Props to BASS for enforcing its rules, much as none of us wanted to see Kevin VanDam, Alton Jones or any of the Elite Series pros on the bank instead of on the water at Santee-Cooper.

If you don't enforce your rules, you have nothing – nothing I would be interested in, anyway. No enforcement means it's not a sport. It's not a contest. It may not even be an exhibition. It's a "whatever."

Can you imagine an NFL game, NASCAR race or PGA event with rules that weren't enforced?

Quite a few fans seem to feel BASS's entire-tournament DQs at Santee were too harsh. That might be at least partly because of VanDam's popularity, since Jones was seldom mentioned in the feedback we received. Regardless, they have a point.

The point is, where are the lines? You know, the lines that separate the unintentional violation from the eyebrow-raising violation from the "get that guy out of fishing" violation. I'll get back to that in a minute.

Personally, without knowing any more than you do about what went down, I feel tournament director Trip Weldon made the right decision. It was the only decision he could've made.

To address a popular opinion, if Weldon didn't know how much of the lake VanDam (or Jones) covered using the one man driving/one man looking technique, how could he ban KVD just from one part of the lake? He had to DQ him for the whole tournament.

And what kind of enforcement nightmare would've been set up if a few guys could only fish restricted areas while everyone else had free rein? Weldon would have to monitor those few far more intensively than the rest of the field, which no doubt would have caused some weirdness somewhere down the line.

The bottom line is that the rules, whatever you think about them, were enforced. Great.

Spawning Tournaments!

As always, I like to look for a root cause of any controversy. In this case, I'd lay it at the feet of spawning tournaments, meaning tournaments held when the (or a) primary pattern is sight-fishing for bass on spawning beds.

BORING.



Okay, big bass are great. Twenty-pound limits are great. But 80 20-pound sacks are boring, especially if it happens week after week. Sure it beats the Pittsburgh Classic, but what doesn't?

It's also boring because everyone is sight-fishing. Yes, there are better sight-fishermen than others and you can learn a thing or two from them. But you already know the pattern: GPS beds, get a good draw, run there fast, drop your bait on the bed, shake it.

Yahoo.

If guys use different baits, all that proves to me is that a bedding bass can be made to bite just about anything. And I say that with full acknowledgment that I am far from the world's greatest fisherman, so it's entirely possible that I'm lacking some applicable information. But I still think it's boring.

Get out there and burn a spinnerbait. Flip. Crank. Carolina-rig. Anything. Please.

The Lines

So back to those lines: where are they? If someone got caught planting a brushpile, I assume he would be DQd for the entire tournament. Is that equal to VanDam looking for beds while someone else drove his boat? Because both acts receive the same punishment.

Should they? I don't know. It doesn't feel right.

You need those lines to separate the various grades of violations. And you create those lines with better rules. That doesn't necessarily mean more rules. It means better ones, ones that have the penalties for rule violations spelled out.

How about that? Every other sport has it. Why not bass fishing?

We at BassFan made the first attempt at it last year, for the Top Gun and Skeeter Weekend Warrior championships (see the official rules by clicking here). If we can do it, certainly BASS and FLW can.

A side benefit is that tighter rules with spelled-out punishments, where possible, make a tournament director's job easier.

Pointing Fingers

Who is to blame here? The same people and companies who are the ones who can make better rules: BASS (and FLW), their sponsors and the pros, including the Professional Anglers Association (PAA).

And, of course, Kevin and Alton are ultimately to blame, if that's the right word, for their own DQs. As Dewey Kendrick pointed out to the pros, BASS's no-info/no-help rule(s) was added at the request of the anglers, and each angler needs to know the rules inside out before a boat ever leaves a trailer.

In fact, I'd say the pros, collectively, deserve the lion's share of responsibility here. But first, I will say that it should be incumbent upon the tournament organizations to review and refine their rules annually – with the input of the fishermen. Every other pro sport does it. And besides, pro fishing's rules need refinement.

The organizations' sponsors also should insist that this be done. It helps the sport, it helps the tournament organizations avoid black eyes, and it should help the pros these companies sponsor – do you think Nitro (VanDam) and Skeeter (Jones) wish the BASS rules were different now?.

But if I was pointing fingers, I'd point most of them at the pros.

If I'm going to run to first base at top speed, I'm not going to want any rocks or other debris in the base path. Will I trust the grounds crew to get it right? Sure, but ultimately those are my ankles and knees out there.

Baseball players have a union that campaigns for those things, when necessary. Pro bass fishermen don't have a union, but they have an association: the PAA. And campaigning for better rules has to be a primary function of the PAA for two reasons:

1) Unlike baseball players, bass fishermen aren't paid salaries. You earn what you win.

2) The payouts are lopsided. So in the case of Santee, a DQ of one of the top anglers in the world (VanDam) or one of the top sight-fishermen in the world (Jones) has potentially far-reaching financial consequences.

If it is going to be a viable organization, I believe that every year the PAA should review the rules its members fish under, and make suggestions to the leagues – including asking for the establishment of a rules committee.

It's not that hard. I know because we at BassFan have reviewed those rules.

If nothing else, this should get the PAA a few good things:

> Actual collective (as opposed to ad hoc) input into the rules process
> Better BASS and FLW rules – or the fans in the PAA's corner if the leagues do not improve the rules
> Media attention
> A set of rules it will need for its own tournaments
> The appreciation of its members and potential new members

Bottom line: Better rules are a win for everybody – as long as the goal is a better sport and a better experience for the pros. If the goal is something else – like protecting sponsors or creating "edgy" TV – who knows.

Silver Lining

The silver lining here should be that this all happens: rules get regularly and formally reviewed and refined with the sport and its participants foremost in mind.

Fewer rules are not the answer. Most rules are written based on experience. They're like legal contracts: The more crazy stuff you've seen, the more you want in that contract.

In BASS's case, that experience mostly came from guys like Roland Martin and even David Fritts pushing the rules to the max. They didn't do anything illegal at the time. I think in Fritts' case it was sinking brushpiles before a tournament – which, unless I'm mistaken, is still legal in FLW events. (Editor's note: After we published this column, it was determined that this is still legal in BASS events also.)

The last question is, what about spawning tournaments? Assuming they're not going away, maybe the BASS rules need a special section for spawning events. Certainly these events present unique issues, and with a special section the pros will be sure not to miss the applicable rules (in theory, anyway).

The Top Gun rules aside, BASS is the clear leader in the rules department, and I look forward to seeing what they do for 2007 – meaning please don't change the rules this year. The season is already under way.