
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994                   TAG: 9404240085
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOOK SAYS IT'S TIME TO STOP AND SMELL THE FISH

Bass fishing, for many people, has become too much like going to work. The joy of catching a fish is secondary to winning prizes. Sunsets aren't there for beauty, they are timing devices that tell you when to begin a marathon of casting.

Boat rides are 60-mph races. Fishing gear no longer is just rods and reels and a few choice lures, it's computers, too.

Competition has replaced contemplation, and it's gotten tougher to enjoy the success of your buddy when that means money out of your pocket.

This isn't a column on what has happened to virtue in the sport of fishing. It simply is a question: Has bass fishing gotten too complex, too competitive, too serious? Less fun?

Well, at best, it has become confusing, or at least it's perceived to be. And that's the subject of a new book by Bob Gooch, Virginia's dean of outdoor writers, who lives in Troy. The volume is titled "Bass Fishing Simplified."

Gooch isn't a critic of competitive bass fishing; if you go to the BASS Masters Classic, you'll see him there. His message is: You don't have to be a pro to enjoy bass fishing.

"The newcomer is lured into the mistaken belief that he must put a second mortgage on his home so he can buy a fancy boat before he can take up bass fishing," Gooch said. That thought, Gooch fears, is keeping adults from taking youngsters fishing or from getting into the sport themselves.

In reality, Gooch says, there is $10 tackle available, along with modest-but-handy boats and overlooked places, such as farm ponds and small streams, where bass thrive.

You'd expect that kind of observation from Gooch, who never has been one to measure a day's success by the weight of his catch, but the same thoughts - surprisingly - show up in the April issue of Bassmaster Magazine. They are in a column by Ray Scott, the founder of B.A.S.S. It was B.A.S.S. that started the cast-for-cash craze, and will be offering $4 million in tournament prize money next season.

Scott writes about grandparents' ponds and youngsters bearing Kool Aid grins as they pose with a bluegill catch too small to grease a skillet. Simple things. Fun things. Important things. Overlooked things.

"As we zip down an interstate highway with bass boat in tow to our favorite lunker hole, are we bypassing the same small waters that provided the foundation of our love of the sport?" he writes. "On some occasions, we are forced to endure the same bumper-to-bumper traffic at boat ramps as we do during the work week."

Suddenly the ol' perch hole seems like a welcome alternative, says Scott, who recommends that B.A.S.S. members take at least an occasional trip into "our fishing past."

All the better if that trip includes a youngster.

Maybe most of all, children have been the losers in the full-speed-ahead sport bass fishing has become. Youngsters have become spectators or, worse yet, they are disinterested because established anglers have grown too intense to show them the simple side of fishing, the fun side.

And that has the potential to bankrupt fishing, because its future is the kids.

Bass Fishing Simplified is available for $10.95, plus $1.50 shipping, from the publisher, Atlantic Publishing Co, P.O. Box 67, Tabor City, N.C. 28463 (919-653-3153) or it can be ordered from book stores or purchased at Walden Books.

by CNB