Tournament day cancellations are probably not as common as you think. B.A.S.S. pros are a hardy lot, and it's not often nasty enough to keep them off the water. But when conditions are unsafe — usually involving lightning, high winds or extremely rough water, the only responsible thing to do is to cancel the day's competition and wait for better conditions. Most often, a make-up day is scheduled, but sometimes it's necessary to shorten the event by a round.
In Elite Series history, just five days have been cancelled and not rescheduled. The first time it happened was April 2007 at Lake Guntersville in Alabama. The event was reduced to just three days. Kevin VanDam won.
The same thing happened later that year at Lake Erie in July. Just as with Bays de Noc this week, winds from the "wrong" direction created waves that were unsafe for small craft like bass boats. Edwin Evers won.
In 2008, Lake Amistad was deemed unsafe for a day. Todd Faircloth won that weather-shortened tournament.
The next year, bad weather cancelled days in consecutive events at Lake Dardanelle (Arkansas) and Lake Wheeler (Alabama). Mark Menendez won at Dardanelle fishing out of an aluminum boat while Tommy Biffle took the trophy at Wheeler.
And that was the last time the Elites actually lost a day of competition, though there have been some close calls. For instance, in 2013 on Bull Shoals Lake (Arkansas), a day of competition was called off due to thunderstorms, but it was made up on a Monday so that the tournament went the full four rounds.
The Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship is scheduled for three days of competition, and B.A.S.S. will do all it can to complete that this weekend … as long as conditions are safe to do so.