Alabama Bass Trail Up and Running

Lawrence Taylor of BOOYAH Bait Company delights in a Guntersville largemouth that walloped a YUM Money Hound Taylor had been walking across the Guntersville grass on a fall afternoon.

Alabama & largemouth bass are like cake & ice cream. They belong together. For evidence, you need not look any further than this year's Bassmaster Classic, where the top three finishers, six of the top 12, and nine contenders from the field of 49 were Alabama residents. And the fact that some of those, including champion Chris Lane, are Alabama transplants only adds to the case. Each chose Alabama as home for a career in bass fishing. Of course, B.A.S.S. itself recently chose to return home to Alabama!

Want more evidence? Last week, the Alabama governor's office announced the Alabama Bass Trail. A cooperative effort of Governor Robert Bentley's office, the Alabama Department of Tourism, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association, the trail highlights eleven of the state's stellar bass fisheries, with waters spread from Lake Guntersville to the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta.

The Alabama Bass Trail website includes pages about each of the 11 rivers and lakes, bringing together in a single place things like pro tips, guide service lists, lodging information, lake maps and fishing reports and making it very easy to plan a fishing trip anywhere in the state. The site also details tournaments and other events on each of the lakes. Along with promoting the state's bass fishing and providing information to anglers, the trail puts a major emphasis on conservation and education and will help fund and facilitate habitat-improvement projects on each of the lakes.

I've spent at least a little time on each of the eleven waterways (some far more than others), but I think I need to make a fresh effort to visit each stop along the trail The Alabama Bass Trail is new, but the traditions are longstanding, and it's exciting to see the state of Alabama's recognition of those traditions and desire to build on them.