Pushing Back the Schedule

I’m well aware of the serious of our current pandemic, and not making light of anyone’s current hardship, but under these circumstances I’m working hard to find a silver lining in the cloud of COVID-19. As a confirmed bass geek, for me that means looking at the tournament schedule.

MLF managed to get off a tournament last week, and received coverage from Golf Digest and Sports Illustrated as “the only game in town.” I don’t know enough about the specifics or the virus to opine on whether that was a wise move, but now the advancing stages of the virus and various travel restrictions make further events unlikely. The FLW Tour also snuck their Lake Martin event in under the wire, but will likely be shut down for the foreseeable future.

BASS has already postponed their Chickamauga Elite event, albeit for two different sets of reasons.

Next up is Eufaula (scheduled for April 2-5, which means practice starts three days early). While I have no inside info, I’m betting that one will be delayed too.

Santee Cooper, from April 16-19? Anyone’s guess.

My hope is that things will be resolved in time for the Sabine River event, scheduled for May 29 through June 1. Even anglers who normally dread the Sabine may be psyched for that one, especially because Texas Fest on Lake Fork comes right after that.

B.A.S.S. has indicated that they fully intend to hold a full season’s worth of events. As originally posted, the Elite Series is scheduled to end on August 23. That’s pretty typical – in recent years all top-level pro schedules have been done by sometime in September. In fact, the Forrest Wood Cup, FLW’s season-ending championship, is traditionally held in August.

I know there are a lot of moving parts – anglers’ schedules, Chambers of Commerce, weather – that impact the dates that tournaments can be held, but since there haven’t been any true fall or early winter tour-level tournaments in years, one positive unintended consequence of this pandemic would be that we’d get some late season derbies. Different anglers and techniques might get a chance to shine – they’d also get a chance to make some money that might not be flowing their way right now. Lots of distinct content will be created. At a time when deer hunting and football usually command lots of attention, some fans might be drawn out of the woods or their recliner to learn something new about the sport. I’m not celebrating COVID-19, but my feelings wouldn’t be hurt if we got to see something different.