In some Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia quarters, spring isn’t official because the Tidal Basin’s cherry trees burst into bloom. No, it’s noted by the steady onslaught of local and out-of-state bass fishing tournaments that are held on the tidal Potomac River, usually from such fine public facilities as the Smallwood State Park’s Sweden Point Marina in Charles County, or the Leesylvania State Park in Prince William County.
Precise answers on how Northern Virginia park officials feel about the various tournament organizations — many of them nonprofit clubs and state federations — are difficult to come by, but more than a few arrive here who are in business to make money from the public waters all of us are paying for. In Maryland the official position from the governor on down is to support anybody who is willing to come to Charles County, towing boats and trailers, as long as they’re amenable to buying fried chicken from the local KFC and Popeye’s, sandwiches from the Subway, and overpriced gasoline at the local filling station.
For Maryland’s state and county tourism departments, greasy chicken and expensive gasoline is good and the more bass tournament participants come here, the quicker our ailing economy will perk up.
Yeah, right! Not.
What is rarely mentioned, however, is that the bigger the cast-for-cash bass fishing contests are, the more they inconvenience the very people who pay for the parks, the roads and fish management (if there is any). Besides, the locals might decide stay home and eat in and that’s not helping the tourist industry.
One thing is sure, the bass contests in the D.C. area by and large are ignored by onlookers who want to see how many fish were caught and who the latest hero might be to appear on some cable TV “Bubba” fishing show that is often shown on Saturdays when one out of every four or five Americans is out fishing. (Where are the brains of those cable TV schedulers?)
A few years ago, the father of modern bass fishing tournaments and the founder of the international Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, Ray Scott, asked me how many people might attend the public weighing-in of the fish during one of his B.A.S.S. events out at Smallwood State Park. Don’t forget, this master promoter was used to seeing thousands of onlookers at some of his Southern bass contests.
“Maybe 150 to 200 people, if you’re lucky,” I told him. “But if it’s on a day when the Redskins play, it’ll be pretty much you and your staff, maybe some tournament hangers on who don’t care for football. Don’t do it on a Sunday,” I warned him.
Even on a Saturday, this modern-day P.T. Barnum couldn’t draw more than 300. It tells volumes about the Washington Metropolitan area that is home to tens of thousands of bass fishing fans.
What worries me and quite a few others about the seemingly endless string of local bass fishing contests is not that Mama’s Greasy Spoon makes an extra buck or two. No, it’s the chance that entire bass populations are relocated as they’re turned loose at a weigh-in site. Not all of them are willing to swim back from whence they came.
Add also the frequent lack of common courtesy and boating etiquette displayed by many of the participants whose boat registrations might have been made in faraway Mississippi, Missouri, New York and Michigan, to name a few. Meanwhile, you’re fishing for crappies with your wife or children. Say you’re in a narrow waterway like the Nanjemoy, a Potomac feeder creek. Despite the 25 mph speed limit in the upper creek, a couple of out-of-towners, bent on making the “cut” or earning a pay check, blow past you, ignoring speed limits and if you say anything you might get the one-finger salute, or the silly excuse, “I’m in a tournament and I only have two hours left before weigh-in.”
Another boater in the contest might even have the gall to say, “Hey, you’re in my water. That’s where I found my bass during practice. Mind moving so I can fish it?”
If you do, you’re only aiding the tons of chutzpah these guys possess.
Then there are the “live bass release” promoters of these events. Try asking them to reschedule a tournament during brutal summer heat because it’s not good for a fish to be ensconced in a livewell filled with 83-degree water. And don’t think putting a bag of ice on the fish helps. Yes, it’ll cool them down, but the moment you return the fish to the 83-degree river they came from — boom! Shock sets in because of the sudden temperature change. The answer from any of the organizers: “Can’t do it.”
Do you know why they won’t? Because a green-back dollar is more important than a green fish.
c Look for Gene Mueller’s Outdoors column Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday in The Washington Times. E-mail: gmueller@washingtontimes.com
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