HOT SPRINGS — With teams from 23 nations competing in the Black Bass World Championship Friday through Sunday on Lake Hamilton, bass fishing truly is a worldwide sport.
Last Saturday, all of the teams greeted the public at Bass Pro Shops in Little Rock. Some international competitors were awestruck at the vast array of tackle, boats, boating accessories, electronics and other fishing-related items in the well-stocked aisles. Many toted bags full of things they can’t readily get back home.
Jurgen Geiger, captain of the Namibia fishing team, said he was amused to give his team what he considers to be the definitive American consumer experience.
“I’ve been coming to the U.S. for quite a few years, but we have three newcomers on the team,” Geiger said. “The first stop I made with them was at the Buc-ees, and then we went up to the Bass Pro Shops, and their eyes fell out of their eye sockets.
“From there we went straight to the Bass Pro Shops in Memphis. They fell off their chairs again, 100%. I had to treat them to all the American traditions.”
At the center of Little Rock Bass Pro Shops event were the six members of Team USA: Scott Martin, Dakota Ebare, Ott DeFoe, Drew Gill, Dakota Ebare, Dustin Connell and Kevin VanDam. Bass fishing’s all-time highest money winner, VanDam has won four Bassmasters Classics. Connell has won three Redcrest titles, Major League Fishing’s championship tournament. Martin won Redcrest’s forerunner, the Forrest Wood Cup.
That’s eight world championships among three anglers. The international anglers were starstruck in their presence, but they were also eager to compete against them.
“It’s incredible how this little green fish brings so many people around the world together,” Geiger said. “We’re friends with Team Germany, South Africa, people from Croatia. It’s been amazing to be able to fish against Ott and Drew and the likes, and this year how awesome is it to be able to say I fished against Kevin VanDam?”
Namibia has only two bass lakes, Geiger said. They are stocked entirely with Florida-strain largemouths. That can be a more challenging fish to catch than Lake Hamilton’s northern-strain bass.
“We’ve been bringing in bass every three or four years just to keep the gene pool going,” Geiger said. “We do get good fish. The climate does bring in waves of really good fish over 10 pounds. And then a couple of years it goes down, and then a big fish will be about 7 pounds.”
Like Lake Hamilton, Namibia’s lakes have no grass for bass habitat, Geiger said. For that reason, he said his team’s customary fishing techniques should translate well for this tournament.
“We have zero grass, so that defines one part of our style, I would say a lot,” Geiger said. “It’s very rocky lakes, and then it will be your standard from a finesse game on the drop shot side all the way to throwing a 1-ounce jig.”
Geiger’s squad is well-versed on other presentations. Topwater fishing, for example, could be prominent in this tournament. The wild card is that Lake Hamilton has a much different forage bass than what the Namibians normally see.
“We have a very narrow field of techniques compared to lakes in the U.S.,” Geiger said. “We do not have forage like shiners. We do not have shad. Baitfish in our lakes is unfortunately only bream species, the bass itself and baby carp, but we have zero schooling baitfish.”
Geiger said big fish will determine the winner of this tournament, and the Florida bass has given his squad a lot of big fish experience.
“Lake Hamilton is a smaller lake compared to all the other USA lakes I’ve been to, and yet it’s got a lot of coves, a lot of shoreline, so its going to be tricky,” Geiger said. “The biggest thing is going to be to find the biggest fish, it seems. The smaller fish don’t seem to be so much of a problem, but the bigger fish are going to be key. It’s all about big fish.”
Bastien Nicolay of Bordeaux, France, said Europe’s bass fisheries are diverse and that his squad has mastered all of the techniques he expects to be active this weekend. He described European fishing as a meld of Oriental and Occidental fishing philosophies.
“In Europe we have the Japanese school and U.S. school,” Nicolay said. “It is the mix of those two. The Japanese school is the school of perfection. Hard baits. USA is the school of efficiency. It is bass fishing, so all the technique can work. It is September. We know about topwater fishing, offshore, bank fishing and power fishing.”
Inversely, Puerto Rican fishing is a meld of North American and South American fishing styles, according to Ray Heredia, captain of Team Puerto Rico.
“We have both largemouth and peacock bass,” Heredia said. “The same baits will work on both fish, but you do better with hair jogs on peacocks. We are bringing a couple of baits that the guys use in Puerto Rico, which are new. They may make a difference. You never know. Fish are opportunists. If a bait comes by, it triggers them. I told my guys, bring what you have confidence in using because it can work anywhere.”
Puerto Rico’s largemouth bass lakes are very good, and some are remarkably similar to Lake Hamilton, Heredia said.
“Certain lakes are just largemouth,” Heredia said. “We’re going to host a tournament in Puerto Rico in February — the Pan-American Championship. The lake we are using is largemouth only. We have deep lakes with structure around the edges with rivers flowing into them. They’re not as big as lakes here in the United States, but they hold a good number of fish. As a matter of fact, one of our anglers recently caught an 11-pounder, so we’ve got some big fish in some of the lakes.”
Heredia is president of the Puerto Rico Sportfishing Organization. Its first event was the 2022 Black Bass World Championship. USAngling, the sanctioning body for the World Championship, convinced Heredia that Puerto Rico needed to be involved.
“I put it together to give Puerto Rico an opportunity to fish at this level because they’re trying to make it an Olympic sport,” Heredia said. “Of course us going across the stage holding our flag with our Puerto Rico national anthem playing, it was an honor, and our hearts were pounding and we had goosebumps. Some people had a little tears showing.”
The organization has grown considerably. Inclusivity is the key, Heredia said.
“We’ve got more women joining our organization,” Heredia said. “We’ve branched out to kayak fishing. It brings a lot more visibility to Puerto Rico and to angling because we’ve got a lot of great saltwater fishing in Puerto Rico.”
It’s all about freshwater fishing this week, however. Heredia, Geiger and Nicolay aren’t the only ones who believe they can win.
Bryan Hendricks has been the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette outdoors editor since 2005. He covers hunting, fishing, camping, and all other outdoor activities in The Natural State, as well as the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Bryan has won 30-plus awards for his work, including the Arkansas Press Association Freedom of Information Award, Service to Freedom of Information Award (Associated Press Managing Editors), Reporting on Freedom of Information Issues Award (Society of Professional Journalists), the John Robert Starr Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation Conservation Communicator of the Year Award.