LAKE MURRAY SHORES, S.C. — Next week, Lake Murray will see dozens of countries represented at the USA Black Bass World Championship.
For the first time in the tournament's 16 year history, the Philippines will have representation from a fishing team competing.
Eight anglers are taking on the challenge at Lake Murray next week.
PJ Perea is the captain of this team who has been pulling most of the lines so to speak. He's also on the USA Angling Board of Directors.
"I first cast the net back in my home country, the Philippines, asking and there are bass fishing anglers strangely enough. In the Philippines they stock some of the volcanic lakes there. They're very avid. None of them could come, partially because of COVID, partially because the distance and the expense was a lot, so they gave me the green light to ask domestic anglers," PJ Perea, captain of the Filipino bass fishing team.
Fisherman like Gerard Urbanozo and Merv Rubiano, two Filipino team members are known for their epic YouTube videos.
"All the other bass championships never had more than 16 nations, and here in Columbia, we've got 25 nations attending, world record setting," said John Knight, organizer of the tournament.
With more representation from Southeast Asia, Perea tells News 19 things are looking up.
"Big picture long term, I really would like to see like I said, more representation. Because the Philippines is involved, we also have teams like Laos, South Korea, Japan, also being part of the Black bass world championships, which is great. We did manage to bring in even more teams because they saw that the Philippines was involved," Perea said.
The ultimate goal of all these fisherman is to bring back the sport to the Olympics.
We're told all these Filipino fisherman are expected to arrive in Columbia this weekend for the tournament that starts on Monday.