If you’ve been a member of the MONSTERBASS family for any amount of time, you’ve likely read or watched something from the duo that comprised Burly Fishing. Well these two content creators, Jeff Burly and Paul Glass, have done a little rebranding and are now known as Aggressively Average Angler.

We sat down with Jeff and Paul to learn a little more about their story, how they met, what got them into fishing and filming together and what the plan is for their newly named YouTube channel and platform.

Before we get too far into the weeds with the name change, let’s flash back to the beginning.

How Jeff and Paul met "Jeff and I played rugby together in college,” said Paul. “I was actually in Jeff’s wedding when he got married. It was back in 2009 or 2010 when we met, so we’ve known each other for quite a while.”

Though Paul and Jeff were good friends through college, life has a way of putting distance between buddies. Both guys moved off after school, Jeff to Virginia and Paul to Minneapolis.

“I started fishing right out of college,” Paul said. “I was doing it all the time. I was a big creek fisherman, that was my big thing and what I loved to do. But then I bought a kayak. And I was all about it.”

After a few years apart, the two both made their way back to their home state of Michigan, and in time reconnected.

“When I came back, I had a lake by my house,” said Jeff. “And I was like, ‘Hey Paul, I’ve got this lake by my house that for sure has fish in it.’”

“I drove about two hours or so out to where he was,” said Paul. “And we fished a lake by his house and we absolutely slayed some bluegill.”

“That day I think we caught 35 bluegill,” said Jeff. “We didn’t keep all of them but we kept as many as we could. Then we went back to my place, filleted them up, fried them up and ate them up.”

That initial trip was all it took. The two had reconnected and began fishing together on a near weekly basis for the next four years.

“Between that 2015 trip and 2019, I started getting really into fishing,” said Jeff. “I started leveling up my gear and started by buying stuff off of Facebook marketplace as cheap as I could. And then started getting stuff here and there for birthdays, Christmas, splurge expenditures, whatever I could and just started really building that arsenal up.”

How Burly Fishing began

As Jeff got more and more into fishing, he started posting pics of his catches on social media. This was quite bewildering to his work buddies and other friends who didn’t fish.

“I was just having fun,” said Jeff. “And then eventually my work friends started egging me on to do content about it. Like start a channel and you could easily grow this into something. And I had never even considered it."

Thus, the Burly Fishing channel was born. For the next couple of years, Jeff leaned heavily on his buddy Paul’s fishing acumen as he tried to learn his way into fishing while also creating content.

“Paul knew more than I did about fishing at the time. I’ve quickly caught up to him luckily, but he was the know how for me then. So I would go to him and ask, ‘Well what do you think I should do? Should I do a video on this or do a video on that?' And eventually I started dragging him into videos with me.”

This led to Paul and Jeff fishing together more and more. Jeff would take his GoPro out and film the trips. And then one day he urged Paul to get his own GoPro, and then the two could both film and add another angle to the content. By 2021, Paul had become a staple on the Burly Fishing channel.

The transition to Aggressively Average Angler

So what started as a few photos posted to social media in 2015, turned into a full-blown YouTube channel by 2019. And then in 2020, the two added a podcast to the mix. 

“In June of ’22 we reset the podcast,” said Jeff. “We decided to do a channel more framed around learning how to do stuff we don’t know. Cause we’re not experts. We’ve never tried to position ourselves as experts. But what we do well is we learn.”

There’s no false bravado among Paul and Jeff. They identify themselves as  just a couple of guys who like to fish. But some people put anglers on social media on a pedestal, and think they are something that they are not. Some content creators relish in this, but if felt misleading to Paul and Jeff to buy into that.

“We like to stay in our lane,” said Paul. “I like to let people know that I’m not a pro, I’m just a dude. We do a lot of learning on our channel. That’s what it’s really all about.”

As the two got more and more into fishing and filming together, and the channel and podcast became more of a shared enterprise, both anglers knew a name change was in order.

“Then in 2022, we really dove in,” said Jeff. “We made a partnership. So this is a business now. What was Burley Fishing, now it’s Aggressively Average Angler.”

The name of the newly rebranded channel was very intentional, pulling from their desire to be upfront and transparent about their skill level when it comes to bass fishing as a whole.

“We’re like hey, let’s just call it Aggressively Average Angler,” said Paul. “And let’s set out on a mission to learn everything in fishing. Just to get good. That’s been part of the journey behind the scenes, so we just made it the forefront of the channel.”

The aim moving forward

As anglers who came to fishing a little later in life, introducing others to the sport they both love is important to Jeff and Paul. That can be a little tough at times, with the financial hurdles that many perceive to exist when considering getting into fishing.

“You get into this exclusive mindset of, ‘Oh well if you don’t have a boat, you’re not a fisherman,’” said Paul. “Well no, bank anglers are fisherman too. ‘Well if you only fish five times a year, you’re not a fisherman.’ Nope, there are people who fish a lot less than me that are better than me.”

Paul and Jeff both want to debunk these stigmas around fishing, effectively breaking down barriers that keep potential new anglers from giving it a shot. And they want to use their channel to do it.

"We’re going to make some videos that are 101s. They’re geared towards somebody who doesn’t know a lot, or sometimes they’re geared towards us, where we’re learning something new and we’re just acknowledging, ‘Hey, it’s the first time we’ve ever done it.’”

“We have a roulette wheel of things we’re not great at,” said Jeff. “Which is really a lot in fishing. So we pretty much pick a technique, we do research on it and we call up an expert and we’ll just bring somebody in to teach us about it.”

This is one aspect of the channel, and the main focus of the entire brand of Aggressively Average Angler. But then there is the complimentary side as well, where the two do share tips on techniques that they have become proficient at over the years.

“That’s kind of the cadence of our content going forward,” said Jeff. “We’re trying to add value that has a broader reach to more anglers and hopefully has a positive impact on as many people as possible.”