What We Need, What We Don't

(Editor's note: Harold Sharp was the first tournament director Ray Scott hired. Sharp left BASS long ago, but as BassFans know, he still feels passionately about the sport and the company he worked for – and often has strong, entertaining opinions about both.)

This is the time of year to make a list of things you need and things you don't need, so here's a list of things we need and don't need in the sport of professional fishing.

We don't need Irwin Jacobs taking shots at Ray Scott on BassFan, or Ray Scott firing back if he decides to. The only winner in this battle will be BassFan with a quadruple jump in hits on its site.

Ray Scott is clearly the person responsible for the sport of professional fishing. He's the one who started it, and all the rest followed, including Irwin Jacobs, who's responsible for bringing the corporate world and its money into this sport.

That's made it possible for thousands to make a living in this sport, but without Ray Scott's dream and leadership, none of it would exist today. So we don't need these two powerful leaders in a public battle.

We need people like Ray Scott, Forrest Wood, Johnnie Morris and Bob Cobb – who were the pioneers of professional fishing – to sit down with people like Irwin Jacobs and Earl Bentz – the driving force behind its future – to look at where we're heading. If they do that, they'll see walleye and redfish coming on strong, followed by crappie, bream and carp events to follow.

They would see the women's circuits demanding attention and a bright future for the sale of fishing products. They would also see television and Internet media trying to gain control and reshape professional fishing into their version of how it should be viewed and played out.

We don't need television or Internet media in control of professional fishing – they won't protect the environment that's needed for it to survive, they won't fight the industry polluters or the herbicide peddlers or politicians that will destroy the habitat needed for fishing to survive.

We need the BASS Federation to fight these battles.

That's what Ray Scott and I wrote in the plans we discussed on a cold January day in 1968 in a motel room in Chattanooga, Tenn. – the day we organized the Chattanooga Bass Club and the Bass Anglers Sportsman's Society (B.A.S.S.).

We didn't need ESPN giving the BASS Federation the ultimatum to "shape up or ship out." The Federation didn't have the time to comply with it, or change their bylaws to allow it, before the deadline set by ESPN for Dec. 31 – a clear indication that ESPN had found a way to unload things that didn't fit into Jerry's plan to dominate this sport.

If you can't dance or sing on cue, ESPN doesn't need you.

But it happened and the Federation will disappear just like the words Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, and the periods that made B.A.S.S. mean something besides a fish, and the dedicated employees and anglers that displayed the patch with pride.

But the Federation will reorganize and continue fighting the battles to save this sport just like Ray and Momma BASS taught them to do years ago.

We don't need shots at Ray Scott claiming he did it all for money.

The wording on my "Charter Member Certificate" to the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society signed by Ray Scott, president, on March 1, 1968, reads: "Harold Sharp became a charter member of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society and is hereby commissioned to promote and elevate our bass-fishing sport to a place of national prominence; to demand enactment of adequate protective legislation for our waters and the enforcement of existing laws; to encourage interest in bass fishing among our youth, that our purpose may be carried forth."

Nowhere in that can you find the word "television" or "dot-com" or boats, lures, rods, reels, motors, dancing, screaming, cussing, cheating, changing rules or money. That all came later – some good, some bad – but it all happened because Ray Scott wasn't afraid to follow his dream or speak up for what he thought was best for this sport. He's still doing it and us old geezers are proud of him.

This is not the time for a fight between leaders in this sport.

We need them working together to shape its future after ESPN bails out to reshape NASCAR.