Yeah, thanks to the good folks at BASS, ESPN and ABC, my wife and I were at the premier of ABC's new The Bachelor TV show last night in New York City. To answer the most popular questions I've gotten from friends: no, I'm not suddenly a wuss interested in women-oriented TV; and no, none of the 25 lovely women on the show were there.

But Byron Velvick and his rival for the women's affection were there, as were some friends – including, on Byron's side, Aaron Martens and his wife, Lesley – and the press. The agenda was a little refreshment and then sitting down to watch the show.

In the first hour of the 2-hour Bachelor-thon premier, the ladies picked which guy they wanted to get to know better. For that hour it was pretty funny. Every line that could be taken as a slight against one of the guys was met with roars from the respective camps in the room, all in good fun.

One line that sticks in my mind is when one of the women questioned Byron's financial stability because he's a pro fisherman. Naturally that was met with howls of laughter from the pro-Byron folks.

But hey – the way I see it, Byron is a competitor and he won. He knew what he wanted, he went after it and the other guy had to go home. You gotta love that, especially when it's one of our own.

And seeing him on network TV, running down the lake in his Ranger and setting the hook on a few fish was cool too. I don't think the coolness was because the screen we were watching it on was about 12 feet by 12 feet. It was because I knew double-digit millions of people were out there watching.

Why is that cool? Because all of a sudden lots of people will see a pro bass fisherman. An articulate, intelligent, interesting guy who fishes for bass for a living.

A lot of people have heard of professional bass fishing – I'd bet everybody in the U.S. – but they haven't really put a face or a meaningful concept to it. Yeah, Byron is a good-looking guy, but he's much more than that, as are all bass anglers.

I've already seen people become more "informed," I guess is the word, about pro bass fishing because of Byron and The Bachelor. It will be interesting to see how that plays out this fall, especially since Byron says he talked about bass fishing a lot during the filming (hopefully ABC will air that stuff).

The Big Question

Some are counting on Byron's exposure from this show to propel bass fishing somewhere it hasn't gone before, whether that's into people's heads (mostly the women who watch the show), non-fishing corporate sponsors' heads or something else.

I sure hope so, but like I've said here before, I'm not (yet) a believer in the magic pill theory. Many things are pushing bass fishing forward, some more than others, and this show (and Byron) is one of them.

But if I had to bet, I'd say that Byron certainly will be propelled somewhere as a result of this show. Last night he said: "The sport is what's important to me. Fishing (both tours) next year is important to me. I love fishing, and that's what matters."

I don't know how long his time in the American entertainment spotlight will be, and while I have no doubt he'll return to bass fishing, who really knows when? For sure the appearance money alone will be a lot more than he could ever make fishing. Then again, we all know that no amount of anything can get bass fishing out of a bass angler's blood.

Quotable

Byron played the game the whole night. He wouldn't say beforehand whether he was picked as the bachelor – and bear in mind that all the episodes have already been shot. So he naturally wouldn't say whether he found someone among the 25 ladies. But he was happy and having a great time, and did answer a few questions:

How does it feel to see yourself on TV in this way?
Byron: It's truly bizarre. Nothing in life prepares you for this. I've always had a bass as a prop, and this time there were only 25 women and no fish.

How did it feel to be chosen as The Bachelor?
I was thrilled and honored. I honestly didn't think I'd win, bit it did all happen for a reason and I'm here for a reason. I'm more hopeful than ever that I can find a soulmate through this.

When it comes to picking that soulmate, are there any similarities to picking a pattern on a lake?
What's funny is that you use your intuition in a power dating process (short conversations in less than a day) like this, and you do the same thing on the water. You go with your gut feeling, and I make my living off of gut feeling. It's no different. I found myself (in evaluating the women) ignoring so many external things and (instead) reacting off things inside. So there were a lot of similarities. I talk about that a lot on the show.

Notable

> I had to mention this: I'm pretty sure that only a bass-fishing addict would've noticed the fact that a street down by the Holland Tunnel (from NJ into NYC) is named VanDam Street. How I saw that among all the other street signs is beyond me.