upside, we DO have the facts from the co-angler's mouth.

You know, I was one of the first to jump on the Jerry McKinnis bandwagon when he and his partners purchased B.A.S.S.

However, after several of his Op Eds on bassmaster.com I have to retract my support of him.

First was his "Bass Fishing Needs Skeet Reese" piece. Right before the Post Season voting began.

Then there was the whole fan voting for 4 of the 12 post season participants. B.A.S.S. permitted the pros who write blogs on the website to use the site to politic for votes. How was that fair to the other anglers who did not have that luxury?

Upon the MLF announcement, JM comes out with a veiled threat of how he and HIS Elite anglers would not stand for this "competition." I guess he's going to enlist the support of the bottom 50 against the top 50 anglers?

In that same piece JM also made some overtures to rules enforcement in the coming season related to the "no info" and off-limits rules. He clearly stated that B.A.S.S. was going to be watching and the penalty would not be a slap on the hand.

And now this. The Wellman incident. A black eye for the entire sport. A CLEAR rules violation that should have resulted in a penalty, a disqualification and a ban from the organization. And all the while, Jerry McKinnis has been mute.

But his actions speak louder than words. A slap on the hand is all Wellman gets and the second place angler gets robbed of a Classic berth.

I was one of the first to support JM. I'll now be one of the first to state that he is doing a TERRIBLE job of running B.A.S.S. He plays favorites. His EGO is bigger than Jerry Jones' and he is inconsistent in his leadership. I thought he would really do great things. Unfortunately, he's destroying what's left of B.A.S.S. with each passing month.

Wellman already admitted he made inappropiate comments, granted miranda rights werent read, but he made the admission already so it will hold up. The only thing he disputes is the context, he says he was joking. You dont joke about some things, bombs, assasinations or killing your wife will get you in trouble more times than its taken as a joke, and joking about cheating during a tournament is not something a bright person would do. Attempted Cheating is as bad as cheating in my book because eventually he will get away with it and cheat. I personally think he has a lifetime ban he placed on himself, without sponsors he wont be able to afford to fish as a professional on his own for more than a year. BASS didnt do enough as far as this tournament, he should have been DQ'd, lost that money, removed from classic and 2nd place should be awarded the win, + probation. Its hard to do a lifetime ban without actually cheating, but I feel he will have pushed himself from the sport on his own behavior

Well. One thing is for sure, BASS did drop the ball. A simple polygraph would have solved the issue pretty easily.

I would not give up on BASS. McKinnis is trying to bring the right things to this sport, and he will deal with this matter outside the social media.

In a situation like that, a lot of decisions are based on damage control and retaining the professional aspect of the sport. Be assured, this is not finished and McKinnis et al will take care of this situation.

Frenzy, you are wrong. You can be arrested for making terroristic threats. Particularly if the person to whom the threat was made is impacted by it in any way. If you made that comment at work, you would be fired and probably have charges filed against you. If you made that comment about the President of the United States, you WOULD be arrested. If you made that type of threat in writing, you could have serious issues.

Now if one said this in frustration and without intent, and the incident were properly investigated, there should be no action taken.

But before you go stating that just saying something is not against the law, you better understand the law.