Bassmaster Classic: Fun at the old ballpark, Michael Jordan, and kayaking in the rain

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—For Media Day of the 50th Bassmaster Classic, the Classic qualifiers were going to sit on their boats spread around the baseball field at Regions Field, the home of the Birmingham Barons. But rains forced Plan B. The boats were pulled up on the concourse and packed in.

While doing interviews, I couldn’t miss seeing the big rendering of Michael Jordan, from his days playing of baseball with the Barons. plastered on the wall. It was pretty neat. It also made me realize how fast the years are passing. Your average college kid wasn’t even alive when Jordan was doing baseball.

Weather has made analyzing prospects for this historic Classic tough. Will they be up shallow? How will the grass matter? We will know a lot more tomorrow after Day 1 of the Classic on Lake Guntersville.

I will be there in the dark so I can see takeoff, then do a couple hours of taking photos from the water before hustling back for the weigh-in at the Birmingham-Jefferson Conference Complex. Guntersville is over an hour away from Birmingham, so it is a 4 a.m. wake-up call again tomorrow.

This morning I was up early for the first event in the B.A.S.S Nation Kayak Series on Logan Martin Lake. I rode around with Thomas Allen, senior editor with B.A.S.S., as we took photos and talked with anglers. Even with rains, including a passing thunderstorm mid-morning, the kayak anglers were catching fish. There’s both largemouth and spotted bass in Logan Martin. We saw some white bass caught, too, but they do not count in tournaments.

Scoring is done through TourneyX, where fish are photographed on a bump board, then submitted. Measuring is done on length, not weight. The top 10 kayakers will be announced tomorrow at the Classic weigh-in stage. I look forward to that, too.

No food note tonight. I had planned to have a taco note from a food truck at the Street Party a couple blocks away for the Bassmaster Classic people, but the truck was already gone by the time I arrived.

Dale Bowman