By Walt Young

sports@altoonamirror.com

Ray Scott, often referred to as the “godfather of modern bass fishing, passed away in his sleep on May 8. He was 88.

Scott was a masterful promoter who in 1967 had the vision of “building the sport of bass fishing to its rightful place in the first rank of American sports.” That vision came true to a greater extent than even Scott himself probably dared to dream of at the time.

He was born on August 24, 1933, in Montgomery, Alabama, where he grew up during the Great Depression in a one-bedroom house with his parents, a brother and three uncles. To support the family, his father operated an ice cream cart and his mother worked as a hairdresser.

As a youngster, Scott helped his family by earning extra money by delivering groceries, mowing lawns and selling peanuts at local sporting events. It was during those boyhood years that young Scott developed his lifelong devotion to the sport of fishing.

Scott suffered from dyslexia and worked hard to make “C” grades during grade school and high school. Despites his grades, he desired to attend college. Auburn University was his first choice, but obtaining a football scholarship was the only way of affording the tuition there. Weighing only 175 pounds, he lacked the size needed to make the team. Scott was then accepted to Howard College where he was able to secure an athletic scholarship. After his first year at Howard, he took a summer job working construction and suffered a broken jaw in an accident that prevented him from playing football that fall. Although the school offered to continue his scholarship, he decided to drop out of school for a year.

In 1954, Scott was drafted into the Army. After his two years of military service, he returned home and was able to attend Auburn University and earn a degree in Business Administration. After that, he took a job with the Mutual of New York insurance company and soon became one of the company’s top salesmen. In 1964, he took a job based in Montgomery as a manager for another insurance company.

By early 1967, Scott’s territory comprised Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana in addition to Alabama, all prime bass-fishing states. Whenever possible, he arranged his traveling schedule to spend the weekend near a good bass lake or two. It was on one such weekend, that bad weather forced Scott and a friend off a lake in Mississippi. While spending Saturday afternoon in his hotel room watching TV, the idea of conducting well-organized, professional bass tournaments at a national level came to him.

Back then, fishing tournaments, typically called “derbies,” generally had negative reputations. Most were small, local affairs with $2 or a similar nominal entry fee. Worst of all was the rampant cheating that occurred, with the winner being the one who could cheat the best and not be caught. Most genuinely skilled anglers wanted nothing to do with such events.

Rather than another small-time fishing derby, Scott dreamed of an honest bass tournament that would attract the best bass anglers in the country. His goal was to have 100 participants pay an entry fee of $100 with a total prize purse of $5000 and $2000 to the winner. Of course, almost no one thought Scott’s lofty plan for a professional bass tournament had a chance. But his skills as a salesman and promoter made it happen.

That first event, known as the All-American, was scheduled at Beaver Lake in Arkansas. Through hours of hard work and sheer determination, Scott was able to sign up 106 bass fishermen from 13 states at $100 each to participate in the three-day event in June 1967.

Stan Sloan, a policeman from Nashville, won the tournament. Bill Dance a young furniture salesman from Memphis finished second and helped launch his new career as a professional fisherman and TV personality.

Even though Scott lost $600 on his first tournament, it started an unprecedented revolution in freshwater fishing. He would quit his job in the insurance industry to promote professional bass fishing. He now knew there was a market for the organized fishing he was promoting and held other tournaments in Alabama and Georgia. In 1968, he founded Bass Anglers Sportsman Society for bass anglers of all levels that became the world’s largest fishing organization. Bassmaster Magazine became the source of information for BASS members and to promote the Bassmaster Tournament Trail, the first national bass tournament circuit. The annual Bassmaster Classic tournament became the pinnacle of the sport as it crowns the world champion of bass fishing and attracts about 100,000 spectators each year.

In 1984, The Bassmasters TV show appeared on The Nashville Network with more than one million viewers weekly and continues today on Fox Sports as one of the longest-running and most-watched fishing shows in history. Scott sold BASS to an investment group in 1986, although he stayed on board to emcee of the Bassmaster Classic.

It would be impossible to overstate Ray Scott’s influence on just about every aspect of the bass fishing industry, which by some estimates has an economic impact in excess of $125 billion per year and employs more than 800,000 people nationwide. Even casual anglers who have no interest in joining a bass club or competing in a fishing tournament still are interested in using the same gear the pros are using.

And there is no doubt the rapid rise of professional bass tournaments in the 1970s and 1980s drove the advancement of boats, tackle, lures, electronics and fishing techniques.

Scott was also a dedicated and influential conservationist. He pioneered the concept of catch and release for bass fishing in the early 1970s by mandating all tournament boats be equipped with live wells and penalties for dead fish at the weigh-in.

He actively worked for water quality and against industrial water pollution, including significant contributions to the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972. Ray Scott was uniquely dedicated to the sport he loved and leaves a legacy unequaled by few.