That's a great story
That's a great story
Enjoy the time and collect his memories. Knowing what we do rest assured you can’t share some of those stories on here. Get his flavor on Shorty Evans. Was the dentist Jerry Wagner, we hadn’t heard that?
Yes on Jerry WagnerOriginally Posted by Bass Cat Boats
cool story
Don Butler was from Tulsa and owned Okiebug fishing, great guy
Very cool!
I remember 3rd place Day 1 finisher Wallace Lea very well. When I was in my teens my dad and I would see him on Bull Shoals and would always share fishing information. My dad almost bought a boat from him in Forsyth, Mo. He was selling Ranger Boats at the time. I was always told a story about him catching two 8lbers in a tournament at Lake of the Ozarks on a spook and of course fishing in the first Classic. He always wore ski googles running down the lake. Crazy things you remember as a kid.
Last edited by BalsaBee; 01-23-2020 at 11:36 AM.
Here's the story that Will told me on how he started fishing on the B.A.S.S. trail. He was a guide working out of Jack Wingate's Lodge in Bainbridge Ga on Lake Seminole. He said Ray Scott came down and was talking to all the guides about joining B.A.S.S. and fishing his tournaments. He told them that they could make more money than they could guiding. None of them wanted to commit to doing it. Ray being the sly business man that he was told them "it was probably for the best because he had a hotshot out of Florida named Roland Martin who would kick their butt on any lake". This pissed Will off and before he knew it he had became a B.A.S.S. member and had signed up to fish the trail. When the others saw Will signing up they all did to. Lol. When Ray got up to leave he tipped his cowboy hat at them, smiled and said "see you boys out there".
Will learned later that he would go into Florida and tell them that "those Georgia boys" had signed up and was bragging how they could outfish anybody. I'm sure he used that tactic everywhere he went.
I asked him about Shorty Evans. He said he had a ton of stories about him but couldn't none of them shared on here!!
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Here's another story that Will told me yesterday.
He said that Ray Scott called him in the fall of 1971 and asked him to come to the B.A.S.S. office in Montgomery, Al. So he drove over from Georgia to meet with him. He didn't have a clue what it was about. When he got there they talked fishing and such and Ray asked him his opinion on what could be done to improve things. Keep in mind that B.A.S.S was only four years old at the time. Will told him that they needed to pay more prize money. With the exception of 3 men all the others was working full time jobs and trying to compete on the trail. Ray told him that it was his dream to be able to pay enough that men could make a good living by fishing his tournaments but at that time he couldn't afford to do it. He wound up offering a job to Will to help him promote and run the tournaments and to be Ray's right hand man. The pay was only about a 1/3 of what Will was making at the time guiding fulltime so he turned it down. He told me it was the biggest mistake that he has ever made but he had no idea how big B.A.S.S would get. He said that he's wished a thousand times that he had taken the job.
great stories, keep them coming!
Great stories! Thank you.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
That's cool!!!! And yes I too would LOVE to hear some of the stories from the early days!!!
Way Kewl.
To me at least, albeit shorter, (bass) fishing history/tradition rivals baseball history/tradition.
'course, likely more baseball fans than bass fishing fans - but, their loss, eh?
(back to the basics and keep those stores a'coming ...)
Do not take your half in the middle ....
You should get him a jersey?
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Man that is too cool . I would love to hear some of those stories. Everybody at my work hates fishing.
Sounds like you need a different job.
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