Season at a Glance: 1971 Bass Master Trail – Part Two

Welcome back to the 1971 Bass Master Trail Part Two. First off, take a brief look at the AOY standings (below) from the first two events. It should be obvious that there could possibly be a significant omission. Bill Dance – the 1970 Angler of the Year winner and the angler who’d won more B.A.S.S. events and money than any other angler – is absent from the standings.

This is a significant deal because tournament fans all over were looking for another Dance, Mann and Martin showdown. Unfortunately for Dance, and possibly fortunate for Roland Martin, he had just started his famed fishing show, “Bill Dance Outdoors,” and would not make any of the events slated during the ’71 season.

What a year to start a TV show, with the first-ever Bass Master Classic only a few months away.  Even with Dance missing, though, the AOY race would prove to be one for the history books as you will see below.

Sam Rayburn National Bass Tournament June 17-19, 1971

The third event of the season found 134 anglers from 17 states at Sam Rayburn, where John Powell would win for the second event in a row. Powell started off the event slowly with only two fish on day 1 but made an amazing come-from-behind finish with a 10-fish, 40-pound string on the final day. His 3-day total went 61-06 for 18 fish (10-bass per day limit), beating out Roland Martin by just over 3 pounds.

For Martin it was his second runner-up finish on the season and he did it with a 30-fish limit that weighed 58-01.  Rounding out the top-5 were Joe Kennedy of TX with 49-08, Wallace Lea of MO with 46-00 and Pat McGowan of TX with 44-10.

One of the interesting facts about the Rayburn tournament was that Powell and Martin caught their fish deep – 20- to 40-feet deep – to the amazement of everyone, even Powell.

Here’s an excerpt from the tournament report:

“Why shoot, I’d never caught a bass 25-feet deep in my life,” claimed Powell. “And a lot of times I haven’t had 45 feet of line on my reel.”

Powell was so against fishing deep it was reported that he used to call deep water anglers, “hole setters,” and had remarked in the past, “Pete Henson is the most famous hole fisherman of all.  He stayed on one spot so long, a barge boat driver mistook him for a channel marker.  Pete moved the third day of the tournament, and the channel boat operator ran aground.”

Powell, though, after three practice days and nearly his first full tournament day, ate crow and went deep.  Due to the wind, he wasn’t able to anchor and opted to drift plastic worms over deep structure.  The change paid off.

Martin, who wasn’t a novice at the deep water tactics, also fished deep, 20-30 feet, using a combination of jigging spoons and plastic worms on offshore structure.

Big fish for the event went to Joe Kennedy with a 7-03. His big fish earned him an extra $700 “and a new Motor-Guide trolling motor presented by the Herschede Hall Clock Company.” For those of you who don’t know who the Herschede Hall Clock Company is, they’re the folks that developed the Motor-Guide trolling motor.

Overall, the 134 anglers caught bass for a total weight of 2,291 pounds.  All fish were donated to local charity organizations.

Although this was Powell’s second win in a row for the ’71 season, it wasn’t the first time an angler had won back-to-back on the Bass Master Trail. Bill Dance had already accomplished this feat twice, once in the ’68 season (Rayburn and Smith Lake) and again in 1970 (Rayburn and Table Rock). I’m thinking there were a lot of folks fishing this event that were happy Dance hadn’t shown up for this tournament.

In the race for the AOY standings, Martin (96 points) slipped ahead of Mann (95 points) with one event left before the Bass Masters Classic.  The rest of the top-5 in the AOY were Wallace Lea (75 points), John Powell (70 points), Bobby Meador (59 points) and Carlos Mayo (51 points).  Note:  For each event, 35 AOY points were granted the winner, 34 for second place, etc.

The top 25 for the Sam Rayburn tournament are presented below.

With the win, Martin took home his first AOY award, just edging out Mann. The top 35 in the AOY standings is presented below – with the Top 25 getting the invite to the inaugural Bass Masters Classic. Of note,. Johnny Adams of Florida was unable to attend the first super bowl of bass fishing.

A full gallery of pictures can be seen below.  Click on an image in order to expand the gallery.  Stay tuned, part three of this series will cover the first-ever Bass Master Classic.

This is part two of a three-part series on the 1971 Bass Master Tournament Trail.  To read Part One, click here.