hitting places like Pyramid, Castaic, Perris.
Eventually, our paths converged. One cold winter day ages ago on the shorelines of Pyramid Lake, a few random buddies, a shared bite, and suddenly a new chapter started. And from there, Albert did what Albert always does: Work. Grind. Learn. Improve.
Before long, he was pounding shoreline after shoreline across Southern California — for months, seemingly years — sharpening the craft the hard way. Eventually came the upgrade: renting boats, dragging 70-pounds worth of lead batteries, and hoofing trolling motors down launch ramps at dawn like it was nothing. There was a two-year stretch at Diamond Valley where we practically had a reserved rental ready to go. No spot-lock, no forward-facing sonar. Just a tin can with leaks, a transom mount that never stayed put, and two vatos hell-bent on figuring it out.
OG caught on fast. Too fast, honestly. He’d sit in the back of the rental, dragging a Morning Dawn dropshot behind the boat at a snail’s pace — and then proceed to put on a clinic. And as his confidence grew, so did the arsenal. Out went the chafa rods and reels, and slowly the gear matched the skill. He even learned how to cast a bait caster! Sure, he still sleeps with his fairy-wand finesse rod under his pillow like a security blanket, but at this point you’ll catch him flinging anything — jigs, cranks, frogs….I even once saw him throw out a Huddleston on 8 pound test.
Then came the moment: he bought the Tracker.
And in his words: “It was ON.”
Albert will tell you he never expected to own a boat. Not even during those rental-boat years did he picture himself backing down a launch ramp with his own rig. But once it happened, the whole world opened up. If a lake had a launch ramp, it became fair game — and that’s when the real version of OG emerged. The one who took everything he learned at those gritty city park battlegrounds and applied it to bigger water, bigger challenges, and bigger opportunities.
City ponds teach you things most lakes never will: patience, finesse, pressure management, precision, how to break down tiny areas, and how to adapt instantly. OG mastered all of it. And more importantly, he never stops learning— absorbing new techniques, new tactics, new knowledge, every single time he hit the water.
So it really shouldn’t shock anyone that the beloved Tracker was soon traded in for a Nitro Z8 a few years later. It also really shouldn’t shock anyone that in his first full year fishing with the California Bass Contenders, Albert Medina walked away with Angler of the Year. If you’ve ever shared a boat, shoreline, or even talked fishing with him, you knew it was coming.
The club should be proud to call him our Angler of the Year for 2025. And everyone who knows him. including myself, is proud to call him a friend — even if he occasionally buys out all the hot baits at TackleWarehouse, steals your DD at your local pond, sometimes casts over you, rips hot ones in the truck, or tells you that they’re biting on “Brush Hawgs in the Trees” when they’re not.
Congratulations, OG.
The trophy’s yours.
It’s HOT out here for a pimp.
