Fishing is a big business in Georgia. According to state officials, the annual estimated economic impact is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.9 billion dollars. That is serious money- even to banks and car companies who seem to have government-issued ATM cards to the U.S. Mint.
But Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue believes the state's not capitalizing on fishing, and he's determined to use his administration to help harvest the capital he thinks the state's leaving in anglers' pockets.


Yesterday in Atlanta, Perdue was joined by FLW Chairman Irwin Jacobs to announce that Atlanta will host the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup, the championship of the FLW Tour. With 2009's championship scheduled for Pittsburgh, it seems Jacobs and the FLW are looking to ramp up the national awareness of the sport.

Seems he has a willing partner in Perdue - and Georgia.

Georgia has already kicked off Go Fish Georgia, a push to establish Georgia as a national fishing destination by improving the quality of fishing in Georgia waters, improving access to lakes and rivers for fishing in Georgia and increasing participation through promotion and marketing of Georgia'sexceptional fishing resources. Plans call for the development of a Go Fish Georgia Visitors Center and Hatchery and an 18-site bass fishing trail with mega-ramps to accommodate large fishing tournaments. The state and various cities pump nearly $10 million into mega-ramps to facilitate access to public fishing waters.

The Forrest Wood Cup is the largest fishing tournament in the country, and bringing this tournament to Georgia is exactly what I envisioned forthe mega-ramps we are building as part of Go Fish," said Governor Perdue.

 "This tournament will provide nationally televised exposure for our fishing resources, generate excitement about fishing in Georgia, and provide a positive economic impact on our local communities."

After all, Perdue explained, Georgia was blessed with three things essential for good fishing: quality water, quality fish, and, with the Go Fish Georgia campaign, quality access to those waters and the fish in them.

"We look forward to working with FLW Outdoors and local and city governments to make this a very successful tournament that brings in the top professional anglers to Georgia," said Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Noel Holcomb. "Lake Lanier is the perfect venue to accomplish all of these things and we hope that this will bring home to Georgians that fishing can be enjoyed by everyone."

And fishing tournaments, even smaller ones, help spread the message - and capture revenues so crucial in today's tight financial climate. From the estimated $5 million spent in a smaller tournament to the $25-30 million in immediate impact of a major tournament like the Forrest Wood Cup, those dollars are seen as critical to municipalities suffering through shortfalls due to the lagging economy.

In Perdue and Jacobs, it seems fishing has a couple of dedicated promoters. For Jacobs, the FLW is an example of how a tournament organization can build from grassroots-level tournaments into the world's richest single tournament, the Forrest Wood Cup. For Perdue, fishing represents a potential revenue stream from a renewable natural resource. For both, the growth and success of their partnership is a win-win situation.

At the announcement in Atlanta yesterday, the only potential negative was the fact that Lake Lanier, the major watershed of the Chattahoochee River, was at record lows after two dry years and in the face of ever-increasing water demand by the metropolitan Atlanta.

Would the low water negatively impact the tournament, Perdue was asked. "We're confident that we're going to get more rain," Perdue said, "but my experience with fishing is that the anglers don't mind when low water hems them (fish) up". After all, he laughed, "would you rather try to catch a big fish in the bathtub or the swimming pool?"

Jacobs used the Wood Cup announcement as the formal announcement of the significant financial increases in the FLW's highly-successful Fantasy Fishing contest. Already the richest fantasy game in the world, this year's game will not only include a guaranteed $1 million winner with six $100,000 winners, it will feature $3 and $5-million exactas.

"We're growing fishing," Jacobs said, "we see fishing where NASCAR was 15-20 years ago."

And the odds for fishing growing to comparable levels of NASCAR popularity aren't that bad. After all, seventy-eight percent of NASCAR fans fish.