Fish at Your Own Risk
CONTENDERS IN THE BASSMASTER CLASSIC, frequently referred to as the Super Bowl of fishing, have many things to fear during the annual three-day tournament: a fish slipping the hook, a bass dying before the weigh-in (dead specimens draw a four-ounce penalty), the dreaded “goose,” as in a goose egg — catching no fish at all. But competitors in the tournament 21 years ago faced novel terrors: kids lining up on the shore to zing rocks at their heads, deafening noises from a waterfront metal-scrapping operation, container ships bearing down on them, and a persistent fear of boat-jacking. With, however, consolations: “You can say what you want about different places,” Kevin VanDam, one of the sport’s superstars enthused afterward, “but the best pizza there is is in Chicago.”
Pro fishing is a sport followed mostly in the South, but in 2000, its biggest event came here. The outdoors columnist John Husar, and city officials had worked diligently for years to recruit the Bassmaster Classic as a showcase for the ecological comeback of Lake Michigan in the decades following the 1972 Clean Water Act. For its part, the Alabama-based Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, or BASS, the for-profit organizing body of the then–$60 billion industry (it’s worth $129 billion now), saw a once-in-a generation opportunity to grow their sport above the Mason-Dixon Line, much as NASCAR had during the 1990s.
