Why it’s a big bass deal that Lake Murray is hosting a major fishing tournament this week

Lake Murray has long been known as a fine fishing spot, but this week that local knowledge will be broadcast to the whole country and beyond.

The lake is hosting the Bassmaster Elite Series, the Super Bowl of professional bass fishing. The event, which started Thursday and runs through Sunday, features 104 professional anglers from around the world casting their lures into Lake Murray, with eight hours of the competitive fishing competition set to be broadcast on cable sports outlet Fox Sports 1.

The event is not just a big deal for the fishing community. Hosting such a big event also has a major economic impact on the surrounding communities.

The Lake Murray Country Tourism Board estimates that $1.1 million in tourist money will be spent in the area surrounding the lake during the four-day tournament, with another $5.5 million in marketing value for all the exposure the Midlands will receive. More than 3 million viewers have watched Fox’s Bassmaster coverage so far this year, while 13.5 million impressions have been generated on social media for the Elite Series.

While the more than 100 anglers who started out Thursday will be whittled down over the course of the four-day event, the biggest public event around the tournament will be this weekend at Dreher Island, when the park hosts food trucks and interactive exhibits, topped off by a free concert by Kristian Bush of Sugarland at 1 p.m. Saturday, before the daily weigh-in at 3 p.m. Shuttles will move people from designated drop-off sites to the park on both Saturday and Sunday.

“It’s not just that we host and it comes and it goes,” said Miriam Atria, the president of Lake Murray Country. “It impacts the local economy. Many come and fish weeks before, because they want to get to know the lake so they’re ready to go and know their way around. They stay in hotels and rental homes, restaurants get the business from it, the bait and tackle shops get business, they buy gas — it crosses all state revenue sources.”

Davy Hite grew up by Lake Murray and found success as a Bassmaster fisherman before becoming the broadcast commentator for coverage of fishing events. He says there are any number of reasons why events like the Elite Series want to come to the South Carolina Midlands.

“One is that they want good fishing, and there is really good fishing this time of year on Lake Murray,” Hite said. “If you look at tournament results, in local tournaments, the winning weights have been really good.”

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But it’s also the people of South Carolina who make Lake Murray appealing. Hite said visitors always comment on the hospitality, the food and the landscape.

“It’s just the beauty of the lake, the recreational boating on the lake, the good water quality,” Hite said. “There are areas around the country people don’t even feel comfortable swimming in their lake.”

Local sportswriter Pat Robertson recalls past tournaments drawing hundreds of people turning up at 6 a.m. to greet boaters at the launch site.

“Lots of these guys are extremely fan-friendly,” Robertson said. “You see two or three or four or five people following the boat as they back it down (into the water), asking him how he was doing.”

But bass fishers want to fish on Lake Murray because the lake has established a reputation as a “bass factory,” Robertson said, that has produced record catches in the past. Hite estimates some 500 fish a day could be caught in the early rounds — although they will be thrown back after being weighed.

“Lake Murray has been one of the premier lakes that people come to because it always produces good catches,” Robertson said. “You get good pictures on the weigh-in stands.”

The influx of visitors to the area is boosting Chapin’s push to bring a hotel to the area, town administrator Nicholle Burroughs said.

“I certainly feel like Chapin is well positioned to recruit a hotel,” she said, noting that all traffic heading to the launch point at Dreher Island State Park passes through the small community of 2,000 people. “Chapin is considered the capital of Lake Murray for a reason. We just need the lodging.”

All that traffic means local businesses are already seeing a boost, as fishermen traveled to the area ahead of the tournament to get a feel for the best fishing spots on the 78-square-mile lake. Burroughs said that local restaurants and shops are already seeing more visitors as the fishing crowd descends on the lake.

“We’ve certainly seen a lot more boats in the area,” she said.