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Blair feels at home on camera or on water




Dayton Blair, right, sits with co-host Brandon Dowdy, center, on the set of Southern Woods & Waters.Submitted

Dayton Blair, right, sits with co-host Brandon Dowdy, center, on the set of Southern Woods & Waters.Submitted

Mt. Juliet’s Dayton Blair went fishing before he was born.

Or at least he was along for the ride.

“My mom, Ann, went fishing in the Caney Fork River when she was about eight months pregnant with me,” says Blair, co-host of the popular Southern Woods & Waters TV show. “I was on the water when I was still in her tummy.

“And my dad, James, fished all the time, almost literally,” Blair adds. “I started going with him as soon as I could totter around.”

Dayton, in contrast to his dad, manages to fish “only” about 150 days a year.

“I go every chance I get, and I never get tired of it,” says Blair, a 1990 graduate of Mt. Juliet High who earned his degree in computer science at Tennessee Tech.

“If I’m not fishing, I’m usually getting ready to go fishing or talking about fishing on the show.”

Blair joined Hugh McNaughten and Doug Markham on an outdoors radio show in 1998 and later co-hosted the TV show with the late McNaughten. Lebanon’s Brandon Dowdy joined Blair as a co-host, and the two have built a large following across Middle Tennessee.

Dayton Blair

Dayton Blair

The show airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m. on NewsChannel 5+, with encores. Check the show’s website for programming details.

In addition to co-hosting the outdoors TV show, Blair also guides, does Tennessee Wildcast fishing videos and is an avid tournament fisherman.

“When I was a kid, my dad and I started tournament fishing and did really well,” Blair says. “We’d fish a tournament on the weekend, and on Monday I’d go to school with money in my pocket.”

At 16, Blair starting guiding on Percy Priest and became an authority on every species in the lake: largemouth and smallmouth bass, crappie, hybrids, white bass, bluegills and catfish. His fishing buddies included country music stars Porter Waggoner and Jerry Reed, along with his brother Jimbo.

Blair is a noted walleye and sauger fisherman (the subject of one of his Wildcast videos), specializing in wintertime sauger fishing in the Cumberland and Tennessee River tailwaters and tributaries.

“You name it, and I fish for it,” Blair says.

His favorite species:

“Whatever has gills and fins,” he says with a laugh. “If it swims, I like to fish for it. Crappie and sauger are my favorite eating fish.”

Blair and wife Robin have four youngsters: Dayton Jr., Daisy, Delaney and Deacon — who is on his high school fishing team and already a talented angler.

Robin is also at home in a fishing boat or on a river bank.

“She’s a good fisherman,” Blair says. “She’s into it just like I am. We make a pretty good team.”

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