The much anticipated debut of the new Women's Bassmaster Tour will take place April 20-22 on Alabama's Neely Henry Lake. Like all events on the new women's trail, it's being held in conjunction with a Bassmaster Series event, the Southern Challenge on Lake Guntersville on April 20-23.Bass fishing's best female anglers will share the limelight with Elite Series anglers on the weigh-in stage April 22 at Guntersville (Ala.) High School.
But there's one prominent woman angler who won't be there - popular young pro Melinda Mize of Ben Lomond, Ark.
There's a compelling reason for Mize's absence. She's currently serving her country in the armed forces.
Just as Mize was preparing for the inaugural season of the women's tour, she learned her National Guard unit had been called up for active duty in the Middle East.
"I've always dreamed of fishing on the women's tour, following in my mom's footsteps.," said Mize, the daughter of pro Jimmy Mize and Women's Bassmaster Tour pro Lucy Mize. "I hate that I have to put it off for a year."
But Mize wouldn't have it any other way. A member of the National Guard since 2001, Mize said she actually had an opportunity to back out of her recent call-up for active duty but that she never considered that a viable option.
"I believe that everybody has dreams and goals, and I'm no better than anybody else, so I knew that this was something that I had to do," she said.
Mize will serve with a specialized unit in Kuwait, securing and operating an airfield in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert, an airfield that serves as a staging area to support the U.S. mission in Iraq.
She'll ship out in June. Currently, she's going through specialized training at Camp Shelby in Mississippi.
In May, just a few days before her deployment, Mize is scheduled to wed to Michael Hooper of Batesville, Ark., a fellow guard member she met while assisting in the cleanup effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last fall.
"I finally meet the man of my dreams, and now I have to leave him for a year," she said.
Hooper himself recently returned from a year-long tour in Iraq with the Arkansas National Guard's 39th Infantry.
"It bothers me a lot more than it bothers her, because she doesn't know what's coming," Hooper said of his bride-to-be's deployment.
Melinda's mother Lucy, who'll be competing on the women's tour this year, isn't looking forward to her daughter's deployment, either.
"It's been both our dreams to be on the weigh-in stage together," she said. "And the possibility of one of us being there and not the other one is not going to be good."