On an April weekend members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club were fishing our April tournament at Clarks Hill. This is something of a tradition, we fish it almost every April and have missed very few years since I joined the club.

It is almost unbelievable to me that this is the 40th anniversary for me in the club. Jim berry and I fished the Sportsman Club April tournament at Clarks Hill in 1974. That was the first tournament I ever fished and I have been in the club every year since then and have missed very few club tournaments.

In 1975 I was elected Secretary/Treasurer of the club and have held that office most of the years since then. The first bulletin I sent out in 1975 had Vol. 11, no.1 at the top and I have kept that running since then. The April bulletin this year was Vol 50, No. 4. I assumed that meant the club had been in existence for l0 years when I joined but now think it was just the bulletin that has been around since 1964. I have been told the club started in the 1950s.

Gary Hattaway was in the club when I joined and is still in it, although he was not a member for a few years when he lived in Alabama. So, I am the only member left that has been in the club every year, and Gary is the only one left that was around way back then. I have made some great friends through the club but far too many of them are no longer around.

I moved to Griffin in 1972 and lived at Grandview Apartments while teaching at Atkinson Elementary. Each morning I drove College Street to 6th, turned right and went out to where it ends at Hill Street, then on to Atkinson. I reversed that in the afternoons which meant every afternoon I passed by Berry’s Sporting Goods that was located on 6th Street for many years.

Few afternoons passed that I didn’t stop and spend way too much of my princely teacher’s annual salary of $5600.00. But I got to be friends with Jim and we started fishing together some. He and Emmett Piland took me to the Flint River wading the first time, and we fished many local ponds, too.

In March, 1974 I bought my first bass boat and joined the Sportsman Club the next month. It was a big club back then, with about 75 members, and at the tournament we had 44 fishermen, many more than now. The Sportsman Club had just started fishing bass tournaments a few years before I joined and the club tournament rules still reflect that early start, with few rules and restrictions that most tournament have.

Back then there were two divisions in the club and newer fishermen went into “B” division since they were based on points from previous tournaments. We were more relaxed, with camping and fish fries more important than the actual tournament. There was a card game by the campfire most nights and we had a great time. I still do have a great time at tournaments, but it is a little more intense.

In that first tournament I just knew I would do well since I grew up on Clarks Hill and expected to catch a lot of fish. But that tournament taught me how different tournament fishing can be. Jim and I caught six keepers each day, far short of the ten fish limit back then. But many in the club had limits both days and I was surprised at the size of fish brought in.

That taught me real fast that someone would catch bass no matter what the conditions, and they could catch bigger bass than I thought possible. In that tournament Jim Goss had a bass weighing over six pounds and several five pounders were weighed in. My l2 in two days weighed about 14 pounds! But I still finished third in my division, but my catch would have been 15th in the other division.

Tackle, electronics, boats and expenses have come a long way in 40 years. My first boat was a 16 foot Arrowglass with a 70 horsepower Evenrude motor. And it was pretty top of the line, there was only one boat in the club with a bigger motor. My last boat costs over $30,000 used and the electronics I have on it cost more than my first boat!

I fished back then with two Mitchell 300 spinning reels, presents from my parents when I was 17, and an Ambassadeur 6000 casting reel, a present for my 21st birthday from Linda. Now I have 15 to 18 rods and reels on my deck in a tournament, with at least ten more in the rod locker. Line is much better as are plugs and plastic baits. And trolling motors and batteries are much stronger and last longer.

The biggest change is knowledge of what the bass do. Back then we pretty much fished shoreline cover and that still works, especially in April, but many bigger fish are caught from offshore structure like humps, and are caught much deeper than we used to think they lived.

Even with all the changes I still love it and it is great fun.