Now cancer-free, former Viking Randy Moss is angling for his next big catch

Randy Moss is still making big catches, long after he finished playing football.

The Hall of Fame wide receiver with the second-most touchdown receptions in NFL history has found his off-the-field calling on the boat, fishing for freshwater bass.

“That’s my passion right now. That’s my hobby. That’s my getaway. That’s my therapy,” Moss said.

Mostly confined to his home for about nine months while he underwent chemotherapy and radiation to beat cancer, Moss developed a deeper appreciation for being in nature. Since his treatment was completed last fall and his rare form of the disease – in the bile duct between the pancreas and the liver – was deemed to be in remission, Moss has often had a rod and reel in his hands.

This lifelong hobby for Moss has become a third career of sorts, following his work as an NFL analyst for ESPN that he resumed with the 2025 season.

“I’m just excited to be able to showcase my talent and go out there and show people that I have something else other than football that I love,” Moss said.

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Moss was hired by World Bass Enterprises to serve as an ambassador for “The Champions” tournament this fall in Hendersonville, Tennessee, an inaugural five-day event just across the river from Nashville designed to determine a true title in a sport divided by two competing tours. WBE was founded earlier this year by Brian Bird, a Texas businessman and amateur angler who has become a fishing buddy to Moss.

In the meantime, Moss and his business partner, Andrew Grein, have been busy filming a documentary series, “ Chasing 10,” that features Moss fishing with celebrity guests in pursuit of the elusive 10-pound largemouth bass while offering tips and trading stories. He’s auctioning off a custom-made boat for each season to benefit the Children’s Cancer Research Fund in Minnesota.

“I had to take a year off to be able to get myself back right, but my health is great,” Moss said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “I still have my quarterly checkups every four months, my scans, but I just think that now that I’m back outside, this is one of the things that I couldn’t wait to see. I have the bass waiting on me, so I’m just a kid in the candy store having fun, man.”

The Champions event, which is carrying a total prize purse of $3.25 million for the largest in the history of the sport, will pay $1.25 million to the winner from a field of 50 anglers – the top 25 from each of the two biggest organizations in competitive bass fishing.

The Bass Anglers Sportsman Society – known as B.A.S.S. – runs the Bassmaster Elite Series. Major League Fishing has the newer Bass Pro Tour. For the past seven years, a bit like the PGA and LIV factions in golf, the best anglers in the world have been split between two groups. Moss is on board with Bird to try to help unite the sport and take it further into the mainstream.

“We both are trying to bring something that’s really positive to the sport of bass fishing,” said Bird, who sold his electrical construction services company three years ago and has invested his own money into the launch of the tournament. “It’s a good way for a family to spend time out in nature.”

The first batch of Chasing 10 episodes posted to YouTube recently included a spirited outing with the Kelce brothers and a reunion of fellow receivers from the Minnesota Vikings with Cris Carter and Jake Reed.

While he was out on another show with Bird on a Texas lake, Moss giddily reeled in the hallowed 10-pounder (watch the video below), comparing the anxiety he felt during the process to the moments before a football play when he knew the pass was coming his way.

Moss first learned how to cast a line while growing up in West Virginia with his older half-brother, Eric Moss, who died in 2019. Soon after Moss started his NFL career in Minnesota in 1998, he was introduced to a professional angler, the late John Laub, who taught him the sport on the St. Croix River along the Wisconsin border.

“My first actual bass experience, I caught 20!” Moss said. “John, he was glowing. That’s the man who showed me bass fishing, and I haven’t looked back since.”