BASS officials announced Tuesday that the Bassmaster Elite Series’ River Rumble, originally scheduled for June 26-29 on the Mississippi River at Fort Madison, Iowa, has been relocated due to unsafe river conditions.

The new site for the event will be Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tenn., just three hours from Memphis. But if you’re a local tournament angler hoping to land a spot as a non-boater, you’re out of luck.

Despite the urgent relocation of the event, the co-angler slots filled up quickly. There’s already a waiting list of about 70 fishermen on the co-angler side.

For those who don’t know, Elite Series tournaments feature some of the top names in professional bass fishing - guys like Michael Iaconelli, Gerald Swindle and Kevin VanDam. Those guys are paired each day by random draw with amateur anglers (known as co-anglers) who have no control over the boat.

It’s often a good opportunity to learn from the most polished anglers in the business. But unless you’re already registered, you won’t get that chance on Old Hickory.

Sorry, guys and gals.

If you’re merely interested in following the event, daily weigh-ins will be broadcast at Bassmaster.com. The tournament has been renamed the “Tennessee Triumph.”

Old Hickory, which has hosted BASS events seven times during the organization’s 40-year history, will also host a Women’s Bassmaster Tour event this week, Thursday-Saturday.

Weigh-ins for the women’s event will also be broadcast live online.

…and it’s not pretty.

This afternoon, I got several e-mails in my inbox and read a couple message board posts from Memphis fans with snarky comments about assistant coach Josh Pastner because of today’s news that Emmanuel Negedu has chosen to play basketball at Tennessee.

A quick sampling:

“I wonder if Pastner gets a pay cut.”

“First week on the job, and JP couldn’t get it done. Cal must be pissed, as I know I am.”

(Quick background: When he wa sat Arizona, Pastner recruited Negedu there and got him to sign a letter-of-intent last fall. When Pastner and other staff members left, Negedu asked out of his letter and went back into the recruiting process.)

Folks, settle down. If not for Josh Pastner, Memphis wouldn’t have been in the mix for Negedu at all. Tennessee, if you remember, recruited Negedu before he signed with Arizona. Memphis did not. Negedu was smart to base his decision on more than an assistant coach. If he felt more comfortable with the overall situation at Tennessee, wish him well and move on.

Unfortunately, “Kentucky fan syndrome” seems to have hit. Kentucky fans are notorious for blaming their own coaches, making accusations about opposing coaches or badmouthing kids when they choose to play at a different school. Memphis fans would be smart not to mimic those tactics, especially since we’re not talking about the second coming of Wilt here. Negedu is a nice player who will likely have a decent career at Tennessee, but he’s not a program changer. It’s highly unlikely he would have magically solved Memphis’ rebounding question marks next season, especially playing power forward at 6-5 (having stood next to him, I can vouch for the 6-7 listing as a complete fabrication). The Tigers would have liked to have had him, but they’ll get by. If not for the ego blow of losing a recruit to Tennessee, this wouldn’t be a bitter loss at all.

There were many days over the past two seasons when I would sit in the Finch Center and watch Doneal Mack singlehandedly win scrimmages for Memphis’ second team. For the sake of the kid, who everybody around the program liked personally, I held high hopes that he would do the same during real games. Unfortunately, the difference-maker potential that Mack displayed during practices never materialized during his two seasons with the Tigers.

Mack’s career at Memphis came to a close on Thursday when he decided to transfer. LSU, according to my sources, is his likely destination. The reason? Playing time, according to his father, Greg Mack.

I had heard rumblings from as far back as the USC game — when Mack played just six minutes — that there were issues. And the situation never really got much better as the season wore on; he ended up playing 12 minutes per game (down from his freshman year) and just 10 minutes total against Texas, UCLA and Kansas in the final three games of the season.

There are certainly two ways to look at the situation. One perspective is that Mack did not play more because he was not physically strong enough to defend, didn’t get to enough loose balls and wasn’t efficient enough as a shooter on most nights to warrant more minutes. The other perspective is that Mack was marginalized as a 3-point specialist and didn’t get enough opportunities to play through mistakes or bad shooting nights.

Having watched Mack in almost every practice of his career at Memphis, I always thought he had great potential as a long-range shooter. But I did not see it translate to the court. At the level Memphis is trying to compete at, going 2-for-7 from the 3-point line in 15 minutes — a fairly typical Mack stat line — is not good enough. Last season, Mack shot just 36 percent from the 3-point line, which was disappointing in my view, especially considering how many of his makes came in garbage time. Had Mack shown a knack for making clutch jumpers — I remember a couple wide open looks in the second half of the Tennessee game, for instance — I’m positive he would have played more.

Though I know Mack was disappointed in how his year went, I thought he would stick around with the opportunity next season to play a bigger role if he improved his game and showed some dedication in the weight room. Within the past 48 hours, however, I had gotten signals that the situation was perhaps beyond repair, moreso with his father than with Doneal.

Coach John Calipari simply isn’t in position right now to project minutes. Too many unknowns. Two years ago, Memphis went through the same situation when it lost Rodney Carney, Darius Washington and Shawne Williams. Calipari threw it wide open, and guys like Chris Douglas-Roberts, Antonio Anderson and Jeremy Hunt grabbed leading roles and made Memphis into an Elite Eight team once again. The same process is going on right now, and Mack had every opportunity to be a part of it. But there are no guarantees, especially with a talented freshman class coming in this summer and probably another one after that. Hopefully, for Mack’s sake, he’ll land at a school where he can become the focal point of its offense. If not, he probably would have been better off sticking around.

As usual, the local chattering class is fretting about the University of Memphis’ recruitment of Memphis-area high school players in the wake of guard Leslie McDonald’s decision to attend North Carolina. The more significant storyline, however, relates to the University of Tennessee.

When Bruce Pearl arrived in Knoxville, he brazenly talked about poaching the best players from the Memphis area and immediately began pouring resources into this side of the state. It would be impossible to know how much time and money the Tennessee staff spent in recruiting Leslie McDonald and Elliot Williams, but given the almost weekly sightings of Pearl and assistant Steve Forbes around town the past few years, rest assured the investment was significant.

Now that Pearl has struck out on both, you have to wonder how long Tennessee will continue to recruit Memphis. What Pearl should be beginning to understand right now is that the climate locally is simply terrible for a Memphis-area basketball star to go to Knoxville. With the Tigers’ program where it is right now and the intensity of the Tennessee rivalry where it is right now, it would be a significant statement for a Leslie McDonald or Elliot Williams-type player to choose orange over blue. And it’s a statement that would not be well-received by the vast majority of people they’re close to. By choosing UNC and Duke, respectively, McDonald and Williams have received a collective slap on the back from the local folks. Choosing Tennessee? That would be a slap in the face. Those dynamics will be very hard for Pearl to overcome as long as John Calipari is at Memphis.

The Tigers’ coaching staff, meanwhile, certainly wished McDonald had chosen Memphis. He’s a quality player and a quality kid, and Calipari turned up the heat on McDonald’s recruitment over the past few months because he’s a Memphis kid. But much like Williams, there was never much belief from Memphis’ standpoint that McDonald would be a Tiger. This isn’t a huge disappointment like Thaddeus Young. This isn’t a statement about Memphis’ relationship with local players as much as it is about the fact that McDonald wanted to play at North Carolina.

Furthermore, as Calipari always says, a Memphis coach would be foolish to tie his success to the whims of local players. That’s why this weekend’s elite camp will include the likes of Xavier Henry from Oklahoma City, who is exactly the kind of player that has made local/non-local recruiting a complete non-issue among Memphis fans.

During the next three weeks, Mid-South adults will have ample opportunities to take a kid (or 2 or 10) fishing.

The schedule of fishing rodeos in and around the Memphis area begins in earnest this Saturday and runs through June 21.

Here’s a complete list of children’s fishing events scheduled in West Tennessee. If you need more information on any of these events, visit the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency web site.

Saturday
Mason’s Dock Fishing Rodeo, Mason’s Boat Dock, Humphreys Co.
Mousetail Landing Fishing Rodeo, Mousetail Landing State Park
Big Sandy Kid’s Free Fishing Rodeo, Big Sandy Boat Ramp
Whiteville Lake Fishing Event, Whiteville Lake
Jackson/Madison Co. Youth Fishing Rodeo, Muse Park
Steve McCadams “Casting for a Cure,” Carroll Lake
TWRA Mid-South Junior Fishing Rodeo, Johnson Road Park, Germantown
Herb Parsons Lake Fishing Rodeo, Herb Parsons Lake
Chester Co. Fishing Rodeo, Gene Record Park
Hardin County Free Fishing Rodeo, Crump, TN
Reelfoot NWR Youth Fishing Rodeo, Reelfoot Refuge Headquarters
City Park Youth Fishing Rodeo, Martin, TN
Henderson Co. Fishing Rodeo, Club Lake, Natchez Trace State Park
Holley Fork Fishing Rodeo, Holley Fork Shooting Complex
June 14
5th Annual Free Take a Kid Fishing Rodeo, Birdsong Resort, Kentucky Lake
June 21
Houston County Fishing Rodeo, Danville
City of Bartlett Childrens Fishing Rodeo, Appling Lake, Bartlett

With turkey season over and the spring crappie spawn about done, many outdoorsmen seem to be taking a breather.

There’s just not a lot going on outdoors, except for catfishing.

There was a Cabela’s King Kat Tournament held Saturday on the Mississippi River in New Madrid, Mo. - and despite high, muddy waters, Daryl and Jason Masingale of Paragould, Ark., caught 89.25 pounds of catfish to win the event.

They earned $3,000 for the victory. The two, who are regular winners on the major catfishing trails, said they caught their fish using skipjack herring behind dykes in medium to heavy current.

Lindsay Sample of Cape Girardeau, Mo., and Chris Tramm of Lebanon, Ind., finished second with 85.15.

The three-man Mississippi team of Phil King, Tim Haynie and Lealan Harris placed third with 65.25.

I haven’t seen the results from the Bass Pro Shops Big Cat Quest event held Saturday at Paris, Tenn. But I’ll try to pass those results along when I get them.