After months of inactivity, the pros had filtered in to the town of Eufaula on the Alabama-Georgia border and begun laying the groundwork for their first national tournament of the fall - the CITGO Bassmaster Southern Open - when the approach of Hurricane Ivan ruined their plans.
Some had been fishing the lake for more than a week. Others had traveled several hundred miles to get there. All had fishing and competition on their minds.
But with the giant, powerful hurricane taking a projected path through Alabama last week, BASS officials decided to postpone the first Eufaula Open until Oct. 28-30. That meant the anglers would have to regroup as their season will now start in Columbus, Miss., Oct. 14-16 on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.
One of those pros is Randy Howell, who drove three hours from his Springville, Ala., home and had set up camp (so to speak) at the Lakepoint State Park campground in his 31-foot Fleetwood RV. He fished the lake on Saturday afternoon, all day Sunday and the first few hours on Monday while closely monitoring the weather reports.
"I hadn't been there very long and hadn't wasted much time when it was canceled," Howell said. "I'm glad I hadn't spent much time. There were guys at the campground that had been there a week and half, two weeks.
"Those guys that had spent so much time and money there were really bummed out. But there was just no way around it. There was no way that BASS could have held a tournament with the hurricane headed right for Montgomery. Even if it had passed on one side or the other of Eufaula, it still would have caused a lot of wind and rain and it wouldn't have been safe."
Howell packed up the RV and headed north to Memphis, where he waited for Ivan to exhaust itself.
Most of the local experts had predicted that Lake Eufaula would likely be stingy during the week it was originally scheduled. The postponement might actually play into the competitors' hands, according to Howell.
"I think when we go back a month from now the fishing will be better than it would have then," he said. "The fishing was really tough, but when I fished a few hours early on Monday, it had started getting better.
"I was fishing shallow and it was picking up pretty good. I think it had a lot to do with the low pressure that was coming in from the storm coming closer. I think it pulled the fish up shallow and the water had risen each day I was there. They were starting to bite shallow.
"That area is probably going to get a whole lot of rain and it will at least freshen the lake. It will put a lot of fresh water in it and have a lot of water running through it, which just might get the fish feeding and a little more active and keep them up shallow, hopefully. It will be a good tournament if they're biting shallow because that's what most people like to fish."
MUCH APPRECIATED
Veteran Florida pro Bernie Schultz had plenty of praise for BASS tournament officials in regards to the Lake Eufaula tournament. Officials told Southern Open competitors that were apprehensive about Hurricane Ivan the week before the postponement that their entry deposit would be refunded should they decide not to come to Alabama.
"That was a great gesture on their part," Schultz said at the time. "They didn't have to do that. It shows you how much they care about the fishermen."
DEATH IN THE FAMILY
Former BASS tournament competitor and outdoors television pioneer Virgil Ward died of cancer last Monday at his home in Amsterdam, Mo. He was 93.
Ward was the longtime host of Championship Match Fishing and had both a nationally syndicated newspaper column and radio show for years. He also started Bass Buster Lure Co., which was later sold to Johnson Fishing. His sons, Greg and Bill, are both past Classic qualifiers.
WELCOME HOME, CHAMP
After returning from a trip to Japan, reigning Classic champion Takahiro Omori was the guest of honor at a big, enthusiastic celebration thrown by his friends at Lake Fork.
It was thrown by Joe Axton, owner of Axton's Bass City. Axton and his wife, Toshiko (who speaks Japanese), were Omori's first friends when he moved to Emory, Texas, from Japan in 1992. He arrived without being able to speak much English and knew just one American citizen. The Axtons sort of adopted Omori, who lived out of a small travel trailer on their property.
Among the Bassmaster pros in attendance were Kelly Jordon, Jay Yelas, Lance Vick and Yusuke Miyazaki. Several Lake Fork guides also joined in.
"It was a big deal," Jordon said. "The county judge of Rains County declared it Takahiro Omori Day, Sept. 9, 2004, which is pretty cool.
"It was pretty neat. He has a lot of friends here. When Takahiro first moved there, he had a car that he lived out of. Then he had a drop-in camper that he lived in. Between tournaments, he was there fishing the lake and guiding. I talked to him quite a bit, and he's glad to be home so he can go fishing every day on Lake Fork."
DID YOU KNOW?
The last time that BASS officials postponed an entire tournament was after the Sept. 11 tragedy.
PRO BIRTHDAYS
Alabama pro Randy Howell turns 31 on Sept. 25, while Art Ferguson of Michigan will be 40 two days later. Kentucky's Mark Menendez becomes 41 on Sept. 28.
IF I HADN'T BECOME A BASS PRO
2004 Classic qualifier Brian Snowden, 31, of Missouri would likely still be working as an architect for Bass Pro Shops.
THEY SAID IT
"I had a trip booked two months ago with a Japanese customer. He was real happy. He told me, 'Don't cancel it. Don't cancel it.' We had a good time. We didn't catch any big ones, but we caught 8 to 10 fish a day and had a good time." Takahiro Omori did a guided trip after returning from Japan. It's rare to get a fishing trip with a reigning Bassmaster Classic champion, who usually retire from guiding after winning the world championship.