This weekend I’ll cover my 5th Bassmaster Classic. I’ve been fortunate to spend some great days on the water in the Classic. This Friday, I’ll ride with Jeremy Starks–West Virginia’s own pro who’ll compete in his first Classic.
If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’ll be tweeting updates and pictures of what he’s doing on Grand Lake of the Cherokees in Oklahoma. You can follow me @WVOutdoors and if you’re not a Twitter user, the tweets pop up on this web page over on the right hand side.
The first Classic I covered was the 1998 Classic on High Rock Lake in North Carolina. The weigh-in was held at the Greensboro Colisieum. One of my vivid memories of the event was disappointment becuase it was the first Classic the legendary Ray Scott was not the emcee. He had recently sold his B.A.S.s. empire and his contract to host the annual championship had not been renewed. I did get a chance to meet Ray, but it was easy to see he was disappointed to not be on the stage weighing fish.
The other memorable part of the ’98 Classic was riding on the first day with a young guy from California fishing his first Classic. It was the first year western anglers could qualify. If you follow bass fishing, you know him well as Skeet Reese. He made a splash when he did some techno dancing on stage during the weigh-in.
I returned to the Bassmaster Classic in 1999 the first year it went to New Orleans. The weigh-in was held in the Louisiana Superdome and the Louisiana Delta was the venue. The Delta is huge. It was my first experience with brackish water. I spent one day on the water with past Classic Champion Mark Davis. Davis was having a rough year in a bout with carpal tunnel which hindered his ability to fish effectively. I remember it was breathtakingly hot and humid. I sat in the hot Louisiana sun and went to sleep as he fished. I awoke to Davis telling me I was about to lose some toes. I had let my foot hanging over the side of the boat and an alligator was less than a foot away eyeing up my Nike. Davis got a good laugh out of it. I was just happy to have five-piggies left on that foot.
Another day of the 1999 event I rode with a guy from Alabama. I cannot remember his name, but he was hysterical and was close friends with Gerald Swindle. My partner and Swindle were teaming together. We took a three and a half hour boat ride one way. We wove our way past islands, canals, boat docks and all manner of swamp. We stopped both going and coming back to get gas at a bayou bait shop. We went out into the Gulf of Mexico on the odessey and raced with dolphins on our way to their selected spot.
When we arrived, the guys only had an hour and a half to fish before we had to leave. They were fishing a series of canals dug by the oil industry in a grid pattern. Each canal intersection offered four points and my partner would fly past a half dozen to pull up on one specific point. He’d make a couple of casts and catch a bass. Once in the livewell he would high tail to the next spot and catch another. He had a limit of five bass in 10 minutes and spent the rest of the time trying to up-size his creel. He culled four fish before we left for another bruising three hour ride home. It was one of the most impressive displays of confidence and fishing ability I have ever seen.
I covered the 2000 Classic on Lake Michigan in Chicago. The weigh-in was staged at historic Soldier Field. Charelston’s Russ Smarr qualified to fish in the event. The wind was brutal on the great lake, so much so, the second day of the tournament we had to put in at an alternate ramp in Alsop, Illinois on the south side of Chicago. I remember feeling uneasy about not having a .45 in the boat in some the areas where Russ was fishing.
Another day in the 2000 Classic I was riding with a guy from Florida. We were fishing in downtown Chicago amid the skyscrapers. You’ve probably seen the bridges on TV many times and also if you saw the movie The Blues Brothers. While fishing I looked around and noticed there was cash falling in the water from above. A woman on the bridge above accidentally dropped a handful of money and was in a panic. I learned once saturated, US Currency will sink. We fished out more than 200 dollars, but I bet we couldn’t get to that much more which now sits at the bottom of the Chicago River. Classic rules say an angler cannot leave the boat, so I climbed a ladder up the side of the bridge and returned what we had collected of the lady’s money. She was grateful to have gotten any of it back.
One other memory from the Chicago Classic was getting the chance to interview one of my lifelong heroes, Bill Dance. I met him the night before in the hotel restaurant. He told me to stop by and see him the next day. When I arrived he was signing autographs in his booth and the line waiting to meet him was as far as the eye could seek. He saw me, asked the next person to hang on, and proceeded to talk to me for ten-minutes or more. I’ll never forget his courtesy and also never forget he stayed extra to make sure everybody got an autograph.
The last Classic I covered was in 2005 when the Superbowl of bass fishing came to Pittsburgh. In only rode one day in that year and I chose Alabama’s Gerald Swindle. We started off fishing the banks directly in front of Heinz Field. He was waiting for everybody to clear out and then made his move. We hit spots up the Monongahela River for several miles. It was tough fishing and he was desperately seeking current. He finally found a spot almost in front of Kennywood at West Mifflin where two submerged rocks were spaced about a foot apart. Between those rocks was a sheet of rusty steel. Swindle cast into the spot a dozen times and finished out his limit in about 10-minutes. He kept pounding the spot, but never managed to up-size his day one total. He was in the top 10 on the first day. Kevin Van Dam would eventually win the Classic in Pittsburgh and it was the last time it would be held in the summer.
Jeremy Starks will be the first professional angler from West Virginia to fish in the Classic. The first West Virginian to qualify is Frank Haught from Lumberport. He qualified through the amateur ranks of the B.A.S.S. Federation and fished the 1989 Classic on the James River. It’s the Classic more commonly known as the one Jim Bitter lost rather than Hank Parker won. Bitter had the winning fish in his boat, held it up for a picture, and it slipped from his hands and back into the water. He never caught another fish.
Smarr qualified for the 2000 Classic through the ranks of the Federation as well. Woo Daves was the champion that year. He managed to fish outside the break wall of the Chicago Harbor in gale force winds. The death defying feat for three days earned him enough smallmouth to win.