Original caption: "Anytime a fisherman catches a bass weighing 9 pounds, 14 ounces it's a thrill , but a special thrill is to catch one in a national bass tournament, like the one Billy Westmoreland of Celina is displaying on the tourny scales at Greers Lake that paid Billy $5,000 in a Ranger boat and trailer." The Tennessean, Nashville, Tennessee · Friday, June 03, 1977.

In today’s historic bass fishing pic we see Billy Westmoreland weighing THE big bass and winning the Greers Ferry Lake tournament in 1977. Westmoreland was spotlighted and interviewed in a June 3, 1977 story in The Tennessean. Outdoor columnist Jimmy Holt featured Westmoreland following his Greers Lake, Arkansas, win in mid-May. The newspaper photo shows a smiling Billy Westmoreland at the B.A.S.S. scales with his hand on the lip of the big bass of the tournament. The bass weighed 9 pounds, 14 ounces, and earned Westmoreland a new Ranger bass boat and trailer, in addition to sealing his first place win. Go to this BFA story – Season at a Glance: 1977 Bassmaster Trail – Part Two – to read Terry Battisti’s summary of the Greers Ferry Reservoir tournament.

Highlights from The Tennessean article:

“I was teaching school at Pickett County High. I coached, taught health, general business. Of course, my mind wasn’t really on teaching, as most of the time I was day dreaming as I looked out the window, wondering whether the fish were hitting or not,” Billy said that day. “The day dreaming got worse, when the weather warmed in the spring, and then again when it got cold. It certainly appeared teaching wasn’t my line, so I quit. I then went to selling insurance. I fished when I pleased, and finally decided selling insurance wasn’t my line either. I even had a government program job for a while.”

“Then one day I was reading in the paper about the big Bass Masters Classic held on Lake Mead in Nevada, where Bobby Murray won $10,000 bass fishing…I thought if Bobby could do that so could I,” Billy commented. “Well, I found out it wasn’t quite that easy.”

Billy travels all across the country promoting Hydra-Sport Tournament boats for Joe Reeves’ company here in Nashville.

Billy’s fishing credentials are legend: five-time qualifier for the Bass Masters Classic world finals, back-to-back title winner of the Florida Invitational, 1974-75, and maybe the only fisherman around to catch both a 10 pound smallmouth and largemouth bass.