Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 6, 1993                   TAG: 9305060018
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THEY PLAYED TAG, AND NO BASS WAS IT

The idea sounded great. Catch a fish, put a tag in its dorsal fin, release it in secret and offer $25,000 to the tournament fisherman who catches it. Sponsors thought it would be a nice twist for their silver-anniversary celebration.

Optimist Club members decided the fish should be a largemouth bass. That's always been a popular category in the contest, and it would be an easy species to pick up, since a couple of bass tournaments were scheduled the weekend before the Optimist event.

So members went to a Saturday bass tournament weigh-in to collect a fish, but none entered in the tournament met their 3 1/2-pound minimum-size standard.

No problem. A Red Man tournament was being held the next day.

"Just come down for the weigh-in and you'll have your choice of bass," members were told.

When they arrived the next day, all the bass had been released 30 minutes earlier.

With the Optimist tournament five days away, members began to stew. They had mailed hundreds of contest brochures advertising the $25,000 fish. Frightful things like mail fraud and lawsuits were mentioned.

Members put out the word to lake fishing guides: "Bring us a bass and we'll pay you $100."

When there were no takers, they got on the phone and started calling fish hatcheries. Even hatchers all the way to Pennsylvania, where one operator said, "You've got to be kidding."

It seems plenty of trout were available, but no bass.

Optimist club members admit to being more golfers than anglers, but by Wednesday, two days before the tournament began, some were loading up in boats to try to catch a fish for tagging.

One managed to reel in a small bass. Size wasn't a worry at this point. Anything with dorsal fin large enough to take a tag would do.

As for next year's tournament featuring a tagged fish, "You don't have to worry about us doing it again," said Ronnie Thompson, the contest director.

None of the 652 contestants was able to catch the tagged fish by the Sunday noon deadline, which was no surprise. As a goodwill gesture, Optimist members said they would award $500 to any contest angler who turns up at Foxsport Marina with the fish by May 31.

Members were feeling so good about the bass just being in the lake, they were willing to help narrow the chase. The fish, Thompson said, is finning about in the upper Blackwater River arm of the lake.

\ BOARD MEMBER DIES: Lewis Costello, a board member of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries since 1987, died Friday and was buried Wednesday near his home in Stephens City. Costello, a 59-year-old attorney, was an active and often vocal member of the board, which sets Virginia's fishing, hunting and boating regulations.

\ PEAK FISHING: Spring bass and crappie fishing is reaching a peak at many lakes, while stream fishing is beginning to turn on as flows return to fishable levels.

One New River angler reported catching a 7-pound, 3-ounce smallmouth - 4 ounces under the state record - at Bull Springs. Another fisherman reported a catch of seven smallmouths that weighed three to five pounds apiece.

Lakes for locating crappie include Gaston, Philpott, Claytor, Smith Mountain and Moomaw, where Marshal Chittum of Covington landed a 2.3-pound trophy. Jumbo-size bluegill are beginning to hit at Briery Creek Lake.

\ ON A ROLL: Mark Spangler and Lee Mayhew won the first Tuesday Night Tournament at Campers Paradise on Smith Mountain Lake. Names sound familiar? Spangler set an Optimist Club of Cave Spring tournament record Sunday when he reeled in a 21.84-pound catfish.