1978 Kentucky Lake Program

Back in March of this year, during Classic week, we posted a piece on an old 1973 Bassmaster Watts Bar tournament program.  As you may remember, this cool piece of bass fishing memorabilia left a lot of unanswered questions as to its origins.  Well, today in 1978 Kentucky Lake Program, we answer those questions and get to present only the third of these programs I have ever seen.

All this thanks to my friend Craig Lamb of Bassmaster.

As stated above, at the Classic earlier this year I ran into Craig and showed him the 1973 program I had in my backpack.  He told me he had a 1978 version of the Kentucky Lake program that he’d share with us.  Not only did he come through with sharing the program, but he was also able to shed full light on how these programs came to be.

But first, let me give you a little of Craig’s history with bass fishing and B.A.S.S. in general.

Like most of us here, Craig was bitten by the bass bug at an early age in the 1970s.  His dream as a kid was to be in the bass fishing industry.  He went to his first Bassmaster event at Tennessee’s Cordell Hull Reservoir in 1976 and instantly became a fan of Rick Clunn, who nearly won the event on a new lure called the Lunker Lure.

His next event was at the 1977 BASS Champs event on Percy Priest just outside of Nashville.  This time his favorite angler won the event outright – again on the Lunker Lure.  It was at this event Craig was able to meet his hero.

The following year Craig was able to head to the 1978 BASSMaster Trail event on Kentucky Lake, where he acquired the Kentucky Lake program.  He doesn’t remember exactly where he picked up the program, but he said they were all over the host hotel and other venues.  He picked one up and hoped to get Ray Scott to sign it.

To accomplish this, he stalked the Bass Boss to his hotel and waited for him to come out of his room.  When he cornered him in the parking lot, he asked Ray to sign the program, which he did.  Mission accomplished for the teenage Lamb.

Next, he spent the remaining days watching weigh-ins and rooting for his hero, Rick Clunn, who you’ll notice is the only angler Craig wrote on the standings sheet.

From Ranger, Craig then went on to B.A.S.S. as Dewey Kendricks’ assistant tournament director and weigh master in 1986.  Shortly thereafter, Craig moved into editorial for Bassmaster Magazine and began ghost writing Ray’s Scott on the Line column for each issue of Bassmaster Magazine.  Lamb then went on to become associate editor of both Bassmaster Magazine and B.A.S.S. Times.  He’s been with B.A.S.S. since, covering 37 years of bass fishing.

So how did these programs come about and who oversaw printing them?

According to Craig, each tournament venue signed a contract with B.A.S.S. not only to host the event, but to promote it.  The programs were part of the promotion.  The city’s Chamber of Commerce was responsible for printing the program and any ad revenue they obtained from the program they got to keep.  It was a way for the city to recoup some of their money for hosting the event.  The only thing B.A.S.S. provided was a list of entrants for the tournament.

B.A.S.S. continued with the programs through the Helen Sevier years and it was halted after ESPN bought the organization.  For as many events that were held between 1973, the first year I know they were printed, and 2001, when ESPN bought B.A.S.S., you’d think more of these programs would surface.  Yet the Watts Bar and Kentucky Lake programs are the only ones I have ever seen.

If you know of anymore of these programs floating around out there and would like to share them with us here, please let us know in the comments section below.

I’d also like to thank Craig Lamb for sharing his copy as well as telling us the story of how they came to be.

To view the entire program, please see the gallery below.  Click on the first image and use the arrows to scroll through the pages.

Gallery – 1978 Kentucky Lake Program