By Kaitlyn Rigdon
Staff Writer
EL DORADO — Clark Burton, member of the Union County Bass Club, announced that Union County will be hosting the Arkansas B.A.S.S. Nation Tournament this year. Burton discussed the event, which will take place Oct. 27 and 28, at the Rotary Club meeting on Monday.
The two day event will be held at the Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge and the state BASS federation expects it will bring 200 to 250 anglers to El Dorado. The anglers come from bass clubs all over the state Arkansas. The annual event rotates every three years from north, central and south Arkansas. “Every three years, south Arkansas has a chance to get this tournament,” Burton said. “We want to put on the best show and give the state tournament the best event we can give because in three years, when this bid comes back around, we’d like to bring it back here.”
The Union County Bass Club competes once per month and acts as a nonprofit organization. They have monthly meetings to decide where they will compete, vote on a lake, dates, times and much more. The club consists of approximately 50 members and contains a president, vice president, second vice president, secretary and treasurer.
“We take a portion of the money that’s paid in entry fees and we pay it back to the anglers who win,” Burton said. “A small portion of the money goes back to the club for expenses, shirts and youth fishing events.”
Each team from across Arkansas sends their top six or twelve anglers that have pre-qualified to the annual state tournament. “The anglers who will be competing, qualified to do this in 2016,” he said. “Each club that shows up, their entry fees will be paid for by their club.”
The way this state tournament works is there will be two people per boat. Depending on how they qualified and what rank they came in, they will either be a boater or a co-angler. The top tier anglers will be considered the boaters and will be using and operating their own boats. The co-angler will be at the back, but both will be able to fish. There will be both boater and co-angler winners.
The winning anglers that participate in this tournament will get to move on to the central divisional tournament. From there, they have a chance to make it to the Bass Masters Classic, which is kind of like the Super Bowl of fishing, Burton said.
The event is taking place on a Friday and Saturday, but anglers will be arrive in El Dorado three or four days before that, Burton said. They will want to come early to learn the lake and practice.
“In order to pull off a good event and make it a really good show, we’re starting our campaign by gathering sponsors,” Burton said. “We as a club, don’t have the funding to pull this off without sponsors from our community.”
All of the anglers that the event brings will be lodging, buying food, getting gas, buying tackle and bait and much more in El Dorado. “That’s where it becomes appealing to a lot of businesses,” Burton said. “It may seem small, but the economic impact of bringing arguably 200 people to town for a week, that’s helping somebody.”
For businesses that do choose to sponsor the event, their logo or name will go on the t-shirts and banners throughout the tournament. For $250, your name or business can appear on the team’s jerseys. “We wear these shirts in competitions at all levels, local and when we fish the state events,” Burton said. “There is roughly 50 anglers that are going to be wearing these (jerseys) throughout south Arkansas.”
All of the money raised will go towards the tournament. They have to have money to pay out the tournament winners, door prizes, concessions and much more. The Smackover high school fishing team is helping with parking, the weigh in and anything else that needs volunteers.
“Logistically, we know what is going into this and what we need with a matter of putting this together,” he said. “We have until October but that’s why we’re starting now.”
To contact Clark Burton, you may reach him by email at [email protected].
Kaitlyn Rigdon is a staff writer at the El Dorado News-Times and she may be reached at 870-862-6611 or by email, [email protected].