Table Rock's most valuable takeaways
Bass Pro Shops $1 million prize, U.S. Amateur Open showed much to be thankful for
At the end of a thin line, deep in the water, a connection is made, and by God or by dumb luck something wild travels that line and strikes the heart. Be it a tickle from two-eyes-and-a-wiggle or a jolt incited by a monster, a little pastime called fishing injects life into our souls.
Be thankful for that.
A shared tradition among generations, conservation, sport, joy, skill, luck, God, country, family, or just a big fishin’ derby, whatever caught your eye at any given time, the undercurrents of the Bass Pro Shops U.S. Open National Bass Fishing Amateur Team Championship ran deeper than the commercial surface last week.
Aired live on NBC Sports—and set for broadcast in an hour-long special Dec. 5 on NBC television—it was, like any other big bass fishing event, created for TV and with due attention given its creators and sponsors. But unavoidable throughout this event was the heart behind the man who came up with the idea, Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris. He injected it with all the right ingredients, and everything was natural from there.
He said he was inspired to create the amateurs-only tourney based on his 1970 experience fishing Table Rock with his father in a tourney won by Bill Dance, with Roland Martin in second place. It included legendary anglers like Virgil Ward with his Bass Buster baits, jelly worm creator Tom Mann and electronics pioneer Carl Lowrance.
Bill Dance and Roland Martin mingled and mugged with fishing kids and fans last weekend, along with legends Jimmy Houston, Kevin VanDam, and Rick Clunn.
The story of the winning moments comes down to gulls, God and grace.
But the first factor to consider is that less and a half-pound separated first and third places in Sunday’s finale. All that money, a matter of ounces.
Auburn College Bass Fishing Club buddies Logan Parks, 23 and Tucker Smith, 20, won $1 million and two Toyota Tundras and two fully outfitted Nitro Z-21 bass boats with 16.41 pounds of spotted and smallmouth bass. The second-place team won $200,000 with 16.18 pounds and $100,000 went to the third-place team with 16.01.
On stage, moments after that narrow loss, Ohio angler Gary Sterkel, a maintenance engineer at a dairy cheese plant who has been a weekend derby angler spending more on fishing than collected winnings for decades, said “it’s a tough loss but to see a 20-year-old, and a 23-year-old win a million dollars, man that’s incredible.”
Later, Sterkel still said he was thrilled and that $100,000 was “life-changing.” It could help pay off his mortgage or be invested, he said.
Sterkel and partner Joseph Nicholson, friends from the time they were young men—one who had a boat with no truck and the other with a truck but no boat—hit the water in a 1996 Ranger they swore was the slowest boat in the field. They studied maps at home and used electronics on the water target off-point rock piles and brush with a jig.
The Alabama youngsters targeted concentrations of baitfish they found in the main river channel of Table Rock, known for its clear waters with 20-plus foot visibility. They had not fished the lake before this tournament but put their electronics and a Dimiki rig (a jighead with a shad-like swimbait) to work.
Most of their bass were caught 40 feet under the surface and far enough away from the boat not to get spooked, they said.
The difference for them came with a late-day flurry. They saw gulls diving on baitfish and used that sign from nature to find more fish and upgraded their weight.
Smith spoke of his close relationship with three-time Bassmaster Angler of the Year Aaron Martens, of Leeds, Ala., who died early this month from brain cancer at the age of 49. Smith was on the boat with Martens in early 2020 when he had the first seizure that ultimately revealed his cancer.
Watching his mentor’s fight and his return to the water against an aggressive form of cancer taught him “to never give up,” he said.
Tearful, the young man said he used one of his mentor’s reels in the tournament and felt his influence on the lake where it so happens, Martens celebrated the last win of his career in May 2019.
If the college-kid champions weren’t enough of a heart-string pulling generational connection, the ten who represented ages from the teens down into the single digits a day earlier sure did.
After a then 10-year-old Ke’Mari Cooper and his father, Velt, posted a video that went viral of his personal-best 7.1-pound bass in 2019, tournament organizers said Johnny Morris was inspired to involve more children in the tournament.
The Tallahassee kid gave the Bass Pro Shops founder the idea that children could submit their own videos of 2 minutes or less and that the 10 best videos would be chosen.
Each would get their own Tracker boat package, complete with their name on the cowling, plus travel and lodging for them and a guardian to the tournament at Big Cedar Lodge. They would get on-the-water instruction on how to use their new boat (from tour professionals, no less), and they would compete in a small tournament of their own for who could catch the biggest fish.
The cute-factor was adorable through this event, but he thing that hits a witness in the heart is that, when a kid wins a boat they are proud because now they can be the one to take their family fishing.
Ke’Mari was the show stealer of the group. The flamboyant youngster that had Morris dancing and throwing his hat down on the stage and saying the kid got him “fired up to go fishing” may just be the next Gerald Swindle in the making.
For the father-son boat lessons they drew Kevin VanDam. It was quite a sight, VanDam sitting in the co-angler’s chair in that little boat tying on a crankbait for his new fishin’ pal.
Content creator and nicest PR guy you’d ever want to meet, Alan McGuckin, stood nearby as we watched. He noted, “that’s like having Michael Jordan lace up your shoes for a basketball game.”
Took the words right out of my mouth.
The child-parent teams hit the water for a few hours in their new boats and when they returned it was announced that Morris would give $5,000 per pound to the winner with the biggest fish.
It only seemed natural that Ke’Mari won using a crankbait supplied by VanDam. The fish weighed 3.6 pounds.
Among those on stage for that $1 million finale, along with VanDam, Morris, Roland Martin and Bill Dance, was Ke’Mari Cooper.
If trepedation about our shared futures creeps in from time to time, this was a view to counter any such doubt—all thanks to a little pastime called fishing.
Well written brother