Fishing tournaments lose luster with sheer numbers

There was a time not so long ago when professional bass fishingtournaments were only held 8 to 10 times a year.

Back then, with fishing fans around the world so anxious for thenext stop, every event seemed really special - and at the end of theseason a lot of fans could tell you off the top of their heads whichangler had won all of them.

Not so anymore.

The sport has grown so much these days that tournaments happenbasically every weekend for months at a time. Certain weekendsfeature two or three at the same time on venues several hundredmiles away from one another.

Instead of the Bassmaster Tournament Trail monopolizing all ofthe fishing fans around the world, now you have the FLW Opens andFLW Majors, the EverStart Series, a ton of BFL events every year anda greatly expanded schedule from B.A.S.S.

It's nice in a way, having something to read about and follow ona more regular basis. But I can't help but wonder if the saturationhas taken something away from the sport.

I'm a college football nut - and one of the reasons I feel sopassionately about those autumn Saturdays is because you only get 12-15 a year.

Boxing is even stingier with its greatest events, reserving mostof them for high-dollar pay-per-view television. That stinks forthose of us who truly enjoy the sport, but it makes every main eventfeel like a true main event.

What if college football was played year round? You'd probablystill follow it, but I doubt you'd clear off every single collegefootball Saturday on your calendar the way many fans do now in thefall.

What if boxing had a Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis matchup every week?Or a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather?

Again, you'd still follow it. But I doubt you'd be willing toplunk down $49.95 every weekend to see a fight.

Along those same lines, think fast: Without using the Internet,tell me who won the last Bassmaster Classic. It was Kevin VanDam -one of the all-time greats of the sport and a truly super guy.

He won for the fourth time in his career. But when I startedwriting this column, I had to do the very thing I just asked you notto do - use the Internet to jog my memory.

I grew up as a fan of professional bass fishing, and I remember atime when the Classic winner was the equivalent of a Super Bowlchampion in the minds of most fishing enthusiasts. But these days,with the event held in February instead of August, it seems likejust another tournament in a lot of ways.

I don't mean any disrespect to the sport or to the modern-dayClassic winners. Despite efforts by tournament organizers to makefishing louder and more obnoxious for TV's sake, it's still one ofthe purest sports in the world with some of the greatest peopleyou'll ever meet.

But as a purist - a guy who remembers when every tournament was atrue event - I can't help but miss the days when tournament weekendswere truly special.

Now with so many bass tournaments being held, along with high-dollar events for redfish, crappie, catfish and walleye, the bassingweekends sort of run together.

That's the price of progress, I suppose.

I'm just glad I knew the sport before it got a little too big forits britches.

To reach reporter Bryan Brasher, call 529-2343; e-mail:brasher@commercialappeal.com.