A real passion for bass fishing

It’s not an outdoor shop. It’s not a boat show. It is a fishing show. And the people of Shreveport went out of their way to welcome over 100,000 out of towners to the 2009 Bass Classic.
Sunday evening as Doug Cain and I were winding down, having taken down and packed up the Rainy Lake Fort Frances booth, we were sitting in the restaurant and enjoying our first real supper in four days. Our server was a lady named Horia who had immigrated from France to Louisiana 11 years ago.
Spotting our Canadian Bass Shirts, she immediately broke into French thinking we might be French Canadian and offering us up our menus. She had been trained as a chef in France, but was working as a server in the restaurant, a place that both Doug and I felt really served up her talents.
After a little confusion, with me trying to remember the little French that I had and Doug looking bewildered at me, Horia, Doug and I became friends. Another waiter came by and hearing her speak French and me listening and replying with simple responses, asked, “Do you know what she’s saying?”
I think he was amazed when he learned I did understand. I too was amazed that I could still understand a good deal.
Horia was interested in our families and wanted to tell us about hers. She has a son and a daughter 6 and 8 and comes from a family of 8 in France. She has been in the US for 11 years and takes her children and husband back to Frances annually to connect with her bothers and sisters.
She wanted to know about our children, our town, our country and we found our selves completely taken with her. By the end of supper both Doug and I felt like we had known her for a lifetime. She had a thousand questions about Canada and our culture.
She and many of the other servers in the hotel’s restaurants where we ate knew the value of the fishing show to their community. They went out of the their way to make friends with us.
It was that kind of hospitality that we found throughout the four days we spent in Shreveport. The politeness, the kindness and gentleness was genuine and the interest in Rainy Lake, Fort Frances and the district was surprising. Shreveport might not be the bass capital of the US, but the passion for bass fishing can’t be stronger anywhere else in the US. And the twin cities of Shreveport and Bossier hospitality is second to none.
Three major tournaments will be held on the Red River at Shreveport this year with the Classic being the biggest. Their economic development committee had expected that $23 million would be generated into the economy of the community if 80,000 people attended the Expo or the Weigh-In. That would have matched the attendance in New Orleans several years ago.
Instead over 100,000 attended the Expo alone. And they came from every state in the Union. In addition we met in our booth writers from South Africa, France, Germany, Italy and Australia who came to witness the biggest Bass tournament in the world.
We discovered from the 400 people who attended our booth, that they were amazed at the size of bass found on Rainy and that there is a real passion from this area of the United States to enjoy world class Small Mouth Bass fishing. It is a product that we can deliver. And many will drive or fly over 1,500 miles to enjoy such a fishery.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher