A Nation To Be Proud Of 

            A marketing slogan that describes BASS is found on the cover of this magazine: “The Worldwide Authority on Bass Fishing.” That is undeniably true and there is no other organization in this sport that can ever lay claim to that fact.

            While fishing is the focus of BASS and this magazine’s mission is to share wisdom from the experts, another founding principle that I laid down from the very beginning sometimes gets lost in the big picture.

            And that principle is the conservation agenda, one that traces its roots back to January 1968 when I created BASS. The timing was coincidental, actually, as pollution and environmental awareness were becoming hot topics both politically and with the general public.

            BASS had only 12,000 members in 1970 when we sued some 214 big-time industrial polluters alone in the state of Alabama, home to BASS at the time. Shortly after that, we again leveraged the little used 1898 Federal Refuge Act to sue 22 polluters carelessly dumping harmful chemicals into the Houston Ship Channel. And in Chattanooga, Tenn., where the first club affiliated with what’s known today as the B.A.S.S. Federation Nation, we fought factories who freely piped wastes into the Tennessee River, turning it into a toxic soup.

            All of this happening at a time when I probably should have been more focused on growing the BASS membership. But at the time, I knew that water pollution was a hot button issue with the BASS club boys, whom I called our environmental “minutemen.” More important, I knew conservation could and would ultimately determine the future of our sport.  Of course, membership did indeed continue to grow, with the grass-roots B.A.S.S. Federation Nation forming the backbone of BASS conservation activism.

            Pollution issues became more complex as the years went by and BASS never flinched when it came time to face the battles head-on. In 1989 we formed a Conservation department to flex our muscles, working with state and federal governments to beef up our commitment to improve public access and work jointly to preserve and enhance water quality and the aquatic environment.

            The BASS Conservation Department was then, and is now, at the forefront of issues important to our members. For the most part, BASS never backed down on stepping into sometimes controversial issues. I personally came back into the fray in 1997 after discovering the U.S. Coast Guard was dumping big, automotive-type lead-acid batteries (for navigation lights) into Lake Guntersville, recognized nationwide as a top bass fishery.  I privately hired a diver who hauled up battery after battery.

            The problem was exacerbated when we later discovered that possibly thousands of batteries—containing toxic contaminants like mercury and lead—were lying in piles near navigation markers on the bottom of the 89,000-acre impoundment. It doesn’t take an environmental expert to know those compounds were bad news for waters used for fishing, swimming and even municipal water supplies. After the Alabama B.A.S.S. Federation Nation and a team of legal experts joined our campaign, the stage was set for litigation. Our grounds for a lawsuit were based on the 1898 Refuse Act, the same law we leveraged in the 1970s. The Coast Guard later admitted it had dumped some 100,000 batteries (retrieved after our threatened lawsuit) into waterways nationwide where lighted or audible navigation beacons are located.  It was an important lesson for all.  We can never be complacent about industry or our own governmental agencies.

            There is only so much editorial space to chronicle the many actions taken by BASS to disarm environmental wrong-doers. Fortunately on the flip side, there are the thousands of volunteer hours members of the B.A.S.S. Federation Nation have spent working with state and federal government on a host of collaborative projects, from shoreline cleanups to planting habitat in aging reservoirs.

            How unselfish is that? The generous acts of BASS and its grass-roots membership spill well outside the realm of bass fishing. Ultimately, our conservation agenda touches water quality, wetland preservation, and aquatic plant management. Did you notice that “bass fishing” is not a direct connection to the BASS conservation platform?

The success stories over the past 38 years are numerous and will continue to grow as our conservation team of Noreen Clough, Chris Horton and their army of B.A.S.S. Federation Nation volunteers keep watch over the interests of the membership and everyone else affected by their unselfish efforts.

            All I can say is, God bless the watchdogs.  They serve us all.  And for those who tune out to the words conservation and environment, just remember you are a conservationist every time you release a bass alive.  BASS made that a universal practice many years ago.  Be proud.