Your Job as TD Is To Keep 'Em All Safe

"Today, I'm very happy to be alive after my experiences yesterday on Amistad. If I could step outside of my body and kick my own butt right now, I'd do it, because I certainly deserve it."

That's how a young non-boater in only his second season with a bass-tournament trail began an item I found online. He continued, "Deciding to fish yesterday, knowing we would be making a 25-mile ride was just poor judgment, a choice that could have cost my life. I have seen bad conditions before on Amistad (photo above depicts 30-mph winds, with 3-foot waves), but nothing like what I experienced yesterday.

"I'm happy my partner was experienced enough to get us back, but it didn't come without some drama." That drama amounted to rough waves ripping off both of his partner's gps/depthfinders and losing a net that was strapped down to the deck.

"I've always loved water," said the non-boater," but I have a newfound respect for it now. After the third wave got us, I started actually sizing up all the waves and quickly realized we had no business trying to combat them in an 18-foot Nitro. I was totally floored by the size of some of the waves we were surfing--it was unbelievable. I had no idea a lake could get like that.

"Lesson learned: 30-mph sustained winds, or gusts over 40 mph, and I'm staying home, no matter what's at stake. I'd rather live to fish another day. I love bass fishing, and I'm passionate about tournament fishing, but never again will I let the love of the sport cloud my judgment.

"And to think, we did all that for only 12 pounds of fish. What idiots!"

Back in the day, when testosterone guided a lot more of my decisions than anything else did, most notably common sense, the non-boater in that incident just described easily could have been me. I never wanted to hear that our Saturday bass tournament had been cancelled. "How dare them to take away my one day of fun for the whole week?" was the way I looked at the situation back then. Plain and simple, the tournament director (TD) had wimped out, and it made my blood boil.

Having lived through some harrowing boat rides of my own, though, coupled with other experiences I've had over the past nearly 73 years, I see things in a far different light today. And I take this responsibility as a tournament director very seriously. The last thing I ever want to have happen on my watch is for one or more of the competitors to be injured--or worse--during a tournament all because I neglected my duties.

Considering that we seldom pay more than $200 for a first-place finish in any of our contests, it is stupid to launch a field of competitors when weather conditions dictate otherwise. I would hate to try explaining to a next of kin why I had allowed a tournament to blast off in extreme weather or what was predicted to turn extreme during the day when the best-possible payout was only $200.

That's the sort of situation in which I fully would expect the next of kin to employ the services of a personal-injury lawyer like Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley. I have no idea if he's as tough as those TV commercials make him out to be, but neither do I want to find out the hard way.

For those reasons, I cancelled our scheduled West Neck Marina tournament today. All the local meteorologists had been calling for strong winds, with even stronger gusts, and the chance for some kind of moisture throughout most of the week, and I had a gut feeling they probably were right this time. Based on what has happened around my place today, their forecasts were spot on.

Had the weather dudes been wrong, I still wouldn't have felt bad about cancelling today's tournament. After all, who can argue with the proverb "better safe than sorry"?