Opening Day Preview

The time has come for another opening of bass season here in Michigan. Once again it looks like we’ll have to wait until Monday to get after it here in West Michigan. I’m sure there are some club tournaments going on around here but I haven’t seen anything else to fish other than the WMB Tom Cook Open on Memorial Day.

I was happy to see the tournament changed from a 500 dollar entry fee that was going to get low turnout, back to the typical version with a 150 dollar entry fee. I’ve had a lot of success in that event but I wasn’t going to pony up 500 dollars unless there was a substantial turnout. A big turnout for that that kind of money just isn’t going to happen in a spawn event that is open to run, so the switch was no surprise to me. I love the idea, well except the open to run and hope someday it will get some traction. I just feel like it would have to be more of a “big event” that can really be hyped up vs a standard tournament to really be successful.

Of course even though the original plan didn’t work out West Michigan Bass stepped up and did something classy. The high school fishing community lost one of their own this spring. This tournament is a way to not only honor Aaron Coon from the Reeths Puffer fishing team but raise some money for his family. I hope people will turn out and show some support for Aaron and his family through this event. I hope to see a bunch of you there Monday! Trevor and I won’t be going on much practice for this one but we will be fishing and that is a good thing. Hopefully I remember how to catch a bass because I’m sure some hefty bags of smallmouth from all up and down the coast will be making it to the scales.