Bass Fishing Should Totally Be An Olympic Sport… And Here’s Why

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The 2020 (2021) Summer Olympics include 339 events in 33 different sports and it is absolutely unbelievable that bass fishing isn’t one of them.

People have been going fishing since before recorded history, and people in every corner of the globe still fish today. Fishing and summertime just go hand in hand, so it’s about time that fishing and the Summer Olympics go hand in hand.

Sure, there is a whole mess of logistics and details that would need to be sorted out in order to make this work, but that’s exactly what the International Olympic Committee was established for right?

While fishing is a universally cherished activity, the variability of techniques and geographical differences in fishing conditions would make Olympic fishing way more interesting than something like a track race where you just run around in a circle for the same pre-determined distance every 4 years.

Largemouth bass have been introduced all over the world for the primary purpose of supporting recreational fishing opportunities and a variety of different competitive tournament structures are already in place, most notably the Major League Fishing Tour and the Bassmaster Series.

The Olympics are currently being held in Japan. This would have been an absolutely ideal location to introduce bass fishing as an official Olympic sport. Japan has a very strong bass fishing culture and they grow some absolute monster largemouths in the land of the rising sun.

The world record largemouth bass was actually caught in Japan. The fish was caught in 2009 and weighed over 22-pounds.

“On this day in 2009, the heaviest largemouth bass in the WORLD was caught and officially weighed-in. The world record bass was caught by Manabu Kurita on Lake Biwa in Japan.

It weighed 22.311 pounds and was hooked using a live bluegill.”

The internet has connected the bass fishing world more than ever before, and perhaps no where else outside of America has bass fishing taken off like it has in Japan.

Not only do Japanese anglers have access to all the latest and greatest American fishing gear, the country also produces some of the finest fishing lures and techniques on the planet and equipment brands and other aspects of Japanese fishing culture have already made their way to America.

It would be great to see the best bass anglers in the world from America and Japan squaring off for Olympic medals right now.

The most significant difference between high level bass anglers in the two countries is that Japanese anglers mostly fish from shore as opposed to from bass boats. Most bass fishing is done in rivers, ponds, canals, and smaller lakes than where most big time bass angling in the U.S. takes place.

That would obviously give Japanese anglers the advantage on their home turf, but the next time the Olympics were held in the U.S. then American anglers would have the advantage.

Several of the Japan’s top anglers have already made the trek to the U.S. to compete in tournaments, and a long list of Japanese fishermen have had success fishing on the Bassmaster circuit.

While the U.S. and Japan are the clear-cut leaders when it comes to bass fishing, bass are now present in 63 countries.

Bass fishing has truly gone global, and there is already a Bass Fishing World Championship that has been held annually for going on 16-years now.

This years World Championship will be held from November 1st-7th on Lake Murray near Columbia, South Carolina. The event has been held all around the world in previous years, and teams from all around the world compete as well.

Teams from America, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Namibia, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, and Serbia will compete in this years World Championship.

With the infrastructure and interest already in place for a large scale international bass fishing tournament, it’s long overdue for bass fishing to officially be added to the lineup of Olympic sports.

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