Posted by TJ on September 10, 2008, 9:58 am
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SOUTH CAROLINA STATE- SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
Sports briefs
By: Staff
Among top finishers in the World Amateur Handicap Championship in Myrtle Beach was professional bass fisherman Kevin Wirth, who tied for fifth. Wirth has won $900,000 on the BASS circuit and also is a former jockey and Kentucky Derby participant
BEAUMONT ENTERPRISE, TX- SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
Bass pro to take time out to fish with soldiers
By: Staff
BASS pro Mark Menendcz of Paducah, Ky., decided to thank soldiers in the one way he could say it best: share the fun of fishing. He plans to participate in an Oct. 25 Fort Campbell Fishing Club event on Kentucky Lake.
"This fishing club is not necessarily a bass club, it's more of a recreational venture of Fort Campbell, but it's for civilians as well as active arid retired members of the military," Menendez said. "This all stemmed from the Bassmaster Elite Series event on Kentucky Lake, when members of the club volunteered to help BASS with the weigh-in," he said. "I didn't make the cut in that tournament, but that gave me the chance to meet the club members. I asked, 'What can I do to help you guys?'
"I just decided I'd love to be able to give whatever I could back to the military and put a smile on their faces. What they do allows me to do what I do for a living. It's their blood, sweat and tears that allows us to have the luxury of an organization called BASS. I thought, you know, I'm going to get off my duff and go spend some time with these folks. "We should have some soldiers there who have just returned home from Afghanistan and Iraq. It's a competition, but low-key. More of a fellowship type of deal than anything else:"
PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL, FL- SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
Bass event benfits kids
By: Joe Zwierzchowski
Last year, the Baptist Children's Home Benefit Bass Tournament nearly fell victim to a storm — the skies cleared the day of the tournament and all went well — and organizers are happy to have avoided a similar situation this year.
"The fish were all ready wet (last year)," tournament director Danny Hardy said. "We had a good turnout (despite the weather)."
With Hurricane Ike bearing well to the West, anglers in the third edition of this event should see fair weather and calm water.
First place is guaranteed at $3,000 with a $500 lunker pot for the biggest fish of the tournament. Entry fee is $100 a team.
The Olive Bass Club and Olive Baptist Church are putting the event on as a benefit for the Florida Baptist Children's Home in Cantonment.
Last year's event, weather-plagued as it might have been, drew 51 fishing teams and raised more than $7,000 for the home.
This year could be much bigger.
"We're hoping to get somewhere between 50 and 100 teams," Hardy said. "That's our goal."
One of the other goals is to help the children's home.
"After Hurricane Ivan, they were hurting for money and the Olive Bass Club decided to host this tournament," Hardy said. "We're just trying to raise money for them. They're wanting to build another home out there, they have a lot of plans they have to pay for."
The home in Cantonment is one of six campuses throughout the state. It currently averages eight children at the on-site facility with another 18 more in foster care.
BASS pro Randy Howell will once again be the special guest. Howell, a seven-time qualifier for the Bassmaster Classic and winner of the first Elite 50 Series event, has been a professional angler for the past 15 years and been speaking at this tournament since it started.
LOUDON TIMES, AL- SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
Catching big ones
By: Jason Rufner
Fourteen-year-old Mitch Willis, of Lincoln, doesn't just throw his lure into the lake and play GameBoy while waiting for a 6-pound bass to tug on his line. He studies the lake, observes the weather, checks the current, decides on a lure -- all in an attempt to outsmart the fish.
"It's a lot of time and effort," said the two-time youth state champion for the Bass Anglers' Sportman Society. "You got to read everything that goes on in that lake to tempt the fish."
Willis took home his second title Aug. 17 by catching the most pounds of bass on Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke, competing against anglers ages 15-18. The victory earns him a spot in the regional tournament Sept. 13 on Kerr Lake, along the Virginia/North Carolina border.
In 2007, Willis' state championship in the age 11-14 division sent him to Syracuse for the Junior Bassmaster World Championship, landing 29th out of 50.
A fisherman since age 2 when mom Misti first took him to a lake with a line, Willis is on a neighbor's pond nearly every day after school these days. On weekends, he takes his own bass boat out to various nearby lakes, experimenting with new lures and learning how habitat impacts bass behavior.
"You need to read the temperature of the water, see whether it's overcast. You need to read the current to see where it will blow the bait fish," he said, rattling off the tricks of the trade required to nab a "hawg," a bass of 6 pounds or larger.
If Willis speaks like it's a job to him, that's because he'd like it to be. He works locally with Mike Sustek, was paired in Syracuse with Jared Lintner and idolizes Mike Iaconelli, all professional anglers. He dreams of one day competing in the Bassmasters Classic series, which Willis calls the Super Bowl of angling.
His general advice to potential hawg-seekers sounds like a television commercial: "Take a kid fishing." It seems to have worked for him.
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