Ray Scott, an exuberant promoter who turned bass fishing into an expert sport by organizing a collection of tournaments that discovered tv houses on TNN and ESPN, died on May 8 in Hayneville, Ala. He was 88.
His demise, at a rehabilitation facility, was confirmed by Jim Kientz, govt director of Ray Scott Outdoors, a consulting enterprise.
The thought for a bass fishing tour got here to Mr. Scott, then an insurance coverage salesman, when rain lower quick a fishing outing with a good friend in Jackson, Miss., in 1967. Stuck in his lodge room watching sports activities on tv, he had an epiphany: Why not begin the equal of the PGA Tour for bass fishing?
He held his first match at Beaver Lake, in Arkansas, the place 106 anglers paid $100 every to compete over three days for $5,000 in prizes. A second match adopted that yr; in 1968 he fashioned a membership group, the Bass Angler Sportsman Society, or BASS.
In 1971, Mr. Scott began what has grow to be often called the Super Bowl of bass fishing: the Bassmaster Classic, his group’s annual championship match, which he paired with a merchandising expo for producers of bass fishing boats and kit.
Roland Martin, who hosts a fishing present on the Sportsman Channel, started competing on the BASS circuit in 1970. He stated in a cellphone interview that Mr. Scott had a imaginative and prescient for bass fishing that nobody else had, one which he expressed to his skeptical mother and father at the time.
“I said, ‘I met this guy Ray Scott and he’s talking about all the great things that are going to happen in bass fishing,’” Mr. Martin stated. “He made me think there was a professional occupation to be had in fishing.”
Mr. Scott was the showman of BASS, the umbrella firm for tournaments, magazines and tv reveals. Easily acknowledged in his cowboy hat and fringed jackets, Mr. Scott memorably served as the M.C. for match weigh-ins, entertaining hundreds of followers along with his exuberant patter as anglers pulled flopping fish out of holding tanks.
“Now, ain’t that a truly wonderful fish?” he requested one match crowd. “How many of you want to see more fish like that? C’mon, let’s hear it for that fish!”
He entered the arenas that have been the exposition websites of the Bassmaster Classic in eye-catching methods: on an elephant, flying on a wire, bursting out of an enormous egg, in a ship as pyrotechnics made him look like floating on a fiery lake.
Mr. Martin, a champion fisherman, stated that Mr. Scott could possibly be devious in pursuing match cheaters.
“He’d take a dead fish and mark them then throw them in the lake in the hope that someone would find that fish and try to weigh them in,” he stated. “And he would catch guys doing that.”
One of Mr. Scott’s essential initiatives was a 1972 marketing campaign referred to as “Don’t Kill Your Catch,” aimed at novice anglers and people competing in the tournaments, at which entrants had to make use of aerated livewells on their boats so they might launch the bass they caught after the weigh-ins. He had seen fly fishermen launch their catch at an occasion in Aspen, Colo., and thought that he may convey that conservation ethic to bass fishing.
“I saw the excitement those men had releasing that puny little trout,” Mr. Scott stated in a 2008 episode of “The Bassmasters,” a TV collection, he created. “I wondered what they would do if we had men releasing five- or six-pound bass — big guys.”
Raymond Wilson Scott Jr. was born on Aug. 24, 1933, in Montgomery, Ala. His father operated a gaggle of ice cream pushcarts. His mom, Mattie Scott, was a hairdresser.
Ray had an early entrepreneurial streak: In third grade, when his mom gave him further sandwiches so as to add weight to his body, he bought them to his classmates. He later collected payments for an area dairy firm.
Fishing turned an early obsession. He caught his first fish at age 6; when he was 16, he began a fishing membership, charging a 25 cent membership payment.
After learning at Howard College (now Samford University) in Birmingham, Mr. Scott served in the U.S. Army in West Germany for 2 years. He then resumed his schooling at Auburn University, the place he acquired a bachelor’s diploma in enterprise administration in 1959.
He bought insurance coverage for Mutual of New York till 1964 after which turned a supervisor for Underwriters National earlier than turning full time to bass fishing.
He additionally turned identified for his conservation efforts, which included submitting about 200 state and federal lawsuits in 1970 and 1971 towards firms for air pollution that had fouled fishing waters, upfront of the passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972.
Mr. Scott lobbied for the passage in 1984 of an modification to the Sports Fish Restoration Act that created an excise tax program that financially advantages state fisheries companies.
He bought BASS in 1986 to a gaggle that included Helen Sevier, the president and chief govt, who had been a behind-the-scenes energy since becoming a member of the firm in 1970. ESPN, which had televised tournaments since the Nineties (it was seen on TNN earlier than then), acquired the firm in 2001. It bought the firm 9 years later however continued to hold its occasions till 2020, when Fox took over.
Mr. Scott, who remained the public face of BASS for a dozen extra years, additionally turned pleasant with President George H.W. Bush. He served as Mr. Bush’s marketing campaign chairman in Alabama throughout his unsuccessful presidential marketing campaign in 1980 and recurrently hosted Mr. Bush at his personal lake in Pintlala, south of Montgomery, the place he indulged his love of fishing.
Mr. Bush’s favourite journal was stated to be Bassmaster, which BASS publishes.
In 2008, Mr. Scott endorsed the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for president.
After promoting BASS, Mr. Scott began two new companies; one develops seed merchandise utilized by hunters to develop forage for deer vitamin, and the different, now not in operation, designed fishing lakes and ponds.
In 1995, Field & Stream named Mr. Scott one of the 20 individuals who most affected outside sports activities in the twentieth century. In 2001, he was inducted into the Bass Fishing (*88*) of Fame.
He is survived by his spouse, Susan (Chalfant) Scott; his daughter, Jennifer Epperson; his sons, Ray III, Steven and Wilson; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. His marriage to Eunice (Hiott) Scott ended along with her demise.
Mr. Scott sensed even in the early days of his bass fishing tour that he had tapped a market with nice potential. But James (*88*), editor in chief of Bassmaster, stated that Mr. Scott achieved greater than he may have anticipated, and that his affect was not simply in making an organized sport out of bass fishing but additionally in accelerating the development of an business that serves anglers.
If not for Mr. Scott, he stated, the Bass Pro Shops chain and lots of boat builders may not exist.
“They were founded,” Mr. (*88*) stated in a cellphone interview, “because of what Ray did.”
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