{"id":119096,"date":"2026-01-11T15:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/119096\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T15:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:34:09","slug":"corpus-christi-fishing-community-rallies-around-fil-spencer-amid-cancer-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/119096\/","title":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi fishing community rallies around Fil Spencer amid cancer battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Corpus Christi\u2019s avid fishers are showing their support for Fil Spencer, a longtime fishing and kayaking guide, after he was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer, also known as Fishman, has been a well-known figure in the angler community since the 1980s, according to a <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/support-fil-spencer-kayak-guide-battling-cancer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">GoFundMe page created for him.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Over the years, Spencer has won numerous awards, including Texas Angler of the Year and National Kayak Angler of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFil, no matter who you are, he\u2019s going to make you feel like you\u2019re family,\u201d Stephen McBride told KRIS 6 News. McBride has been a friend of Spencer since the two met in 1985. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the nicest men I\u2019ve ever met. He truly is, and he just wants to teach young men how to kayak and how to fish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McBride went on to recount an experience with Spencer when his own family was experiencing a medical emergency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a child that we lost due to cystic fibrosis after a 26-year battle,\u201d McBride said. \u201cFil would take Mike out after hospital stays at Driscoll Children\u2019s Hospital, and it was nice to see the smile on his face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McBride continued, \u201cFil would hook him up, he\u2019d get on top of the water, and it took away from the hospital stays.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768145649_791_.png\" alt=\"Kayak.png\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"712\"\/><\/p>\n<p>KRIS 6 News<\/p>\n<p>Spencer has spent much of his career helping younger anglers of the Coastal Bend. He was a founder of the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/heroesonthewater.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heroes on the Water Foundation<\/a>, a group that provides recreational wellness to veterans, first responders and their families.<\/p>\n<p>Cooper Deen, a junior at Flour Bluff High School, was one of the young men who learned under Spencer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was one of the nicest men I\u2019ve ever met,\u201d Deen told KRIS 6 News. \u201cHe was very encouraging. He helped me and my friends learn how to kayak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Deen continued, \u201cHe was just a really nice man, and I loved being with him. I would love to go out there with him sometime, and I hope he just gets better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A GoFundMe page was created to help Spencer and his family cover medical expenses, including the cost of traveling to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.<\/p>\n<p>For the latest local news updates, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kristv.com\/news\/local-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">click here<\/a>, or download the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kristv.com\/about-us\/kris-6-apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">KRIS 6 News App. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Catch all the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/KRIS6News\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">KRIS 6 News stories and more on our YouTube page<\/a>. Subscribe today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Corpus Christi\u2019s avid fishers are showing their support for Fil Spencer, a longtime fishing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,52047,52048,52049,52050,52051,52052,6658,4126],"class_list":{"0":"post-119096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news","11":"tag-fil-spencer","12":"tag-fil-spencer-corpus-christi","13":"tag-fil-spencer-fishing","14":"tag-fil-spencer-gofundme","15":"tag-fil-spencer-kayaking","16":"tag-fil-spencer-kris-6","17":"tag-kris-6","18":"tag-kris-6-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}