Michael J. Baranowski
Dear editor:
Yesterday (Oct. 20) was the deadline to decide whether the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship will continue to operate or drop out.
The Kenora Bass International was in the same predicament a few years ago, but was able to get a practically new committee.
Hopefully, Fort Frances will get the help they need so they can continue to operate.
You can only keep volunteers so long, and you cannot hope to keep them on forever.
I would like to give my two cents on this issue. I participated in the FFCBC for five years, and definitely was in it for the fun knowing that we would not win any of the prizes.
I was classed as the “giver,” which was approximately 80 percent of the field, while 20 percent were the “receivers.”
I was not surprised when comments in last week’s paper were given by two outsiders, as they generally are in the top 10 and naturally would not want to see the event close down. There are many local people involved in this tournament for all its years of operation that are not winners that should have given their comments on the matter instead of the two outsiders who benefit from it.
Hopefully, the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship will survive for another year or more. But if not, there are other great tournaments throughout the region—from Sioux Narrows’ “Bassin’ for Bucks” to Atikokan’s Bass Classic, which will never run into a predicament such as the one in Fort Frances is having at the present time.
I believe the two bass tournaments mentioned above are for the average team. Many can win each day of three, plus the overall winner of all three, at “Bassin’ for Bucks” and everyone is a winner at the Atikokan Bass Classic, with the top 10 teams receiving cash while the rest has the pick of many prizes based on their standings in the event.
If you do not register at the closing of these tournaments, you could miss out for the next year (this happened to me once but was fortunate enough that there was a cancellation).
We can all keep our fingers crossed that the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship will survive for its 2010 event, as well as many more. For it to survive, however, they need to shave off a few of their expenditures as they seem to increase it every year.
Go back to where it was running smoothly and maybe the winners of the tournament will take a crack on being a volunteer.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Baranowski
Nestor Falls, Ont.
