Have you noticed all the attention fishing at Grand Lake has been getting?
Just in the past couple of weeks I’ve stumbled across articles specific to fishing at Oklahoma’s Grand Lake online in newspapers from Sacramento, California to Kansas City to Ohio.
Now THAT is good for business.
And I didn’t go looking for them…links to these articles just happened to find their way to my attention.
What is even more cool is that none of these articles had anything to do with the Grand Lake Extravaganza, the world’s largest tagged bass event going on right now at Grand Lake that is creating prize winners and a bunch of attention all by itself.
No, these articles ranged from a piece about Grand Lake’s Jerry Kropff and his expertise in catching blue catfish to articles about tournaments that have been or are upcoming at Grand Lake.
The Bass Federation National Championship last week was kind of a big deal. Anything that has the words ‘National’ and ‘Championship’ associated with it tends to attract people from around the country.
As part of that event was even the High School national championships for bass fishing.
And then the Nichols Marine series brought in another 300 boats for their tournament last weekend.
There are more tournaments this weekend, and then next week, from April 22nd to 26th, is the National Bass Anglers Association Spring Classic, which could bring as many as 700 boats to Grand Lake from all over the country.
Folks, this fishing thing might just catch on and stick around for a while.
It really struck me how big the fishing at Grand Lake is becoming just this last Sunday afternoon as I was driving from the Will Rogers Turnpike to Langley in the late afternoon.
After I started counting, I counted 12 trucks pulling bass boats that I passed heading west on Highway 28. There were at least another 6 to 8 rigs that I passed before I started counting.
At least 20 anglers heading home from a weekend of fishing within 20 miles…and that is at the South end of the lake.
The sheer numbers of fishing folks and their rigs in Grove this time of year is crazy. In a GREAT way!
Now fishing has always been a big deal around Grand…we all know that.
But it feels like it’s getting bigger…which means more money coming to, and staying in, the area.
At local businesses like hotels and restaurants and gas stations and bait shops.
My point in telling the story about all the bass rigs I passed last Sunday evening was to drive home the point that this is an area wide impact. It’s not just in the Grove area. It is all over Grand Lake where the economic impact is being felt.
That is why the entire Grand Lake area, and not just the ‘fishing’ community, really needs to stand back and applaud the efforts of Tad Jones, Executive Director of the Grand Lake Association, as well as the community leadership in Grove that really worked their tails off to create the Wolf Creek Park tournament launch site and then attract last year’s Bass Masters Classic.
That all kind of really got this going, and with one of the best tournament launching sites in the entire country now located in Grove, things will just continue to get better. For everybody.
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