The list is unreal. As I look through my old U.S. Open programs from the 80's and 90's, it almost takes my breath away to think about the number of superstars of the sport that have competed in this event. Just about every major player to ever cast a plastic worm has traveled to Las Vegas to compete in the western "Super Bowl" of bass fishing. Since some of our anglers this year were not around back then, let me bring you back to the start. Let's start with Jimmy Houston. It was U.S. Open No. 1. The year was 1981. I still remember sitting in the harbor at Calville Bay watching Jimmy tie on his favorite spinnerbait in the last few moments before take off on day one. Later on that day, I stood in line to weigh my fish and chatted with Roland Martin as we worked our way to the scales. Heck I'm 23 years old at the time, and I watched these guys TV shows like every day since I was 15 years old. These guys are my absolute heroes! Here I am standing in the desert sun, hot and wind burned, just absolutely having the time of my life. It was the greatest feeling in Western bass fishing. All of the superstars that I had read so much about as a kid growing up were actually out West! And they were at Lake Mead, a lake that all us Western anglers had grown up on. It was actually happening. As I look over all of my 29 U.S. Opens, I still remember Charlie Campbell competing in U.S. Open No. 2. This is the guy that got the world to fish a Zara Spook. His name is signed in script writing on the side of the Zara Spook that I won my U.S. Open on! Here he is competing with me on the "Gentle Giant" Lake Mead. Larry Nixon, the nicest guy and the best fisherman in the world at that time, was a mainstay for many years at the Open. He was always super tough there, and almost won two or three different Opens. Larry just "flowed" at Lake Mead, he just "got it" right from the start. I guess it was his clear water background growing up in Arkansas. Then there is Mr. Pop-R himself, Zell Rowland. Wow, what a charter. Just for starters, no question about it, he is the greatest angler in the history of the sport to ever sling a topwater bait. He was flat out gifted! I think Zell fished about 10 U.S. Opens and never missed the money. He was always "dog" tough. He is probably best known for having his boat pop off the trailer hitch ball on that curvy road heading down to Calville Bay. The boat flew off a cliff and went end over end for 100 yards and rested upside down at the bottom of a gully. Typical of Zell, he just goes "oh well', gets back in his van, drives back to town, hooks up his friend’s boat, grabs his Pop-R rod and goes fishing. He catches one of the biggest limits of the day and finishes in the top 10. By the way, he went back with a tow truck and got his Ranger bass boat back a few days later..no big deal. The Girls, Linda England and Fredda Lee. A lot of folks thought that Linda and Fredda were just "showgirls" because of their heavy schedule of sport show speaking engagements. Don't be fooled, they were super tough professional anglers. They could flat fish! Although they struggled with consistency, they had some super good one-day catches at Mead. I miss them. Former world champion and BassMaster Classic qualifier Paul Elias still has the greatest line I have ever heard from a U.S. Open competitor. We had just finished day two of competition, it rained and was cloudy all day, yet most of the good scores came from deep water. Paul had a rough go of it. He came up to me and my roommate and best friend Greg Hines and said "any bass dumb enough to go deep on a dark cloudy day is too stupid for me to catch." Without question though, Rick Clunn is responsible for putting the U.S. Open on the map. He single-handedly made this a marquee national event. He loves the U.S. Open, and he told everyone he spoke with "it's the toughest event in the sport of bass fishing" period. That made it for us. It was one thing to have me or Greg Hines fly around the country and speak at sport shows and seminars and tell anglers about winning the event, and how great the U.S. Open was. It was a whole different ball game when the man ESPN voted the greatest bass angler of all time put it all together and won his first U.S. Open in 1984. From that day forward, it was accepted as a national event. We all owe so much to Rick, and all the other great anglers that have supported and promoted this bass tournament. They have all made it what it is today.