Clear Lake is now ranked the No. 3 lake in the nation for bass fishing (Lake St. Clair in Michigan is No. 1 and Sam Rayburn in Texas is No. 2) by Bassmasters, which is the primary bass tournament organization in the world.
The No. 3 ranking puts Clear Lake in a whole new position in regard to tourism and tournament fishing. The No. 3 rating came out last month and since then fishermen from around the nation have traveled to Clear Lake to fish. The big question is will the rating attract more fishermen to local tournaments?
Just about everyone agrees the number of fishermen competing in bass tournaments at Clear Lake has declined significantly during the past three years. Where once a team tournament would draw between 60-100 boats, many tournaments now consider themselves lucky to draw 15. In fact, a couple of the circuits have averaged fewer than 10 boats this year. Many of the bass clubs now draw more fishermen than the tournament organizations.
While the bad economy and high gas prices are playing a major role to be sure, there are other factors as well. The entry fees continue to go up. Most of the tournaments held at Clear Lake are team events and the average cost to enter is $300, which includes option fees. Fifteen years ago it would cost a team less than $200 to enter a tournament.
Team tournaments are the most popular bass fishing contests held on the lake and a look at the top finishers in most of these tournaments reveals a lot of the same fishermen. There is an old saying “that 10 percent of the fishermen catch 90 percent of the fish” and that certainly applies to tournament fishing. Local tournament anglers such as Wayne Breazeale, John Pearl, Paul Bailey, Mark Crutcher and Jackson Juarez dominate the tournaments held at Clear Lake and collect most of the prize money. It”s hard to believe, but there are many fishermen who have competed in team events for up to 10 years and have never won a dime at Clear Lake.
All the circuits have a Tournament of Champions (TOC) at the end of the year. Originally only the top 20 percent of the field qualified to compete in the TOC, with the winning team taking home a new bass boat. However, since the number of fishermen competing in the circuits is down considerably, now most of the circuits allow anyone who has fished in all of the five or six seasonal tournaments to be eligible for the TOCs.
Another factor in the decline of tournament participation is that many fishermen have just grown tired of competing and are switching to recreational fishing. In other words, as they have grown older they have lost that competitive edge needed to win a bass tournament. There are also fewer younger fishermen pursuing the dream of becoming a professional fisherman. A new bass boat costs upward of $60,000 and with jobs being scarce there just isn”t enough money to buy a new boat and pay the fishing expenses.
Winning a bass tournament takes a lot of skill and dedication. The top fishermen such as Breazeale and Bailey spend hours on the lake prefishing. They also have that knack of knowing where the bass are located at any given time and what type of lure to use. I have observed Breazeale out on the lake several times and he is literally a fishing machine. He casts nonstop for hours and seems to know exactly where the bass are always located. This fisherman just about always finishes in the top five in every tournament he enters.
There is no question that bass tournaments are good for the local economy. Tournament fishermen stay at the local motels and eat in the restaurants. The other factor is that the excellent bass fishing is making Clear Lake popular with fishermen. Even if the tournament participation continues to decline the recreational fishing should more than make up for it.
