Wappapello Bass Masters ends 41 year run

WAPPAPELLO — After 48 long years, the Wappapello Bass Masters Club is calling it quits and disbanding, and while the remaining members are saddened, they also are happy knowing they will be helping local youths through their support of another local organization.

“We’ve been around a long time, and it leaves an empty spot in your heart ... it’s like losing a member of the family,” said longtime Wappapello Bass Masters secretary/treasurer Ron McKuin, who’s been a member since around 1975. “We’ve had some good members over the years.”

McKuin said current club members, which number at no more than a half dozen, “have tried really hard to keep it going, but we’ve all gotten too old, and a whole lot have passed away.”

Club member Gerry Robinson, who was introduced to it by his brother and founding member, Roger Robinson, said the club has been a lot of fun, but he is “at a loss for words” and described the change as a “sign of the times.”

Younger anglers, McKuin said, haven’t come on board to fill in the ranks.

“The young guys don’t really want to do anything long-term, preferring to do single events,” McKuin said. “I see it everywhere I go - gun clubs and fishing clubs are really having a hard time getting new members.”

The Wappapello Bass Masters was formed in 1971 as an affiliate of the nationwide Bass Anglers Sportsman Society.

“Competitive bass fishing was new at that time, and we were the first bass club around here,” McKuin said. “I think we held the first tournament on the lake.”

“At the time, we were really trying to build bass fishing,” Robinson added.

In the years since, McKuin said, club members have worked to restore vegetation in Wappapello Lake, which once was prominent and provided valuable cover and habitat for various fish species.

“We worked pretty hard on that,” McKuin said.

Aerial seeding even was used once, he noted.

Unfortunately, the lake’s periodic flooding irreparably hurt the vegetation and the project was scrapped.

“The need is still there,” Robinson emphasized.

Club members also started the practice of dropping trees and logs into the lake to create fish cover, McKuin said, and that practice continues today through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Though the club now has officially disbanded, its members have a new mission: helping children learn a love for the outdoors.

With that in mind, they took the remaining money in the club’s bank account and donated it to the Poplar Bluff-based Outdoorsmen With a Mission organization, which works to not only provide assistance to local families in need, but also to get youths involved in the outdoors.

“We just thought it was a good time to help somebody local,” said Robinson. “They’re needing help, and they have a vision of what they can do. We want to do everything we can to help them.”

It “seemed the right thing to do, and we wanted to be supporters of these guys,” added McKuin. “They have some really good ideas.”

OWM President Aaron Aden said his organization was “grateful and honored that they would trust us with this donation. Our goal is to put every penny of it back into our local youth to get them outdoors. We want to give kids who do not have the opportunity a Godly role model and a love for the outdoors.”

Some events OWM has hosted, Aden noted, include youth duck, quail and turkey hunts, and its first youth deer hunt is coming up in a couple weeks.

Other events, including a fishing tournament, also are on the horizon.

That, McKuin said, makes him happy.

“If I can get a young kid to fish, it just tickles me to death,” he said.