SOMEWHERE ON LAKE HARTWELL — Skipping across the waves at 65 miles per hour can be disorienting. Is this a boat race or a fishing contest?

To the untrained eye, one blur looks a lot like another, but for the 50 contestants this weekend, that's all part of Bassmaster.

They aren't fishing for the fish; the catch is eventually released back to the friendly waters from which it came, though the underwater dwellers may have to introduce themselves around in their new neighborhood.

On dry land, we sometimes wonder about the sanity of people who tell stories about alien abductions, but there will be hundreds of bass this weekend that can relate fantastic, true stories of being probed, taken away, thoroughly inspected and put back again. read more