Splendid summertime weather is swelling the crowds at Erie SeaWolves baseball games at Jerry Uht Park. And attendance at this week's Peek'n Peak Golf Classic in nearby Findley Lake, N.Y., should also benefit from warm, sunny days.

The story in the sports section of today's Erie Times-News that really caught my attention, however, is the one that details the results of the Red Cross Bass Classic -- a fishing tournament on Presque Isle Bay that paid $6,000 first prize to the team of Chuck Main and Lee Murray. They won by bringing in three bass that weighed a total of 15.36 pounds, according to the report in today's newspaper.

Mike Moran and James Lambert actually reeled in the catch of the day by landing three bass that weighed a total of 15.55 pounds, but the team was docked a two-pound penalty from its score for reporting two minutes late at the Wolverine Moorings check-in point. That dropped Moran and Lambert out of the top 14 cash-winning slots.

They did bag $300 for catching the second-largest bass of the day -- a whopper that weighed in at 5.75 pounds. Nick and George Provonozac's 5.76-pound bass was the largest fish of the day and it earned the anglers a $600 bonus. They also finished in sixth place, which meant they earned $1,100 for their day on the water.

A photo in the newspaper by Times-News photographer Vivian Johnson showed a grinning Troy Adomskia holding up his 5.53-pound bass. For amateur fishermen like me, who leave the shore only when a Lake Erie boater takes pity on us and gives us a free ride out to the deep-water places where the big fish roam, seeing photos of these prize-winning bass is a stunner. These bass are huge.

It shows how important sport fishing on Lake Erie has become. When anglers from throughout North America invade this region in the fall to fish for lake trout, it helps pump millions of dollars into the local economy. That's why stories like this are important to the region and, I would guess, this newspaper.

Nothing gets the heart of a fishermen beating faster than seeing big fish being pulled from the water. "The conditions were beautiful out there today," said Chuck Main. "We found a good spot a couple of miles out, and we must have caught between 30 and 40 fish. We were just drop-shooting out there. There was really no secret. It was just an awesome day to go fishing."

The only sad note to this tournament is that it was the last one run by John Fuhrmann, tournament founder and CEO of the Erie Chapter of the American Red Cross. He plans to retire soon and move to Arizona.

It was even a good day for the fish -- only four of which perished all day. A total of 154 were caught, and all but four were released back into the water.

I suppose you could say this is a fish story in today's Erie Times-News, but it's not a fishy yarn. It's the kind of report that makes a lot of people think, "Now, where did I put my old rod and reel?"

-- Kevin Cuneo

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