Hey Greg, sorry it’s taken a while to write back here. I spent 15 hours this weekend moving websites to a new server to save a few bucks on hosting. Summer got laid off so we’re doing what everyone else is doing these days and trying to save money. Its life and in any case:

I wouldn’t focus too much on the number of replies your post got here. People who follow my site have watched all the other world record rumors come and go and I’m sure viewed your post with a measure of skepticism. Unlike other sites where the immediate response was to discredit the catch, toss out bad information, or make snide racist remarks (go read the Texas forums), I thought the response here reflected the high caliber of fishermen who visit this site on a regular basis.

I would imagine that deep down that is why you chose to post here, though you may have your own reasons.

When I look at the web stats for calfishing.com, one thing that always jumps out to me is the fact that 20% of the people who come to the site in an average month come at least once a day. 10% of all visitors come 200+ times per month! That’s the core audience that I write for and work for day in and day out and I can assure you that group includes most of the best trophy bass anglers in the world – whether they post or not.

So whether people replied or not, I am confident you got the message in front of the people most interested.

As far as not disabling your account, I don’t know what to tell you other than what I wrote to you on email the last time we talked.

You have to understand that the downside to attracting the best trophy bass fishermen and the best lure makers in the world to this site is that those same people have a habit of using the site to communicate instead of using direct communication methods.

When my site (a public forum) is used to communicate what should be a personal message - people have a tendency to associate what some individual contributor wrote on the forum with me. As if I was the one who wrote the message or somehow condoned it, advocated it, or approved it.

What happens next is that I start getting the phone calls and the emails from both sides as if I am supposed to be a proxy for other people’s fights. As if I should stand in the middle and arbitrate because I own the web site. Having gone through this situation say … a couple dozen times I’ve realized that I don’t have the time or energy in my life to deal with it.

So I draw a very strong line when I see these kinds of situations evolving on the forums. It’s just not why I am here, devoting countless hours to this web site. And though some people would love nothing more than to entertain themselves with watching other people fighting online, if they want to do that they will have to find somewhere else to do it. There’s plenty of real estate for that in cyberspace, just not here.

Now, back to the world record!

How about the fact that Bassfan.com hasn’t even put it on the home page? Holy smokes. I like Bassfan and read it daily. But this is the biggest story in trophy bass in ages and it’s off in Dock Talk?

How about the fact that there’s been more info here than on Bassmaster.com? I know they need to be more cautious in their reporting but man, make some phone calls here gang. At least they’re carrying it on the home page.

My prediction is still that IGFA will rule this to be a tie for the record. They’ll list Manabu Kurita’s fish first, but it will be a tie. And like I said in my other post, I think this creates an even more interesting chase for the world record. Now record chasers in the US and in Japan will be chasing a record shared between the two countries, and trying to establish an uncontested record.

Oh, and if they call this fish 22-5, does the new record have to go 22-7? No one has talked about it yet. Could be yet another interesting twist :9