Women create their own bass fishing tours

In January, less than two months after Monica Altman won the amateur side of the Women's Bassmaster Tour championship, ESPN canceled the 2010 season.

The Angier woman loved the tournament trail, the fellowship it provided and the way it improved her fishing.

So the cancellation was a blow for her, as it was for competitive bass anglers across the country.

"Fishing with men doesn't bother me, but I like fishing with the ladies," she said Friday while fishing with her husband, Max Altman, at Falls Lake.

In the wake of losing the tournament trail, female bass anglers have banded together.

They're in the process of forming two new women's circuits, they're infiltrating the ranks of the two major bass tournament circuits and they're gaining greater acceptance in a sport traditionally dominated by men.

About three months before the first scheduled Women's Bassmaster Tour tournament of the 2010 season, ESPN, which owns Bassmaster, pulled the plug on the 5-year-old trail.

"If we had higher levels [of entrants heading into the season], getting it closer to a full field, we would have kept it going," Doug Grassian, a spokesman for Bassmaster and ESPN, said by phone Monday.

Grassian said attempts to jump-start participation, such as giving an automatic bid to the Bassmaster Classic - considered the most prestigious bass championship - to the women's overall points leader for the past two seasons.

Though there was much disappointment, many understood the move as a business decision. Their biggest complaint was the timing of the announcement, which came when many of Bassmaster's other tournament series and events were already full or close to capacity, though priority was given to the top 30 women's tour anglers.

Grassian said the cancellation came at such a late date because there was a hope that registration would increase.

"Our hope was that the numbers would build up to where it would be acceptable," Grassian said. "We didn't see that uptick. It left us with no other choice."

Though many did find a place elsewhere in the Bassmaster ranks, Altman decided to move on, signing up with Bassmaster's rival, FLW. Altman, who works in the claims and billing department at WakeMed Raleigh Campus, already had been approved for time off to fish tournaments.

"There's a right way to do things," Altman said. "After you find out how an organization does things, you feel burned."

Grassian said that female participation in Bassmaster Opens, which are regional tournament series, has gone up.

At the Central Open season-opener in early April, 20 women were in the 400-angler field, divided into two divisions.

Linda Berry of Madison still traveled to the Bassmaster Classic in Alabama in February to root for Pam Martin-Wells, the women's tour angler who qualified. Martin-Wells made the final cut and finished 22nd overall, making Berry proud.

Berry, 61, a competitive angler for 20 years, is co-owner of a website ( www.ebassfish.com) dedicated to female bass anglers. She has her own cleaning and painting business.

"I'm emotional just talking about it right now," Berry said. "Not everybody is born a fisherman. Some of us have to work at it harder than others. If it can't be you, you have to be happy for who it is. That's just how I felt about it."

Renee Brisendine, 52, and Susan Orton, 49, both of Cary, said they had no hard feelings toward ESPN or Bassmaster.

"You knew it was a matter of time," Brisendine said after the duo fished a club tournament on Shearon Harris Lake on Saturday. "The numbers were not there."

Brisendine runs a website ( www.anglerswaypoint.com) that promotes bass anglers. Orton, also an avid kayak angler, is an assistant professor at the UNC School of Medicine.

Brisendine and Orton had been planning on fishing the WBT this season.

Brisendine, Orton and Altman are curious to see what comes of two new efforts at forming tournament circuits catering to women bass anglers.

The Lady Bass Anglers Association formed in early May in Kentucky, where flood-stage waters on Kentucky Lake forced a scheduled tournament to be canceled, with women from 17 states already having traveled to the site.

The women still got to compete in a lower-stakes contest when they received a last-second offer to fish a private lake.

The new association, formed by pro anglers Cheryl Bowden of Texas and Secret York of Kentucky, fleshed out plans for the new circuit, deciding to decline outside offers to organize.

"We really want to run our own," Bowden said by phone Tuesday.

Another tournament trail, called the American Lady Anglers also has formed. Its first tournament is scheduled for July 3 in Alabama.

What has changed, gradually, for female fishermen is that they feel more comfortable participating in local tournaments. Brisendine and Orton, for example, are members of the Elite Bassmasters of Raleigh, a "learning" club that aims to teach and not intimidate new members and encourages family participation.

"We're much more welcoming," said member Robert Griswold, who took second place in the club's May 15 tournament on Harris Lake. "We're not tolerant of traditional 'Bubba fishing.' You have to be willing to share and learn."

Before the weigh-in, one half of the winning team, Mark Lamb, joked with Orton about finding spawning beds with big bass.

"I would have loved to see it," said Orton, who didn't place in the top three.

"I'll show you in a minute here," Lamb said, joking.

Brisendine, along with teammate Jeremy Phan, did take third place.

"It's like fishing with a whole group of brothers," Brisendine said of the club. "That's what that whole group of guys are to us. ... The fish don't know if it's a male or female."