Following are a few things no one else mentioned this year, but I thought deserved to be said.

I Wanted To See It

I guess I'm in the minority when I say that I wanted to see the two league championships – really the BASS members championship (the Classic) and the FLW Tour Championship – overlap. Think of the hype. Think of the attention bass fishing would have gotten in the mass media through July of next year. It would've been great.

The PR staffs of both leagues should have been salivating. In their shoes, I would have been on the phone to every media contact I could possibly think of to tell them to keep track of the evolving head-to-head championship battle.

Don't think the media would have listened? Bass fishing got a ton of press in the 3 days of the overlapping championships controversy. Much was in places you'd expect, but how about the New York Post and USA Today? The mainstream media finally got something they could get their arms around in bass fishing – and then it went away.

I also would have liked to see both leagues pull out all the stops to win the pros, the media and the fans to their respective championships. I don't think they've had to do that yet. As evidence, just think about if every tour event overlapped. You don't think the leagues would be jumping around like maniacs all season (and in the off-season) to win the war for attention?

Call me crazy, but I think the huge amount of effort that would have gone into the "championship wars" because of overlapping dates would have resulted in more people attending both events (and probably viewing them on TV) than will happen now. Unfortunately, next year I can't be proven right or wrong.

Hey ESPN and Irwin: Forget this competition from afar thing. Tournament bass fishing is about competition. The fans, the media and the pros thrive on it. So bring it on. Let's see an all-out war for 2005.

The Next Level

After mulling it over it for a while now, I do think professional bass fishing is headed to the next level, whatever that cliché-of-the-moment means. I think a bunch of people have pictures in their head of what that is, but the bottom line is that the sport is changing.

A big question is whether we will all like the next level when we get there. I'm not sure yet, but one thing I am certain of is that the sport isn't getting there because of any one company, sponsor or angler.

I'd say that the two biggest recent developments on the sponsor front were the entrances of Wal-Mart and ESPN into the sport, but neither changed bass fishing overnight.

On the angler front, we already have a Tiger Woods – Kevin VanDam – and though I'd love to be proven wrong, I don't think someone better and younger than VanDam is going to happen along and take the country by storm as Woods did.

Rather, it will be a combination of ESPN, BASS, FLW Outdoors, OLN, the anglers, sponsors, media and, not least, the fans that change bass fishing. That energy will give rise to out-of-left-field shots in the arm, like the entrance of NASCAR collectibles company Action Performance into bass fishing, and the decision of futuristic trading cards company CyberDISC to include tour pros from the get-go.

Everyone's betting on pro bass fishing to grow, or at least evolve, and that's great. No one believes that will happen for 99 percent of the other pro sports out there. I just hope one end result is that more people fish. That's always front and center in our minds here at BassFan.

Thank You Anheuser-Busch

A few big sponsors have come and gone in bass fishing, usually for reasons that never see the light of day. (And remember that if they leave, they were never really interested in bass fishing or in reaching bass anglers.) No company had more reason or opportunity to vamoose than Anheuser-Busch, which was the victim (I believe) of a remarkable blunder that we all know now was the Busch patch rule.

Despite taking what some say was a huge amount of heat from what can be called the "religious right" in fishing (and that is not a condemnation, by the way), Anheuser-Busch stayed in the game at least for 2004. Judging by the payout for the Shootout weight program vs. the Busch Angler of the Year payout, Anheuser- Busch doesn't appear to be spending more money, but at least it's not less.

Before I get crucified for thanking Anheuser-Busch, please know that I'm thanking them without entering into the moral arguments involving alcohol consumption – which brings up another point. Alcohol is no laughing matter for some people, but anyone who watches TV or listens to the radio knows that Anheuser-Busch isn't afraid to have fun with its ads. I'd love to see that sense of humor in bass fishing.

People often say that bass fishing isn't life or death – it's much more important than that. I agree, but too often people forget that this is a heck of a lot of fun too.

Ray and Women

I'm not Ray Scott's guard dog, but knowing him, I believe he didn't mean to offend anyone with his description of what has generally been a failure of women's bass fishing to take off. People will read what they want to read, but regardless, you should be glad that Ray wasn't sugar-coating anything. That's always a relief, and a rarity, in bass fishing.

The Meteor

Back around the time of the FLW Tour Championship, the rumor mill had it that a few parties who shall remain nameless were gloating about FLW Championship fan attendance vs. Bassmaster Classic attendance. Bear in mind that this was the first year FLW tried to make its championship a big event: The first Classic didn't exactly resemble the 2003 Classic either.

More to the point, whether the competing leagues want to admit it or not, everyone in bass fishing – the leagues, the industry, the anglers and the fans – is in it together. So with fishing license sales down overall, gloating about the FLW Championship's attendance (if such gloating occurred) is about like jumping for joy when you learn that a giant meteor headed for Earth will take out China. In other words, China might go down first, but guess what's coming.

Thoughts on the Leagues

A few "perfect-world" thoughts:

> I think the pros, leagues and fans should know who is going to fish what tour events before the seasons start. Last-minute inclusions to fill fields or for other reasons for the most part cheapen the sport. As an alternative, maybe anyone who registers as a boater for any event after a tour season begins should fish as an amateur: no points, no money. Bragging rights only.

> I think all tour slots should be by rigid qualification only. Absolutely no sponsor slots or exemptions at any level. An exemption for an Open angler who makes it to the Bassmaster Tour is almost as bad as an outright exemption for a Tour angler. And a sponsor slot for getting an angler into a tour is just plain bad. I understand it – and it might even be necessary given the stage that pro bass fishing is in right now, though I doubt it – but I'd like to see both leagues work on eliminating this practice. I see this as being about as bad as getting help.

> I fully believe that the high cost of entering tournaments is keeping more good anglers out of professional fishing than any adjustment of the off-limits rules would ever compensate for. If entry fees were this high back when bass fishing was first starting, I doubt we'd ever have heard of Rick Clunn, Larry Nixon or many other fan favorites. Those guys weren't exactly born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and many good anglers still aren't.

> I agree with several fans that in a perfect world (if there was more money at the tour level), tour-qualified pros should not be able to "milk" the Opens and EverStarts. If tour-qualified pros must be there, let's let them fish for the money, but not the points. Let new blood have a chance to qualify.

> I think BASS needs a Tour championship (or Tour/E50 championship). The Bassmaster Classic is the biggest tournament in bass fishing, but it doesn't field the best tour pros that fish BASS. It is a BASS members championship: the best Tour, Open ("semi-pro"), Federation ("amateur") and now E50 anglers fish against one another. That's fine, and fun, but I'd like to see the best anglers from that tour fish in a championship. But now that the E50s are here, maybe that's the same thing.

I realize this is all perfect-world stuff, and these are just my opinions, which might change. Also, right now professional bass fishing isn't at the perfect-world stage. But it's getting there.

Taking Sides

A final thought: Some people in this sport – pros, industry people, fans and even the fishing media – still persist in taking sides. Usually this is BASS vs. FLW, but sometimes it can extend to BASS sponsors vs. FLW sponsors.

In my opinion, that is simply foolish. I think Larry Nixon put it best when he told BassFan.com in October: "I don't think either (league) is bad. I think both are good for pro bass fishing, and whatever (the tours) have to do, they have to do.

"We're all here to take pro bass fishing all the way forward. If that takes two tours working against one another to do that, that's what happens. That's just life. I've watched pro bass fishing since 1977, and with one tour it's been stagnant. With two tours it's been good."

Let's keep it good.

Jay Kumar is BassFan's CEO.