Bobby Murray On The First Bassmaster Classic

You know, we didn’t know where we were headed when we got on the plane for that first Classic. They provided us tackle boxes and we could only have 10 pounds of tackle, and they weighed those boxes before blast off. I think Ray Scott got away with a bunch of Big-Os and Rebels when one of us had a little too much in there. They’d just take stuff and we’d never see it again.

When we first got to Vegas we only had one day of practice. Not one of us had ever been on the lake before, and when we show up, almost half the boats are caught in a snowstorm in Flagstaff, Ariz. Twenty-four anglers, and only 12 boats. The plan was to have an outdoor writer in the boat with each competitor for practice day, but since we only had half the boats there, we wound up with another competitor instead.  

The boats were started in Fort Smith before they were loaded on the truck but these were brand new, first-out-of-the-mold, with little 90-horse engines and 12-gallon gas tanks. We’re at Lake Mead with 12-gallon gas tanks. The water goes over the horizon there!

I remember the picture of the take-off that was on the cover of Bassmaster. That was an iconic moment in bass fishing history, and Rebel was a big part of it. Most people don’t know the story about how Rebel put the deal together on short notice to get the boats across the country under cover – they made those guys drive at night. It was an undertaking to get them complete and on a trailer, get them from Fort Smith, Ark., to Henderson, Nev., just when the first big snow storms were coming across the Rockies.

The second truck arrived during the night before the first competition day. They brought a few extra boats, which was smart thinking since I think all the Marina had to unload with was an old single axle forklift. It’s amazing they only dropped one. Then during practice day, the boats would run 8 or 9 minutes then just shut down. We figured out it was because the gas tanks weren’t vented. Well, that evening they got the drills out and fixed that problem.

When I took off on competition days my first stop was a Marina, fill back up, go through the canyon, go to the gyp beds, come back to the marina, gas back up and run back in. Thank God the lake during the day of practice and the three days of competition was picture perfect calm. I had about a 70 mile milk run each day.

The day after the finals, me, Ray and another guy went out to shoot some film. The wind had kicked up, and we liked to have sunk two of those boats. On those Rebel Boats the gas tank was under the front deck and the fuel line ran all the way back to the motor. We got across the lake and shot probably 2 hours, and when we started back, buddy, it was a wall of water. There have only been five or six times when I was in a boat and just scared to death…overmatched. This was one of those times. These are 7- and 8-foot waves coming at us, and we’d take all the G-Force at the bow.

About the sixth wave we hit, the board comes off the cover of the front deck and here comes the gas tank sliding back to the cockpit. The film guy sits on the floor and locks his legs, holding the gas tank in place with his feet while we’re battling the most God-awful waves. If that would have happened during the tournament, though, we’d have lost a lot of boats and maybe some anglers.   

It’s really the outdoor writers, and the way Bob Cobb handled them, who are responsible for giving us all -- and B.A.S.S. -- instant credibility, and those guys never get credit -- Homer Circle, Bodie McDowell, a bunch of them. The outdoor writer is the unsung hero in this whole bass phenomenon. When I was growing up we’d take a Field & Stream and read it cover to cover, because that’s all there was – no TV, no internet. I’ve still got my first issues of Bassmaster and buddy, we read that word-for-word, then passed them around to other folks. I always got mine back, though.

It’s really something to look back and see how it’s changed. Tournament fishing has become a “Made for TV” event. You know, in my whole tournament career I never saw a guy catch a fish and scream and break-dance on the front deck. In my era, I’m looking at Bill Dance, Roland Martin, Jimmy Houston and Rick Clunn…Forrest Wood… I’m looking at everyone who is in the Hall of Fame now, and none of them showed me their moves after catching a fish.

It wasn’t about the money and it wasn’t about the notoriety back then; it was just about the competition. We weren’t making any money. The first B.A.S.S tournament I won I collected $500 – and the entry fee was $200! I think we all know who won on that deal, it was Mr. Scott!

It’s gotten better for the most part, but the integrity of the anglers is a little less just because of the money. I had confrontations with several anglers and we got over it because it was in the heat of the moment, but there wasn’t any money involved. It wasn’t that somebody got screwed out of 50-Grand, it was 50 bucks, maybe. It changes everything when there’s a pile of money is involved. Which is fine, we’re all capitalists. It just changes things.

Through it all and through all the money that’s gone through it, if you look at fishing compared to all the other TV sports – football, basketball, baseball – the most integrity of all the sports out there is in golf and fishing. That’s where your cleanest competitor’s are.

As for the Bassmaster Classic, none of us understood the significance of that event.  The weigh in for the first Classic was on the roof of a floating boat dock. There weren’t 70 people there, but we laid the groundwork. Just look at it now.