2005 BASS Federation Championships
Report #1

By Will Wegman,
OBF Media and Conservation Director

Tuesday April 26, 2005

Kissimmee Florida: Well, all the BASS federation anglers, federation presidents, federation conservation directors, federation staff and federation sponsor reps have arrived here in Florida and all are ready for an exciting week of events. Most of us arrived yesterday and it didn’t take me long to run into a familiar face from back home in Canada – Michelle Kilbourne who many Canadian tournament anglers will remember as former co-owner of the Chevy Merc Pro Bass Series. Michelle is with Mercury Marine here in the US and travels from tournament to tournament as pro staff manager. Last night everyone got together over a dinner sponsored by Toyata trucks. Guest speakers included the founder of BASS – Ray Scott and the new National Federation Director Gary Jones.

Today conservation directors woke up bright and early for a scheduled fishing excursion in nearby Disney World. As my buddy Walt – Conservation Director from Utah said to me as we loaded the bus, “Finally after all these years of annual meetings we get to do some actual fishing”. And he’s right … I have been Conservation Director for the Ontario BASS Federation since its inception in 1995, and this is the first time we have actually had a chance to fish for a couple of hours.  It was a real treat too – fishing in groups of 6 onboard pontoon boats in Disney’s Lagoons.

Here Gene Gilliand a Fisheries Biologist with Oklahoma State, holds up one of the smaller
largemouth caught today.  Gene, who also writes regularly for BASS TIMES, is a regular presenter
at the annual Conservation Meetings. 

Back in late January of this year, writing an article for Outdoor Canada Magazine, I was fortunate enough to be part of the BASS/ESPN Fantasy Fishing event here in Disney along with several other outdoor writers from across the US.  On one of the angling excursions I had the whole pontoon boat to myself along with one of Disney’s top guides - Robert. Today, even though there are over a dozen guides here - who do you think our guide was? Yep – Robert; and you can be sure he got us on fish even though there is a cold front moving thru. Our group, who, unlike the other group, refused to use shiners by the way; yet we still caught about ten nice largemouth – including one chunky four pounder.  My 2 ½ slammed a 3inch holographic ‘red’ colored Rapala Huksy Jerk.

What’s Up For the Rest of Day One?

After lunch today, conservation directors will begin their series of meetings. The presidents, including our own OBF pres – Ken Hamilton, have been meeting since 8am this morning. Many of them also met yesterday where, Ken told me several key announcements were revealed that we will elaborate on in a future report. Today at 3pm, there will be a practice weigh-in at the Kissimmee Lakefront Park for the 55 anglers who qualified for this amateur world championship event. Bill Todd, who is the loan Canadian representing the Ontario BASS Federation is out there on Lakes’ Toho and Kissimmee right now as I write this for the official pre fish day. Weather conditions are windy, cloudy and unstable, as a storm is expected to come thru this are later today

Well, it’s time to head over to the conservation director’s meetings.  Stay tuned for more daily reports right here on BIG FAT BASS. And if we have a chance to interview Bill Todd before he begins the biggest tournament of his life tomorrow … we’ll be sure to file another report later today, but no promises! So for now, reporting from Kissimmee Florida, it’s Wil Wegman signing off.