Chairman reflects on bass tourney

Tom Fry had a whirlwind week to cap off his first tenure as chairman of the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship—and was savouring a little downtime Sunday after the dust had settled.
“I’m just enjoying some time on my deck looking out at the lake,” Fry conceded Sunday evening.
There still was the matter of taking down the tents and cleaning up the area around the Sorting Gap Marina, and Fry admitted being a little short-staffed now that the initial excitement of the tournament had gone by the wayside.
“The biggest issue is getting the thing torn down, and that’s when we have the biggest struggle getting the volunteers out,” he noted. “But the champion, Joe Thrun, showed up [Sunday] morning for about two-and-a-half hours, which was pretty nice.
“We had good volunteer support during set-up and during the week, but the excitement is over now and the volunteers who come out after the event don’t get the perks that, I guess, volunteers get leading into the event,” he remarked.
Still, the event overall ran quite smoothly, with few delays or major hiccups.
“I was very pleased with the week. As far as I’m concerned, everything went very well,” Fry enthused.
“We exceeded our expectations on the three tournament days and although the fishing was a bit down from previous years, it was nice to finally see a 20-pound basket on the final day.”
Next year’s event will be the FFCBC’s 15th anniversary, and Fry plans on working hard to ensure it is a successful one. He said he’ll hold the post of chairman for one more year before handing the reins to some fresh blood for 2010.
“I’m hoping things will be a little easier on us next year, especially if the same group of directors will be back to have a second go at it,” Fry said.
“There are always little things, and some of the little issues that came up we made notes about and will improve on them for the 15th anniversary,” he pledged.
Fry and his committee plan to sit down and map out what things could be improved upon specifically, so details are scarce right now, but an obvious need is to get the number of teams in the field back up to 130 or more.
This year’s 123 entries were the lowest since 1997.
“We are definitely looking at tweaking it to get the field back up to the normal number,” Fry remarked. “We haven’t made any decisions as to how that is going to take place as of yet, but we are exploring all possibilities.
“We’d like to get it back over 130, but there may be a possibility to shoot for more,” he added. “We’re thinking in year 15 that 150 would be kind of a neat number.”