Frank Miniter, a former editor for Outdoor Life and a New York Times bestselling author, wrote an article in Forbes about his experience as a media observer at the 2000 Bassmaster Classic on Lake Michigan.
It was terrifying, Miniter wrote, and he considered beating up the angler who se boat driving demonstrated such blatant disregard for a passenger's life.
Miniter, a longtime friend, is not a "snowflake." An avid hunter and adventurer, he wrote the bestseller, "The Ultimate Man's Survival Guide: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Manhood." His speech resembles that of David Sandberg's character Jorma Taccone in the action-comedy film "Kung Fury," except Miniter's is not affected. He really talks that way.
I've ridden in many tournaments as an observer and twice as a competitor. I'm used to white-knuckle boat rides, but I'm increasingly unwilling to take the beatings or assume the risks inherent to riding a boat in rough water at 70 mph.
At the 1995 Red Man All-American on the Ohio River at Huntington, W.V., a young reporter from a newspaper in Kentucky was a press observer in another boat riding in front of me and a pro angler, the late Dennis Lee Brown of Fort Smith. Ahead of them was a big cabin cruiser that pushed up a massive wake. The lead boat speared the cruiser's wake at maximum speed and tore the shirt off the reporter.
In the same tournament we launched in a thick fog, which is no longer allowed. With visibility limited basically to the bow of the boat through polarized goggles, Brown drove full throttle up the river. Brown smelled a rat when the water started churning, and suddenly the stern of a towboat loomed over us. Brown whipped the boat across the wake and narrowly avoided a collision. We raced past as crew members lined the deck shouting obscenities and flipping us middle-finger salutes.
At the Red Man All-American on the Black Warrior River near Tuscaloosa, Ala., I rode with another angler whose name I don't remember. Anglers that locked downstream had worked out a schedule with the lockmaster to return to the locks at a specified time in order to lock through as a group.
That part of the river was narrow and winding. As we raced back to the lock, we approached a towboat heading upriver. Its bow pushed toward a big sandbar where throngs of revelers were grilling burgers, playing volleyball and throwing Frisbees. Mere feet from the sandbar, the towboat would pivot around the point and angle across river to the next point.
My driver's mental calculations told him he could make it. He roared toward the rapidly diminishing window between the sandbar and the bow of the towboat. The revelers, seeing a disaster unfolding, fled en masse to high ground. The towboat captain blew his horn as crew members and revelers swore at us and flipped us birds. I swear I saw only sand as I looked over the gunwale, and my driver was a body's length from touching the towboat as we roared past the bow.
Steve Bowman, who works closely with BASS in his position with JM Associates, covered many bass tournaments in this space for about 14 years. He was a press observer with the late Joe Yates of Van Buren during a Red Man All-American on Lake Erie. The lake got so rough that Yates could not get back to the check-in point and had to evacuate at an emergency ramp.
Bowman said that Yates reminded him of Slim Pickens straddling an atomic bomb in Dr. Strangelove. He waved his hat and whooped like a cowboy as his boat crashed among giant waves. When that trip was finished, the trolling motor and windshield had been ripped from the boat.
Bowman said he passed blood for a week, but that was minor compared to a more egregious affront. Bowman was furious with Yates for causing him to miss deadline for his story that day. For that reason, he seldom rode in a tournament thereafter.
Correction
In Thursday's column about fishing at Lake Hinkle, I erroneously reported that a Game and Fish Commission work crew was hauling sand to a swim beach. Frank Leone, the district fisheries supervisor for the AGFC, said the crew was dumping lime in the water.
"Applying lime to a lake can balance the pH and increase the alkalinity of the water," Leone said. "Ultimately, this process should lead to increased fish production."
Sports on 03/18/2018