Angler Alley is a fan favorite

NICE, Calif. — It's the hour before the Bassmaster Elite Series anglers make their way inside for a meeting, on the eve of the Golden State Shootout presented by Evan Williams Bourbon. Their boats are parked in tidy rows beside the Robinson Rancheria Resort and Casino on the north shore of Clear Lake. The air is brisk, the sun is high and the parking lot is crawling with children covered in signatures.

During this pre-tournament ritual, known as Angler Alley, the pros are about as hard to spot as animals in a zoo. One little boy approaches James Niggemeyer's boat as the first-year Elite pro prepares his tackle.

"I like your boat," the boy says.

"Thanks," Niggemeyer says. "I'm going to sell it in about eight months."

"How much?" the boy asks. It may be a kids-say-the-darndest-things moment, but it goes to the heart of the afternoon's interactions. Any fan who likes chatting up anglers can get close enough to make an offer on their boats, even if the fan in question is about 6-years-old.

Kids collect anglers' trading cards and signatures on hats and even pieces of scrap paper. The adults tend to be a bit more discerning about what they get signed — nothing cheaper than a T-shirt, generally — but they aren't shy about hitting up anglers for signatures or fishing tips. For some, it's enough just to admire a pro's gear splayed on the decks of their boats.

On this day, one man totes around a huge trout-shaped pillow on which he's collecting signatures. Mark Guyot, from nearby Blue Lakes, says he received the pillow a day earlier, a gift on his 46th birthday. Never having attended a Bassmaster event, the handyman brought his family and the trout along, and by the end of the day has a collection of at least 40 signatures up and down the sides of the fish.

"Everybody's really friendly, and they enjoy what they're doing," Guyot says as his wife, Sue, looks on and his 2-year-old son, Silas, yanks on the pillow's tail. "I've been to NASCAR events. If anything is family-oriented, this is family-oriented."

(They tend to be uncommonly polite families, too. Something perhaps about the same parents who teach their kids to fish also teaching them manners.)

The human scale of the event is evident even in the more formal goings-on. In the shade of the casino, with a crowd of people looking on and taking photos from a few feet away, emcee Keith Alan and Elite Series pro and California native Aaron Martens sit in folding chairs, conversing into a microphone. Martens explains how he got so motivated to win the previous week's tournament.

"I missed the birth of my child," he says. "So I got really focused and really determined." The winner of the Duel in the Delta presented by Mahindra Tractors is immediately mobbed when he finishes the interview and returns to his boat deck nearby.

"The best thing about it is, people just want to talk to us," angler Rick Morris says. "They have certain anglers they've seen, and they want to relate to us as people."

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