The sport is now 5 months into the 2010 season. Each tour has passed its halfway point, there have been a host of FLW Series events, Bassmaster Opens and more. We've had a major championship – the Bassmaster Classic – with another on the way in August.
And through those 5 months, new trends emerged and hard realities set in. Here's a look at some of them.
A Silent Jacobs
After a decade and a half of positioning himself front and center in the world of bass fishing, FLW Outdoors chairman and CEO Irwin Jacobs has been noticeably silent since last fall. FLW Outdoors press releases now include quotes from his daughter – FLW Outdoors chief marketing officer Trisha Blake.
Jacobs did address the sport a few times, most notably
in his modest and humble induction speech at the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame dinner, and through various hints that there would be changes to the FLW Tour format. But all in all, it appears the reins have temporarily or permanently passed at FLW Outdoors/Minneapolis.
Short Fields
Neither tour can fill a field. The Bassmaster Elite Series runs 93 boats, while the FLW Tour is down to 140. There's a serious lag in participation at various levels throughout the sport that most feel is a market correction back to more sensible, sustainable levels.
Money's tight. Home equity has disappeared. Savings and retirement portfolios lost 30% or more of their value. Gas prices are sky-high. The treasury's printing money and the specter of inflation looms. It all takes a toll on the sport.
It doesn't necessarily mean folks are fishing less though – in fact, many segments of the fishing public are more active than ever. They're just not traveling, or handing over big entry fees, to do it.
Two Exceptions
At the national level, there are two circuits that buck the short-field trend – the Eastern FLW Series and the Bassmaster Opens.
Clearly, the American Fishing Series (formerly Strens) have dropped a level and the FLW Series and Opens now represent the level immediately below the tours. Both circuits boast full fields, and the Opens in particular seem to have found a new energy.
There may be fewer tour-level pros, but that just means there are more folks fishing at the level immediately below.
Rattlebait Retreat
Any BassFans notice that rattlebaits were a no-show this spring? Blame the cold winter. Big-time shad kills due to record cold seem to have decimated the population and the shad-spawn (i.e. rattlebait) bite has yet to be much of a factor – especially on the Tennessee River.
Morris on the Move
Over the past decade, Bass Pro Shops seemed to have a go-it-alone attitude. It pulled back on its tournament underwriting, kept is pro staff lean and mean, and pushed its Tracker Group boat brands in much the same way as other companies.
That changed last fall when Bass Pro Shops announced a hyper-aggressive pricing structure for its boats and shifted its ProCraft pros to Nitro.
It continued last week when BASS announced that Bass Pro would sponsor the league once again.
Seems Johnny Morris is bent on taking back a bigger share of a market he helped create.
An exception to shrinking fields, the Bassmaster Opens continue to draw strong participation, as does the Eastern FLW Series. Recent Southern Open winner Andy Montgomery is pictured above.
And for those keeping track, BASS's tour now has three boat sponsors (Skeeter, Triton and Nitro) for the first time in more than 10 years. Although back then, BASS's first multi-boat sponsorship was a departure from the norm. BASS traditionally ran a one-boat, one-motor tour, and went to two brands only after Ranger pulled out in the wake of the World Championship Fishing experiment.
FLW Listening
FLW Outdoors loosened its logo policy slightly, but there might be more significant changes there, and in other policies, before next season.
The league has been interviewing its pros regularly this year, and recently conducted a conference call, to help collect ideas to boost the efficacy and appeal of the Tour.
In the wake of massive sponsor loss, and far fewer pros supported through sponsor-team contracts, the league is clearly looking for some new strategies. Ideas put forth from pros include freedom to display sponsor logos, personal boats on TV days, smaller Tour fields, harder-hitting TV coverage, superstar promotion, better in-house media support and more.
Less Mass Media
As traditional media continues to struggle, bass pros have fewer and fewer places to get mass-media exposure. Newspaper coverage of pro bass fishing has dwindled to almost nothing as dailies cut their outdoor sections, and outdoor periodicals have fewer and fewer pages with which to work. The dreams that pro bass fishing would find a home in sports sections, rather than once-a-week outdoors sections, still haven't materialized.
Youth Movement
BassFans always love to compare the Elite Series and FLW Tour. Whatever their take, there's no arguing that so far, this is the season of the youngbloods. It's most pronounced in the Elite Series, but there's a youth movement on the FLW Tour as well. Take away Ron Shuffield for a moment and the average age of the Top 10 on both tours is the same.
Here's a look at the current Top 10 in each points race, with angler age noted in parentheses:
Elite Series Top 10
1. Skeet Reese (40)
2. Edwin Evers (35)
3. Dave Wolak (33)
4. Brian Snowden (37)
5. Cliff Pace (29)
6. Greg Hackney (36)
7. Dean Rojas (38)
8. John Crews (31)
9. Derek Remitz (27)
10. Greg Vinson (33)
Average Age = 34
FLW Tour
1. Bryan Thrift (30)
2. Andy Morgan (38)
3. Ron Shuffield (53)
4. Rusty Salewske (44)
5. Brent Ehrler (33)
6. Jason Christie (36)
7. Clark Wendlandt (44)
8. Ish Monroe (35)
9. Mark Rose (38)
10. Jonathan Newton (37)
Average Age = 39
