Season at a Glance: Bass Master Trail 1973 – Part One

This is part one of a three-part series on the 1973 Bass Master Tournament trail. Bass Master Trail 1973 – Part One will cover the first half of the season, Part Two will cover the second half and Part Three will cover the 1973 Bass Master Classic.

The 1973 B.A.S.S. tournament schedule was released in early 1973 and was touted by Ray Scott as, “(T)he greatest in history.” Scott “deliberately set” the February event on the St. John’s River in Florida in order to produce big bags and hopefully break the current B.A.S.S. all-time big bass weight of 9-09.

The season was also scheduled around the hot summer months in order to promote the live-release of fish, something that Scott was adamant about. In the year prior, Scott had implemented the Don’t Kill Your Catch mantra to the world of bass fishing and had had a “bad event” at Ross Barnett where nearly all bass had died due to heat and the fact there was a “problem” with the Mississippi Fish and Game Commissioner. For those interested in reading about that story, see Ray Scott’s book, Bass Boss, pages 164-66.

Here was the schedule for the 1973 season:

St John’s River – New Record Set

The first event of the year was to be held at the St. John’s River in Florida and, as stated above, was deliberately schedule at this time in order to produce record-weight catches. Not only was the tournament open to the St. John’s, the Rodman Pool, Big and Little Lake George and Crescent Lake were left open for the contestants.

Although the River was where the event was stationed out of, it was Rodman that produced the winning stringer and also big fish for the event, a new B.A.S.S. record of 12-13.

Larry Hill of Winston-Salem, NC won the event with a total weight of 108-02. After the second day of competition, Hill was in fourth place. His last-day heroics moved him from the fourth spot when he brought a 10-fish limit to the scales for 60-01. Hill reported that he caught the fish in a 65 minute stretch that was, “(T)he greatest fishing thrill of my life.” His fish were caught on a “home-made balsa wood bait, known as the Big-O,” in the Rodman Pool.

Andy Williams of Union Springs, AL took second, after leading the event for the first two days of competition, with a three-day total of 95 pounds and Tom Mann of Alabama took third spot with 77-15.

The event also marked another historic event in that Bill Dance’s all-time money awards for B.A.S.S. was surpassed by Roland Martin (fifth place). Martin took home $690 increasing his overall B.A.S.S. earnings to $21,365. Dance didn’t enter the event.

Bob Tyndall, of Greenfield, MO earned big fish honors with his newly set record of 12-13. He caught his fish in the Rodman Pool on a bait Ray Scott said, “[Looked like a] hunk that blew off a retread tractor tire.” The bait, a twin hooked Hawg Hunter plastic worm, measured 13 inches in length and was laughed at by numerous contestants, until the big fish hit.

Tyndall’s fish wasn’t the only fish over 10 for that matter. J.D. Skinner actually broke the record first on the second day with a 10-02 caught on an Aggravator spinnerbait. His record didn’t last 24 hours and he was quoted later saying, “Well, I’ve still got one record. That’s the record for holding the record the shortest length of time.”

The last day produced seven fish over 10 pounds including a 12-03 caught out of Rodman Pool by Bill Bailey of Kansas City, MO. His fish was caught on an eight-inch Mann’s Jelly Worm.

Overall the tournament had 200 entrants from 22 states and Italy who caught 1,713 fish totaling 4,247 pounds eight ounces. The event set a record for the number of 10-bass limits weighed and had an 84-percent live-release rate.

The Final top-35 standings are shown in the table below.

Beaver Lake – Another Record Set

For the second event of the season, the anglers set off for the site of the first Ray Scott – held in 1967 – Beaver Lake, AR. Don Butler of Tulsa, OK continued his hot streak, after winning the second Bass Master Classic just months earlier, and won the Beaver event with 56-14. He reportedly caught his fish on his famed Okiebug spinnerbait and a Rebel Humpback crank.

Here are his words as written by Bob Cobb in the 1973 May/June issue of Bass Master Magazine:

“I’d cast beyond the flooded cedar trees where the bass were suspended, then crank the bait opposite the tree. The lure would dive about 3- to 6-feet deep and just sort of hang there when I’d quit reeling. The Stop-and-go method really got their attention.” He reported that he saw most of the fish hit in the clear water.

Second place went to Roland Martin, the 1971 and ’72 Bass Master AOY, with a total of 54-13. He caught his fish throwing a white Zorro Aggravator or a Whopper Stopper Hellbender. He caught his fish off of “undisturbed logjams.”

“If the trash hadn’t been pushed around, I could almost bet no one had touched the area,” he told Bob Cobb in an interview afterward.

His second-place finish bumped him up further on the B.A.S.S. all-time money list for a total of $23,065.

Billy Westmorland of Celina, TN weighed a three-day bag of 51-10 to take third-place honors. He concentrated on shady spots the first two days of the event to catch his fish but on the third day, the clouds moved in and his weight dropped. Here’s what he told Bob Cobb after the weigh-in.

“In the clear water and bright sun, the bass were in the [dark] shady spots. The last day was overcast and there were dark spots everywhere.”

Cobb also wrote about a funny thing that was discovered after the event – that Don Butler had utilized “French Pink” nail polish for his win. Evidently Butler had used the women’s primping material to customized the Rebel Humpbacks he was using. As far as I know, this was the first mention anywhere that talked about anglers raiding their wife’s, or significant other’s, stock of nail polish in order to customize baits on the fly.

Overall, a field of 142 anglers from 17 states weighed 1,644 bass, of which 1,619 were released. This gave a live-release rate of 98.4 percent – a B.A.S.S. record for fish released.

The final standings of the Beaver event are shown in the table below.

Ross Barnett – Big-O Takes the Spotlight

The Ross Barnett Rebel Invitational would be a turning point for the season and also a turning point for lure development – especially hand-crafted wood crankbaits. Although Roland Martin would win the event and take over the AOY race, the tournament report on the Rebel Invitational was all about the Fred Young Big-O.

As stated, Martin won the event – his third top-5 in three tournaments. Over the course of three days he weighed in a 30-bass limit of 72-07 outdistancing second-place Bobby Murray (61-06) by 11 pounds one ounce. Martin reported catching his fish on the Big-O, a Johnson Spoon, a chartreuse Aggravator spinnerbait and worms. But mostly he was, “cranking that home-made plug.”

Stan Sloan was another 10 pounds behind with 51-00 to take third place honors while Bill Dance took fourth place with 46-03. Jerry Williams of AR filled out the top 5 with a three-day total of 43-08. Future fishing legend, Ray Murski, caught big fish weighing 6-08.

The win allowed Martin to expand his distance in the all-time B.A.S.S. money winners race against Dance giving him a total of $34,000 in B.A.S.S. earnings. It also allowed him to extend his AOY lead.

Final standings for the event are shown in the table below.

As said above, the report was all about the Fred Young Big-O – I guess another tournament report about Roland Martin was getting a bit blasé.

Here are some quotes from the article published in the July/August issue of Bass Master Magazine, as written by Bob Cobb.

“It looks like a pregnant guppy, has better moves than a hopped-up go-go dancer, costs even more than a prime cut New York Strip and with it, bass fishing professionals, that can find one, are winning big dollars.”

On one cast, Dave Hilton earned over $2,000 at the Rebel Invitational [Ed’s note: he caught big fish for the event and won the Ranger boat package]…… Roland Martin, the country’s top-ranked bass pro used one of the ‘home-made plugs’ carved from balsa to win the $17,000 fish off. Runner-up Bobby Murray got hung up, lost his and had a special shipment rushed in by bus to fish the finals.”

“One industrious kibitzer wasn’t in the Rebel contest but he reportedly had seven of ‘the lures’ fishing it. It’d cost you $5 to use it for 10 hours fishing and $20 if you lost it.”

Analysis

With the season half over, Roland Martin continued his dominance over the competition. It seemed that for the last two seasons, anglers were fishing for the second spot in the AOY race and 1973 wasn’t any different. By the end of Rebel Invitational at Ross Barnett, Martin had extended his six-point lead to 23 points. At this point in his career, he’d fished 21 B.A.S.S. events placing in the top-10 19 times and the top-5 18 times. He’d placed second eight times and won a total of five events.

It seemed at the time the only people keeping Martin honest were Stan Sloan, Johnny Morris and Tom Mann, who were all in a 3-way tie for second place. Bill Dance would have been another but by this time he was moving further and further away from tournament fishing and dedicating more time to his TV show. Still every time Dance showed up at an event he was a favorite to win. Even after missing the first event of the year, Dance was in 7th place for the AOY. The table below shows the AOY standings at this point in the 1973 season.  Of note, Bass Master changed the points structure for the 1973 season making a win worth 50 points, second place 49, etc.  Unfortunately, Bassmaster only reported the top-35 of each tournament in the magazine and therefore, the results below may be a little off.

Past Reader Comments:

Scott Hill:  Larry Hill was my dad and I am looking for any film footage of the Florida Invitational where he won the event at St. Johns in 1973, and set his bass catch record. Please let me know if anyone has footage of that event. I would love to have it! LSHill1@yahoo.com.  Thanks, Scott

Terry to Scott Hill:  Hi Scott, I don’t think they actually filmed the regular season events back then but I’m checking with a good source to find out. If I hear of anything, I’ll let you know!!! Thanks for coming to the site.

Jojo Norwood:  LOL I have one of those worms……and I can’t wait to read the Keeowwee re-cap. That lake is right up the road and it’s full of Knot-head spots…..sort’a Lanier but 12″ is a whopper…LOL.

Terry to Jojo Norwood:  Did’ja pick it up off the road Jojo? 🙂 Yeah, the Keowee event was a real record breaker. 🙂