Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The bottom half is by definition THE BOTTOM HALF

We all start the year in fishing with the same ideas. Maybe even ideals. We will win every tournament, or at least get paid in every one, or at least break even for the year. How though does one really define success or perhaps failure. Well I have an easy way to determine failure as an overall fisherman.
If you fish a five tournament series (that hits at least three lakes) and you finish more than TWICE in the bottom half of a tournament. You failed! Oh you may make money because you win the other two events but as far as overall fisherman you are a failure for the year. A decent fisherman just doesn't finish in the bottom half of a tournament. Yes it is possible to have boat trouble, really lose every fish in a day or even fall in a lake. However, taking out the extreme possibilities, if you can fish and you chose the tournament trail, you will not finish in the bottom half of any tournament twice.
Look at the finishes of any level, PRO down to local team trail. Good fishermen DO NOT finish in the bottom half of the teams or individuals very often. If you do one of the following is true:
1. You chose the wrong trail.
2. You can't catch fish.
3. You did not practice.
4. You should not go to Vegas!
5. You can only fish your home lake.
6. You like donating.
If you find that you finish in the bottom half of the results three out of five times in a year, please do me a favor and come fish my series next year!! Seriously, consider staying home, you are wasting your time and money. Donate to the Red Cross, not the other fisherman's lure fund.

Monday, February 15, 2010

What about the other boat?

I have been looking at my and many other "best boat" polls and something came across my mind. How many people believe that the brand of boat they own is the "best" boat made. It seems to me that it would almost be a statement against self interest to say that a boat other than the one you own is the best. In the car world I would think very few people own an M5, Audi R8 or Mercedes SL55 so that it would seem easier to say some other car than the one you owned was the best. It would get almost comical if you thought about the number of people that owned a Veryon, SLR or Murcielago. Surely nobody would argue that the Chevy Camaro or Ford Edge was the best car, period. Maybe it stems from the need to justify the purchase. Personally I think the best boat is a paid for 19 footer with a good efi 150 on it.
Also it seems that all bass boats are out the same mold. They are all vee bottom, fiberglass, two seat, approx. 20ft long, engine on the back, trolling motor on bow, rod locker, livewells, etc etc. Imagine again in the car world if every car compared as the best was a two door, v8, RWD, with a/c, stereo, two seater with approx. the same hp. Most would simply argue that "best" was just personal taste in a similar product. So maybe it is fair to say any of the big names is the best.
Perhaps the best has to be better defined. Is speed, fishablility, storage, looks, or some other criteria what makes a bass boat the best?
I think one thing is clear, nearly all bass boats have incredibly good owner advertising. Maybe that's just what happens when you finance something for ten years.

No Back Up Plan. Well Done FLW

In an effort to prove why they are near bankrupt and cannot get a thing right the FLW cancelled the Pro event on the Red River last week. In an unbelievable move they had no back-up plan for the event. It is as if they all have other jobs besides running tournaments. It would be hard to believe that they could keep jobs at a manure plant the way they handle their business. They did not want to cancel the event, probably because they had no back-up plan. However, they were forced to when more than 70 competitors went and complained that the conditions were unsafe. Imagine how ridiculous that meeting must have been after the conditions the FLW let everyone fish in at Lake Falcon last month. The winner at the Falcon event did thousands of dollars worth of damage to his boat getting to and from his fish. (Of course he will claim that on his insurance and make all our premiums go up, but I guess that's okay as long as FLW doesn't have to pay for it.)
FLW certainly knew that NE Texas and Northern Louisiana had received record rainfalls over the past months. It would have been very simple to reschedule the event or perhaps even easier to simply hold the event at Lake Caddo, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, or any other lake within two hours of the Red River. FLW indeed did not have a single contingency plan. Meaning that they do not care a bit if professional fisherman get to compete at their lively hood, much less care if fans wanted to see an event or participate in fantasy fishing.
Every person in the position of tournament director at the FLW should resign today and let the fishing industry bring in some competent, aggressive and educated people to begin to rebuild the professional fishing industry. This is not a small decision to simply cancel a tournament, this is an obvious bout of sleeping at the wheel. Fishermen deserves so much more. Imagine if they simply cancelled a Nascar race and did not make up the event. It is a sad day when the tournament directors cannot get a single thing right.

Monday, February 8, 2010

"You can't fish harder than I do..."

"You gotta just bear down and fish harder." This was the recent advice of a neighbor who "used" to fish tournaments about what to do when the weather got bad. Jimmy disliked the whole thought and knew that the neighbor was just a local pond fisherman now and would never understand how hard tournament fishermen fish today. Tournaments were a lot different in the 60"s & 70"s but now a guy had to be good to win and Jimmy planned on winning.
He had been to the academy store a few miles from his house more times than he would admit. A few lunch rendezvous and even a quick swing in before heading home were probably the norm not the exception. Today he looked at all the Zoom products searching for that perfect lizard color. He thought about the old timer that had told him he used to kill em on purple chartreuse. He remembered a few years back when he caught a bunch on muscadine. But that was spring and on a Carolina rig this was late fall and perhaps he would just go with green pumpkin. He was noticing that the in house brand was sure taking up a lot of shelf space and wondered if they would even be bringing the other stuff back. He thought he might go out to Bass Pro but it was a long drive and he really wanted to beat his wife home and throw his new purchases in the closet before a discussion took place.
The tournament was two Saturday's away but Jimmy likes to be ready early. Leaving Academy he decided that maybe a trip to BPS would be okay if he didn't spend anything else on tackle before the tourney. Arriving at BPS he parked close and marveled at the amount of money spent on the pond and then he went inside. There he ran into him. He looked cocky as ever and Jimmy was in no mood for the latest story of a break off or any other excuse. Phil started with..

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Finish second and you'll never make money bass fishing locally.

There are professional bass anglers. They fish with FLW & BASS and are dedicated to spending 200 days a year on the water and are at least partially funded by some corporation to advertise products or services. This article is not about those fishermen. Frankly touring professional fishermen represent less than 1% of tournament fishermen and have little to do with the sport except push products onto the other 99% of people that compete in local bass tournaments.
Please understand that there are some really good fishermen that just fish within 3 to 4 hours of their house. Some of the best sticks in the country will never be heard of farther than a tank of gas from where they call home. The average tournament bass angler will never win more than 5,000 dollars in any single event or more than 20,000 in a year. If they do it will often be due to a single tournament win.
A tournament bass fisherman must be willing to compete for something other than money. Looking at the numbers it is fool's folly to even think about making money bass fishing.

Take a guy that is going to fish two trails in a given year. The first is a pretty big regional deal with entry fees of $300 per event and the second is a more local trail with entry fees of $150.00 per event. Our fisherman has a good partner and will only have to pay half expenses. Truck and boat payments will be considered just part of being a fisherman and not specifically needed for tournament fishing. (Although I wonder why anyone would need a 21foot bass boat with a 250 and twin HDS graphs to just hobby fish.) Also all fishing gas will be just for fishing, no hotel dollars added and only an additional $500.00 per year in extras to include all tackle, line and accessories that a hobby fisherman would not buy. We all know that $500.00 is awful light for all those lake specific "gotta haves" that we all buy the week before a tourney.

Let's say the regional draws a strong 250+ boats to every event and the local draws 40+ per event. The payout structure in both will be paying back one in six places. (A lot of trails pay even less to up the first place prize and create a lottery mentality in the entrants)

If you finish in the top 50 out of 300 in the regional and top 10 out of 60 in the local trail you get a check.
The expenses for the trails are as follows:

Yearly membership fees: $35.00 & $30.00
Six Regional Entry fees: $900.00
Six Local Entry fees: $450.00
Tournament Extras: $500.00

(These are 1/2 as these are team events.)

Total Tournament Expenses for one year of local tournament fishing: $ 1915.00

Let's say that our fisherman is in the money 8 out of twelve times during the year and finishes as high as third on the regional trail and second on the local trail. Finishes third in angler of the year in the regional and finishes fourth in points in the local. How did he come out financially?
These are actual results from two real trails and two actual fishermen in 2008 & 2009:

Regional:
Event 1 Finish in third out of 278 win $ 1000.00
Event 2 Finish in top 15% and win $300.00.
Event 3 Finish in top 10% and win $300.00
Event 4 Finish in top 20% and are seven spots out of the money.
Event 5 Finish 67th out of over 180 boats and no money.
Event 6 Finish outside the money in the last event.

Total winnings: $1600.00 Points Finish: 3rd out of over 300 teams that competed in the year.
Notes: The winnings are half actual check because it is a team event(the expenses were just half the entry fee also), The team never finished in bottom half of a tourney during the year.

NET; As for the regional events, after entry fees, membership dues and a conservative $250.00 in tournament extras for this trail the grand total is:

Net winnings: $415.00 Dollars.

I was gonna go into as much detail with the local trail but the numbers were very similar.
The team was in top half of field five out of six times. cashed three checks for $400.00 (that is per person actual winning $800) and finished fourth in AOY points.

So for their fine efforts in the local trail each man lost $330.00.00 dollars.

So for their incredibly good fishing that included 8 checks and top 5 finishes in AOY in regional and local tours the team MADE $85.00 dollars per man! And they did better than 99% of the other teams!!!

And of course this is all using the rather ludicrous assumption that tournament fishing brings no extra gas, hotel, tackle, license, breakage cost above $250.00 per trail. As well as the truck and boat payment being left out!
It actually really surprised me at how badly the money played out in tournaments when I did this research. If you didn't outright win a large event you lost money. I could not find a single instance where a fisherman made money just finishing above average. And in no instance did I find a fisherman that made money just beating 75% of the field every time.
I am going to start a small series of blogs that use actual fisherman's results from the last few years in series from Florida to Texas and look at how they did financially versus finish and point standings.

It is my belief that less than 5% of local fisherman make a dime and most do not make a cent without a tournament win.

If you can contribute something different please feel free to comment and tell us who you are, where you fish and how much you made last year.

At this time I have to be honest I think local tournament bass fishing must be about bragging rights, competition and ego because it sure isn't about the money. Which begs the question, why not just have trophy tournaments? Must be more.........................

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Random Thoughts and upcoming blogs...

Just a few things that I was thinking about....

Turn your damn headlights off on the ramp.

Never fish more tournaments in a month than the number of times you buy your wife flowers in a year.

Is O.J. still in jail?

The Monkey Box is a funny name for a fishing area.

Who the heck named it Green Pumpkin?

Can anyone ever outrun Usain Bolt?

How do so many bass grow to 13 inches?

Stop letting trash fly out of your boat.

If you have a reaction to something you read then it's a good read.

It is so scary when a rattletrap fish jumps out of the water.

Why don't practice bass come off the hook?

If flourocarbon is invisible why does it matter what size I use?

Kevin VanDam may make a living from bass fishing if he keeps it up.

The NASCAR race for the chase is now boring.

Forrest Gump is smarter than most people I know.

Enjoy this ride, it's a one way ticket!



A few upcoming blogs....

"Beat 80% of the field every time and you'll go BROKE."

"No you can't make a living fishing."

Interviews upcoming with Jim Tutt, Todd Castledine & Ron Shuffield

"There is no magic bait."

Put your dukes down and fish, Nobody Cut You Off

When did we all become the victims of water poaching?
Truth is the boat that pulls into your water most likely did not cut you off. We all believe that the other guy is doing something to us. He is not, and it is time that we all take off our rose colored glasses and pink thongs!Getting mad while fishing is dumber than taking stripper glitter home to mama.
If the rules say that you can't fish within 25 yards of another tournament boat and a guy races in on plane and stops 26 yards away from you and proceeds to hammer the grass line you wanted to fish, good for him. He did what he needed to do to catch fish and Linus you better put the blanket down and get to fishing. If you wanna fish for money and claim the glory then deal with the fact that your competition should do everything possible to keep you from getting the check. When you win I bet you will never say, "I think I owe it to that real nice guy in the Skeeter. I think he would have won but he gave me the spot."
If you were wondering 25 yards is about three boat links. Almost all of us can throw a good c-rig that far. So the next time you are fuming mad because that no good s.o.b. cut you off get out your big rod and sail it at the other boat and if you can't hit him, shut up and fish!
Good grief people the United States population has increased by 50% since 1970 and is now over 300,000,000 people. Most large city reservoirs have been around since the 60's & 70's. It doesn't take a lot of riffmatic to figure out things are getting more crowded. If you can't handle getting cut off or get offended when other boats come into your area then move to the Australian outback and leave those of us that can deal with each other alone.
You see the modern world and fisherman have to deal with the fact that he didn't cut you off, he just didn't have anywhere else to be. If you are any good at locating winning fish at least a few things should be true:
1. Other fishermen should wanna fish your area.

2. You have other places to go to.

3. Your good enough to outfish someone in the same area.

4. Your bait and technique is not in the other guy's boat.

So relax big stick. The other boat has every right to be ANYWHERE the rules says he can be. If you don't wanna fish for money then don't. However, if you do then relax and realize you didn't get cut off, you just finished second in the race to the spot. Now get out there and beat that poacher at the Weigh-in line.
And in case you were wondering NO the guy in the Ranger didn't see you catching them and then come into your area.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Why Mr. Rose, Is that a livewell in your rod locker or are the bass just happy in carpet?

The TPWD is assisting the Dallas D.A. office in what is turning into a real good fish tale. Sure most of you know that Robby Rose took a fishing rod in one hand and a bible in the other and tore through local Dallas Area tournaments like Moses through the Red Sea. However, he was oddly inept outside the local area. Inept meaning he couldn't catch his arse with both hands in bass tournaments outside the metroplex. Now of course we have all learned that at least on one occasion Mr. Robby Rose was cheating! Sadly for him a fish named Karma spit up a one pound weight at a weigh-in on Lake Ray Hubbard last year. Oh say it ain't so Robby! Well at least he appeased the really slow kids by saying that it was a bad judgment. Judgment is a well know criminal code for "you should feel sorry for me cause I had a bad childhood and screw off I ain't admittin crap."
Maybe he just did it once. If any of you believe that ya'll can call our Outdoor Realty group at 1-888-ura-dolt.
Well now it appears that there may be sources that are reporting that Mr. Rose was seen by and perhaps even accompanied by another person to Lake Fork just days before the tournament on Lake Ray Hubbard. He caught some real nice ones and kept them in his possession. Even sadder the person tells of a hidden cooler within the boat of Mr. Robby Rose. I guess Mr. Rose was smart. Whoever thought of hiding bass in the ONLY part of a boat they check. Perhaps a really smart tourney director will figure out how to do a boat check in places that we haven't already told you we were checking. How about a few random web-cams placed in boats for the entire tourney day? Whoa this is starting to sound awful 1990's for us rednecks! We don't wanna get ahead of ourselves!
I sure hope that Mr. Rose doesn't take a plea offer and stands by his good words and fights this case. It will be immeasurable fun to see the evidence come out in open Court. And if I know anything about him he is sure not gonna take a plea deal when it was just a one time little ol act of indiscretion!
We can all only hope that soon Mr. Rose will soon be in a place where using your partner's rod has a whole different meaning.

You can be sure kids that we won't let this story die, and will sure try and be present at any criminal hearing that comes from the matter!

Groundhog hell batman it's freezin!

The folks in Pennsylvania may need a snot nosed varmint to tell em that winter isn't over but fishermen in Texas could have told em that without rodent side assistance. January 2010 in Texas has finally and without much mercy come to an end.
As crazy as it may sound to those of us that stayed inside the final Saturday of January 2010 saw at least three tournaments throughout the State. BassnBucks headed toward Conroe and Media Bass held separate events on Sam Rayburn and Richland Chambers. The weather was a pleasant 29degrees with a howling NE wind. Conditions that had most fishermen staying home helping mama in the kitchen. However an impressive number of Texas' best fishermen ventured out to take a shot at these tournaments. The events saw Andy Gaia, Russell Cecil, Bill Wilcox, Mike Farmer, Gary Paris, Todd Castledine, Jim Tutt, Dicky Newberry and many other real sticks on the water. With that kind of talent on hand you had to expect that someone would truly come out on top and boy did she!
Mother Nature had her way in almost every instance. The three tournaments had 75 boats total (like I said there were a lot of wives with company last weekend.) And in all three tournaments there were six limits brought to the scales. No that is not six in EACH tournament that is SIX TOTAL limits for three tournaments with some of the best anglers in Texas! If you saw a team with five cull rings out on January 30, 2010 you can bet that they don't make it a habit to "donate" on Saturday's!
Boys when I see Nutria Rats carrying dura flame logs I don't need Punksatony Phil, Dr. Phil or any other Phil to tell this ol' boy winter is gonna last a bit longer! For some it is time to bundle and test your skills , for many it is probably best to just test your skillets.