Santee-Cooper Bass Tournament

bassfan.com Major League Bass Pro Tour is holding a tournament on South Carolina's Santee-Cooper Lakes from this past Tuesday through Sunday. "It'll still be cold..." I read, and a lot of rain has fallen, possibly rendering some of the lake unfishable, though pre-spawn tactics are anticipated, some of the bass to be caught in the trees. Santee-Cooper Lakes are "full of cypress trees." Click on the link if you care to read an informative article about the event.

Cypress trees must be cool to see. I never forget the first time I drove past the lakes on the way to Florida in 1984. When you're only 23, age 18 seems a lifetime ago. At 18, I gave up on fishing bass tournaments. I began fishing B.A.S.S chapter tournaments with the Mercer County Bassmasters when I was 16 and could still dream of becoming a tournament pro. No pie in the sky. I took trophies from guys twice my age and older. Next to me, the youngest club member was 23. He proved to be the best at the game, too.  

I had a chance and Tim had my back better than anyone else did. The guy who was 23. But I was also writing about fishing for magazines...and reading novels. You know what happens next. A conversion happens and the ambition changes. I wanted to become a novelist. 

But when I saw the sign identifying Santee-Cooper when I was 23, even though I was infinitely wiser than I had been at 18 when I fished my last tournament on the Salem Canal, Cumberland County, New Jersey, I felt a rush of recognition like none other the whole way down to Grant, Florida. I read Bassmaster Magazine religiously during my teens. Santee-Cooper was like a household name to me. So to actually pass by the lake, that was quite the rush.

I know. What is a 16-year-old doing with a bunch of older bass fishermen? Drinking beer in strip clubs, at that? Those were the 1970's. A free world. I looked 23 anyhow. Talked like it, too. And placed in bass tournaments. Won one of them.