Susan Scott, wife of B.A.S.S. founder Ray Scott, called recently to alert us to the 40th anniversary of a Field & Stream article that was of great benefit to B.A.S.S. when the organization was just 5 years old. Titled "The Bass Boys" and subtitled "Old Mr. Bigmouth is the quarry that has triggered a Southern fishing revolution", it portrayed competitive fishing in a positive light at a time when many – including a lot of prominent outdoor writers – viewed it as a sham.
The piece in the July 1973 issue was written by George Reiger, who was the magazine's longtime conservation editor. Reiger was once a finalist for the coveted Pulitzer Prize for producing the book "Wanderer on My Native Shore," which was a tribute to the ecology of the Atlantic Coast.
Reiger was one of the press observers at the second Bassmaster Classic at Tennessee's Percy Priest Reservoir in 1972 and topped the writers' division by fishing a Small Okie Bug. That was the diminutive spinnerbait designed and employed by winner Don Butler.
Among Reiger's observations in that piece:
> A man may feel skeptical about the concept of a bass tournament, but once he participates in one, it becomes another thing. The charm of these guys, their obvious devotion to angling and their undeniable ability to get fish when the rest of us might as well stay in bed is captivating stuff.
> The prejudiced picture of the bass competitor is of an aggressive redneck who cares more for his machinery and piles of dead fish than he does for angling. Yet in four days of fishing with Forrest Wood, Bobby Murray, Pete Nosser and Ed Todtenbier, I found each and every one of these B.A.S.S. men to be exceptional sportsmen in the finest sense of the word.
> Each man has a specialty; each has a trick that you've probably never seen before. Since you exchange partners every day, and since you talk bass and bass fishing almost every minute you're off the water, and finally, since you're with an incredibly helpful crew of anglers willing to exchange tips as well as tackle, the flow of useful information at one of these get-togethers is truly phenomenal. Without doubt, more has been learned by bass anglers about what makes Mr. Bigmouth tick in the past five years than in the previous 50. And Ray Scott's group can take the lion's share of credit for this dissemination of knowledge.
B.A.S.S. had approximately 100,000 members at that juncture. It would eventually grow to more than five times that number.
"I knew before the first Classic that one of the big keys was going to be getting those writers out of their holes," Ray Scott said today. "I was determined to get the fishermen and the writers together so the writers could see that the fishermen weren't a bunch of crooks, that we were decent people operating under a set of rules and regulations and that we had a respectful attitude toward fishing.
"We did it right, but it was painful sometimes. There was some ugly stuff written about fishing competition in the beginning. We eventually got complimented by some pretty good writers from the magazines that covered us over the years. When we first started, some of those guys wouldn't take the time to say hello."
