A child can’t ride a bicycle without a helmet. A person can’t drive a car without wearing a seatbelt. We are constantly watched and surveilled. Bass tournament days of competition are being cancelled for forecasted weather more than EVER before! Why, in the name of “SAFETY.”

 

The global climate change agenda that’s pushing everyone to buy electric cars and making every storm front out to be Armageddon is being perpetuated by the mainstream media. When every weather reporter and weather station exaggerates the forecasts it sows fear and affects decision making. As we saw with the Covid-19 plandemic the mainstream media is complacent/participating in the sowing of fear and cannot be trusted. The resources are available now to allow us to look at the coming weather and gauge the actual threat for ourselves.

 

Determining the actual threat for ourselves, don’t we all do that anyway? I watch the weather, the radar and the wind THAT MORNING when making my decisions about the coming day. When the tournament organizations make the decision to cancel a day of competition, they take away our right of self-determination. The tournament organizations are telling all the fishermen; “we don’t trust you to make good decisions on your own.” The lack of respect for the experience, knowledge, skills and autonomy of the fishermen exhibited by these organizations is shameful. It didn’t use to be this way. I still remember Rick Clunn being interviewed after weighing his fish on a really rough day at the St. Lawrence River and him responding “If its twice as rough, I’ll still go!” He did and he won.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLaJUc-hYYw

 

I’ve heard the arguments, that they are “responsible.” Responsible for what? I’m not a child, they are not my parents! I’ve heard fishermen say “they shouldn’t have let us go.” No one makes you go but because you don’t feel comfortable doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be able to go! Tournament fishing is about adjusting to the variables and having a back-up plan for when things change. We all sign a liability release, exempting them, yet they disregard our right of self-determination. I even had a tournament director tell me the liability release wouldn’t hold up in court, my response was that they should get a better lawyer and liability release.

 

We (the fishermen) pay the entry fees and the organizations to put on these tournaments. We pay to fish a pre-planned number of days of competition. We plan our work, vacation and lodging with the expectations that we’re going to get what WE PAY FOR. If these organizations are going to arbitrarily cancel days of competition, shouldn’t we the CUSTOMERS get a refund for the day or days of competition we’re not getting? Or the option of withdrawing from the tournament with a full refund due to the organization changing the schedule.

 

There are lots of questions and possible solutions to this growing problem in our sport, we the fishermen sitting back quietly while these organizations continue on the current path IS NOT THE SOLUTION! The simplest solution is for the tournament organizations to respect the right of self-determination, knowledge and experience of their customers and let us each make our decision about what we do with the day ahead of us.