This championship was especially thrilling because the top 500 anglers were separated by only 69 points. Many anglers came to the Nationals in a “dead heat” for the Angler of the Year position and the ultimate prize, a new TR21x Triton rigged with a 225hp Mercury OptiMax motor, MotorGuide Trolling Motor, and Lowrance Electronics. Looking at the rankings on Thursday, after the second day of the event, we saw a further tightening in the race for Angler of the Year. Jim Missel, from District 4 in New York, was within just 12 points of Pat Anderson who was holding the day 2 lead, and with only 5 points separating place of finish, it could cause any angler to become nervous. Jim was in 6th place as of day 2 and would need to move to up 3 places (15 points) to overtake Pat Anderson for the coveted title.
The anglers were able to practice for 3 days giving each of them an idea of what to look for and where to look, but it was really interesting to see anglers start putting things together by the final day of the tournament. Craig Maxwell of Tampa, FL moved up drastically from 53rd to 8th, bringing in 10.70 pounds to secure the Air Force Angler of the Year position. Dan Persful of Elizabethtown, KY moved from 86th to 16th by weighing in 10.16 pounds and Ned Miller moved from 169th to 35th with 10.52 anchored with a 5.08 kicker big fish the final day. The enjoyment of watching anglers compete so hard, (almost like work) and still have fun, is a tribute to all ABA members who fished.
This year’s championship was the most challenging, yet had the best support team ever assembled for a National. The competing anglers usually only see the up front show time appearance, but our success can be attributed to all those working behind the scenes to make it all possible. Many have been with us for the last 4 Championships and have refined their position to insure the anglers get only the best. These are true leaders that have been invaluable in the planning and execution of the ABA Nationals.
Michelle Vance and Kathy Barker have participated in every national we have been a part of, starting at Lake Murray South Carolina in 2000. These two wonders are the most experienced, dedicated, and organized flight leaders in the ABA arsenal. This year, Michelle not only served as blue flight leader, but also managed all of the flight pairings meetings on day 2 and 3. I have never seen Michelle without a smile or heard her complain about getting up at 2am and working until 9pm. She is the first to let me know of adjustments we need to make things better. On her way home after the tournament, she gave me a hug and said, “See you next year”.
Kathy Barker of Probass Networks has also been to all 4 of these ABA nationals and has become an integral part of the workings of these events. Kathy and I talk throughout the year planning to make things easier, not just for the crew, but for the anglers. Kathy stays on target when it comes to making her flight (white this year) run smooth in the mornings, but she is also there to meet each angler in the afternoon with their weigh cards. We are already discussing the 2005 Nationals and ways to make the most of the event for the anglers and their families.
Probass Networks has been to every national beginning at the 2000 championship on Lake Murray. Richard (RC) Barker and Kathy have been a huge help in supporting this event. Their assistance is a year long thing not just at the national. RC and I have been working together almost since I started working at ABA. RC had been the technology connection at American Bass Anglers. He and Probass Networks have been instrumental in the advanced tools now used on the ABA website. RC uses the approach of working smarter not harder, and it makes life easy for web development, and for the users of the web site as a result. RC’s talents and how they are used are far ranging from Audio, Video, Web development, Photography, and many electronic issues. When it comes to getting ready for the national and dealing with issues at the nationals, we always rely on RC. RC and Kathy, as a team, are the reason the ABA web site now generates over 1 million hits a month and ProBass Network’s hosting of hundreds of websites. ABA salutes ProBass Networks, one of the first sponsors of American Bass Anglers, for their continuing efforts to bring awareness of ABA to the masses and their support of the national championship.
This was Ellen Phillips’, of American Bass Anglers, second ABA national. Ellen ran one of the smoothest registrations I have seen at any event. She assembled a large team and made registration look easy. We also saw the huge impact she made at these 2 nationals, not just from her talents dealing with the registration and the database, but Ellen and her husband Mike made all of the awards for the National in 2003 and 2004. Ellen runs the ABA national office, assisting members and working closely with directors for tournaments registrations, verifications, and result postings for all the tournaments being held throughout the nation. Ellen gets excited at each national because she gets to meet members and directors she has talked with all year. Ellen and her team: Denise Lee and Sharon Behel, make the ABA office run as smooth as silk.
Kelly Combs works in sales and administration for The Boat House, but when it becomes national time, she pitches in to help ABA. Kelly and her team did an awesome job setting up the sponsor room and getting all of the sponsor awards, draw prizes, and goody bags ready this year. Kelly also served as flight leader for the 4th year in a row and also was the official score keeper for the event.
Marlene Angelone, wife of Joe Angelone from Rochester New York district 4, has been at all of the nationals since 2000 and is such a major part of the team that sometimes we think of her as permanent staff. She is always right with the team doing anything that needs to be done for each event. Many of you have met Marlene many times during the week at either registration, in the morning at check in, or when weighing your fish. Marlene and Joe always come to the National office 3-4 days in advance to help with paper work and all the “must be done task”. It is wonderful and fulfilling to have family close when you need them, and Joe and Marlene are.
Bob Medeiros, the director of district 5 in Massachusetts and also an ABA Hall of Fame member, has been a force that we have grown to depend on. Bob has been to many nationals but I remember meeting him the first time in 1999 before Morris bought MBAA. Bob flies to the nationals each year and totally devotes himself to providing the much needed assistance for all aspects of the ABA Organization. For the past 2 years Bob has run the four man team competition and did a wonderful job as always. His contribution to the ABA team throughout the year and at every national is truly a class act. Bob, you can never retire.
Ken King of district 36 called weeks before the national and asked if he could come down just to help. I guess you can imagine my answer. Not only did I say yes but I told Ken we put in a lot of hours at the national. Ken was there with us in every step of the way. From tent set up, stage set up, sponsor room set up, temporary national office setup. Every time I turned around Ken was there asking what needed to be done next. Many have you know who Ken King is. He was the gentleman with Bob at the front gate that controlled access to the launch site in the mornings and afternoon. It almost got me in trouble one the afternoons. The manager of Riverwalk marina’s son came to the gate and Ken told me would have to park at the entrance and walk or wait for a cart. (as to not to interfere with boats leaving). The young man told Ken “But my Dad runs this place” Ken said “Son, I don’t care if your dad is God you don’t get past me”. Now that is what I call controlling the gate! Hats off Ken you did one heck of a job!
Tina Peck, of South Dakota, has become something special at the national. In 2001, at Texoma, we were looking for a way to speed up the weigh-in, one of which was to have a person announce each angler coming on stage. As we were talking this beautiful lady overheard us and said “I could do that". I set up a microphone, and at that moment, a new voice was born for the ABA national championship. This year I conducted a time test for each day’s weigh in. On day 1, there were 464 bags of fish brought to the scales which were weighed in a record time of 23.5 seconds per angler. On day 2, the crew thought there were less bags but there were 5 more totally in 469 bags of fish which were weighed in 21.5 seconds per bag. Tina keeps the weigh-in moving and pushes Morris to get those fish weighed. What an awesome job she does each year!
Many of you have meet Christina Warren. She was that fiery young lady on the golf cart. I first meet Christina at the championship in 2003 when she jumped in and helped with the traffic jam we had on day one at the nationals. She offered to help the next two days, and let me tell you what a tremendous help it was. I was about to beg her to come to the 2004 national when I got word from her husband Ken (director of Iowa) that she was insisting that they come and help. I ordered two golf carts that same day! She just asks me: “Where do you need me, and puts out her hand for the golf cart keys”.
The Parking Team this year had an extraordinary challenge of parking over 300 boats in an area designed for much less. There has never been this many boats at this location let alone having only 175 actual boat parking spots. The challenge was handed to Ski-Daddy and his team; and what a team! Jean Rose, Riley Dennis, Stacey Calder, Rusty Strickland, Wayne Whitehead, Skillet, Curt Staley, Joe Staley, Ken King, Bob Medeiros, Mike Phillips, Brian Lambert, Bill Lambert, and Mike Cox. Ski-Daddy, Morris, and I spent a lot of time working out exact details and Ski and his team made it work flawlessly. I had member after member tell me they thought they would be sitting in line for an hour but it was more like 5 minutes. These guys were so efficient that many anglers had very little time to even un-strap their rigs. Joe, Rusty, Ken, Bob, and Mike Cox got the boats lined up coming in, and helped get them ready to get in the water. Bill, Mike, and Brian worked the ramp were many times, 8 boats at a time were unloading. Jean, Wayne, Riley, Skillet, and Mike guided the anglers to their parking spot where Christina or I was waiting to give them a ride back to the ramp. What a crew and what a great job by this team!
This year for fish release we wanted a special team to insure as many fish as possible were released alive. This task was headed by Rusty Strickland, who assembled his team in one of the most efficient release programs ever developed. Rusty would have rather been fishing the event, but because of back surgery, he was not able to qualify. Although Rusty could not fish, he insisted that he be a part of the event doing whatever he could to make this ABA Championship a memorable one. We paired Rusty up with the Morgan County Sheriff’s Youth Ranch to create a fish treatment center and fire line for release. The fish came from the weigh-in stage straight to a prepared salt treatment tank, then to the water without being touched. These salt treatment tanks were set up with 23 pounds of salt per 100 gallons of water. (Thanks to Jimmy Yarbrough for acquiring the right kind of Salt for the treatment tanks.) The basket was dipped in the solution for 12-15 seconds then fire lined to the water and the fish were released. This release system afforded us a prestigious 98.6 percent live release rate which we attribute to the fine work of Rusty and his team.
The Weigh Team, headed by Morris Sheehan was nothing but spectacular as always. The team included Morris Sheehan, Curt Staley, and Jimmy Mason on stage and off stage: Kathy Barker pulled weigh tickets and placed the anglers with the ladies that took the anglers to the stage. These ladies were: Marlene Angelone, Dawn Hagood, Barbara Carey, Gracie Cochran, Janice Garner, Debbie Driggers and Gail Morris. Also running tickets between the stage were Alisha Vincent, Krista Cochran, Shannon Tilson, and Patty Allen, GJ Lambert and then to Ellen and Denise for data entry.
Boat Driver, Recovery, and Check In were performed as always by Buddy Laubenthal with the big Triton 22ft Sea Flight boat. We also had Lawrence Owens, AKA Odie, that worked in many areas, not just check in. He drove boats in the morning, helped with the set up of the sponsor room, banquet, and other areas. After seeing the red flight on the first day ascend on the check-in boat like a bunch of hungry piranhas, I added Odie to the equation to block the entrance to the harbor to make arrival in the afternoons much more orderly. This made the harbor much friendlier and only 2 anglers complained about having to wait, but with 300 boats and 469 bags of fish, waiting is part of the game. Odie did one heck of a job and I can only pray he is at the 2005 national.
Banquet set up was brilliantly performed by Dawn Hagood, my wife, and her limited team members. Dawn and team consisting of Odie, Tyler Dennis, and Shannon Tilson, only had approximately 5 hours to perform their magic and present to ABA members a patriotic atmosphere for the Friday banquet. Just covering 125 tables with the wind blowing and hanging sponsor banners presented a huge challenge, but as always Dawn and her team came through. We want to thank them for helping Dawn in the set up and also for taking it down after the festivities.
Film/Media: ABA new employee Joseph Cannon was delegated the dubious honor of preserving the history of the event by talking to the anglers for magazine stories and photographing all the special moments as they transpired. This event had more pictures taken than any event to date and all was uploaded to the internet within 2 hours. A professional photographer Harriet and Tom filmed the opening ceremony, each days weigh-in, plus the Friday banquet, and has some awesome footage. We will be editing the film in the coming weeks and make it available to all members.
Owen Lease, of Baxter, MN, also gave his share of help without even attending the national tournament. When the anglers signed up for registration or when they signed their weigh in slips, they were most likely using the ABA pens that Owen had provided. When Owen, a lifetime ABA member with the Army team, realized he would not be attending the tournament, he had the pens made with "American Bass Anglers" put on them. There is nothing more irritating than not having a pen when you need one, but thanks to Owen, that wasn't a problem.
Other Help: Prior to the national we had several members come to the national office several days prior to the National to lend a helping hand. David Long, Craig Maxwell, Gunner Grimsley, Antonio Gomez (Go-Go Gomez), and Stacey Pierce each were a huge factor in helping us preparing.
Triton Support Truck: Thanks to Andy Stallings of Triton Boats, many anglers were able to get their boats back on the water for the competition. Andy, accompanied by Linda Matta from Triton apparel, provided the much sought after Triton apparel. Andy is always on the road for Triton ready to help anglers and I personally admire him not only for his abilities, but for staying on the road so much to help Triton Boat Owners.
Lowrance: Doug O’Hara and Wilson Frazier, as always, were a huge help to the anglers on any issues with their Lowrance units. Doug provides support to many tournaments throughout the year, and for ABA he has really been a friend to all members. It is always a pleasure to have them at any of our events.
As you can see it takes a lot of work to get ready and operate a championship of this size and without these team members it would be impossible. The ABA is a huge family and it is great to have these family members get so involved with the championship. When you get a chance, drop a line and let them know how much you appreciate their efforts. From deep in our hearts we thank each of these team members for their efforts and dedication to American Bass Anglers. |
