penetration, Ph factors and just about every- thing any inventive mind could conjure up. The big surge of B.A.S.S. tournaments never quite made it to the West in the early days, as least as far as competitive events were concerned. We at Western Outdoor News did a lot of promoting for B.A.S.S. and cer- tainly were instrumental in getting hun- dreds, if not thousands, of Westerners to join this new group. We even had a series of seminars (in 1970) in which Ray Scott, Hal Sharp (B.A.S.S. Tournament Director) and I toured Southern California for 10 seminar dates from San Diego to the metro Los Angeles area with a couple of stars of this new “pro” tournament circuit in the South — Roland Martin and John Powell. We were happy to have 60 or 70 bass anglers show up at the seminars, where today we could probably fill the big sports arenas with avid anglers. This tour also set the stage for Scott in his first “secret” fishing tourna- ment, the very first Bassmasters Classic in 1971, which he set up on his way home from our Southern California tour with a stop at Las Vegas and Lake Mead. Bassmasters clubs were springing up all over California, with the most notable being Southern California, South Bay, Inland Empire, Saddleback, Pisces, Delta, Shasta- Cascade and numerous others which I can- not remember—being nearly 70 years of age now, remembering everything is not high on my list! I was a member of Saddle- back, along with Dave Myers (Fenwick President), George Kramer (whom I hired to be a writer for Western Outdoor News) and Larry Hopper, who would become one of the West’s best tournament anglers. I was also an honorary member of the So- Cal Bassmasters, which had many anglers who would have successful careers in tour- nament fishing.
Dee Thomas, top, dominated tournament circuits throughout California and the nation, in this case a West Coast Bass event. Western Bass Fishing Association emerged early as the top California circuit.
WESTERN BASS BEGINS
In those early 70s, the West began clamoring for its own stars and own tournaments, and as the number of local bass clubs grew at a staggering rate, the B.A.S.S. Federation concept wasn’t enough to satisfy the Western angler. Enter Wayne Cummings and Jerry Abney, two members of the Southern California Bassmasters, who started the Western Bass Fishing Association (more commonly known as Western Bass),
which struggled for nearly two years before we could convince WON Publisher Burt Twilegar that “we” should be in the bass fishing market with our own group. In May 1974, WBFA became part of Western Outdoors Publications, complete with its own magazine and tournament cir- cuit. While Bill Dance was the “King” of the B.A.S.S. tournament circuit, the West needed its own stars — and they were quick in coming. We had our own “legend” and it was Dee Thomas, who had this new technique of fishing called flippin’. He not only won many of the early Western Bass tournaments, he went south to win a B.A.S.S. event in Arkansas. He introduced the world to the flippin’ technique, and if
you’ve ever “flipped” a bass you owe thanks to Dee Thomas. There were plenty of other stars in the West, including several who won big on the original Western Bass circuit and whose talents are still on display, such as Mike Folkestad (1992 B.A.S.S. tournament winner in Florida, 3-time winner of the U.S. Open and multiple tournament wins on the WON BASS circuits); Larry Hopper (2-time WON BASS, 1987 U.S. Open and 5-time Western Bass champion); Gary Klein (now residing in Texas and winner of many B.A.S.S. tournaments, multiple Bassmaster Classic appearances and B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year in 1989 and 1993); and Dave Gliebe (who also went east to become the
July 2011 _ SILVER EAGLES 19