Why do Professional anglers compete in both top tier and minor league level tournaments?
Money. That is the reason, plain and simple. However, I’ll give you a little bit of my reasoning behind coming to that conclusion. Otherwise, this would be my shortest post ever. This is all just my opinion and gut feeling mixed in with a little research to support my side. After all, isn’t that what most writers do? Haha. Let’s get into it.
Why would a professional angler like Patrick Walters or Greg Hackney want to fish in any tournament trail other than the top one ( Elites)? Shots fired! Well, not so fast, maybe no shade is being thrown at all.
At first glance, one might think that the professional anglers like the couple I mentioned above compete against the minor league anglers (up and coming) because they can snipe tournament winnings from less talented individuals. It sets up sort of a Pro vs. Joe scenario for them and the odds are heavily in their favor, thus making their chances of cashing bigger checks that much easier. This could definitely be the case. Some say this is unfair and shouldn’t be allowed. “Only fish the highest tournament trail you qualify for!”, they say. That is one opinion, of course. However, I think the “unfair” aspect is not necessarily on the fishing talent, but maybe, just maybe instead with the resources available to the Pro vs. the Joe.
Take Patrick Walter’s rig in the picture from his personal website (above). He’s got all the bells and whistles you would expect from a top tier professional angler’s bass boat, complete with a fancy wrap and tons of colorful sponsor stickers. All of these “stickers” can add up to a lot of extra money for Patrick, depending on what deals he’s inked with those companies. If you look at the front of his boat, you’ll see what some of that extra sticker money has been spent on. I’m not 100% what Patrick runs, but from this picture, I can tell he at least has three large graphs, a Humminbird 360, probably a forward facing sonar like Garmin Livescope, and also probably has a MinnKota Ultrex trolling motor (w/spot lock). My guess is that is probably at least $20k just in front of the boat.
Not to say that the average Joe couldn’t have the same equipment, but… I bet most of them don’t. At least not before they got their stimulus checks. This is the only thing I could see as possibly unfair in the instances that Pros fish in lower level tournaments. Their skill, research, preparation, etc…is no different than what anyone could do, if they make it a priority. However, by already paying their dues and making it to the top level of bass fishing, they sometimes do have more financial resources than those in they compete against that are just getting started in the “minor leagues”.
This brings me to my next point. The flipside of Pros having these extra “resources”. No sponsor is going to just give you money. They are paying you for a service. There are contract stipulations that must be adhered to on both sides. I’m going to throw out some random numbers because it is difficult to get realistic numbers from anglers on how much they make off of their sponsors. Some sponsors will pay a flat fee to you for displaying or using their products. Others may pay more or less depending on performance. If a sponsor gives you $10k to wrap your boat for a year, but has stipulations that you must fish 15 events, this forces you to fish multiple tournament trails. There are usually only 8 or 9 events on any tournament trail per year. So, guess what Pro, you’re gonna have to fish against Joe at least a few times. The contract deal may not stipulate how any tournaments, but it may be that they pay extra for each tournament or only if you finish in the top 40, 20, 10, etc… Who doesn’t want more money? I know that if you tell me I’ll give you more money if you do what you love more and finish well, I don’t care who’s feelings I hurt.
There are two ways for the anglers on the Joe side to look at it. They can be mad and whine about it and work to get the rules changed to ban the Pros from sniping their tournaments, which is unlikely to happen IMO. Or, they can accept it for what it is and welcome the challenge to compete against the best in the sport. Just think about it for a minute, imagine you competed against Walters or Hackney and beat them. Hell yeah! Right? If you can beat them at your level without all the “extra resources”, it proves that you can beat them at the top level too. What a confidence boost that would be.
Even if you did compete against them and they mopped the floor with you and all your friends, you could take that as a learning opportunity. Watch them and study what they did and what you didn’t that led to the eventual outcome. It’s not personal, it’s business. Which is why I could have stopped writing this post after one word. Money.
What do you think about this post? Do you agree/disagree? If you enjoyed this post please leave a like and share it with your friends. Thanks for reading.
Originally published at http://l2-fish.com on March 19, 2021.
