Randy Blaukat is one of several anglers – including Larry Nixon and Rick Clunn – who had much better seasons on the FLW Tour than on the BASSMASTER Tour this year. In Blaukat's case he finished 9th in the FLW points, and didn't accumulate any points on the BASSMASTER Tour because he couldn't wear the Busch patch: his FLW Outdoors-brokered sponsorship contract with Fujifilm wouldn't allow it.
What would have happened had he been able to wear the patch? Tough to tell. He only finished above 100th place in one B.A.S.S. event this year. But on the other hand, he said the reason he did so poorly this year boiled down to the fact that he knew he couldn't accumulate points.
"I think a lot of it was the emotional mental separation from the B.A.S.S. Tour," he said.
This was the first year in his 14 years of fishing the BASSMASTER Tour that he was locked out of the points even before the season began.) "I didn't make any checks in B.A.S.S. all year, and even though I didn't like to show it, I was emotionally upset over the whole conflict (between) Busch, FLW and B.A.S.S. – all three of them together.
"I didn't start getting into the flow until the B.A.S.S. events were over and I started focusing on the FLWs. I had the fish on in the last two events to make to the cut, and anytime you put yourself around those type of fish, you're doing something right."
Politics and Frustration
Blaukat called the whole patch/points issue "frustrating."
"It's very frustrating when you're in any type of sport and you're trying to get your artistic and creative abilities to come out to be able to compete on (the top) level, but you have these external political events that intervene within that artistic process. It's tremendously frustrating, and that's the thing I had the hardest time with," he said.
"We're out here trying to be purists within our sport and give it 100 percent focus and determination, yet we have outside business models interfering with that flow. All the powers in this sport try to compare it to NASCAR and golf, but those athletes don't have (these kinds of) things tugging at them that directly hamper their performance."
He noted that some anglers are more affected by those types of pressures than others. "Some are more emotional, and some are more thick-skinned and not affected by it. A lot of it has to do with your personality.
"But a lot of us were more affected (this season) than other fishermen because we have sponsor tie-ins that make it more difficult," he said. "For anglers who didn't have those sponsors, it was no big deal. They didn't have to think about a 10-year relationship (with a sponsor) here and a 15-year sponsorship there, and one (sponsor) was with B.A.S.S. and the other one was with FLW. (Editor's note – Examples in Blaukat's case are that he has Mercury on the B.A.S.S. side, and Ranger and Fujifilm on the FLW side.) So it was the veterans, the ones with longer-term sponsorships, who were twisted around and affected by this."
Simplifying
Those were the conditions this season, and Blaukat had to adapt to them. "The conclusion I reached is that I'm just going to try to simplify everything," he said. "The more you can simplify, the more you can focus on any particular tournament."
But that process of simplifying goes beyond just the tournaments. "The thing I'll probably do next year is make a decision to fish one circuit or the other," he said. "If you want any type of home or family life, or any ability to focus 100 percent on the events, you have to choose. I think that's what's coming down for all anglers. You'll have to choose one (tour) or the other based on your needs and goals as a fisherman, and your sponsors.
"I'm weighing it now," he said. "Once you make a decision, you're probably going to stay with it for some time." That decision "will affect us for the rest of our lives."
To help with his decision-making, he said he hopes the 2004 schedules for both tours will conflict even more than they did this year "so the decision will be easy. I don't want it to be tempting, like you might be able to do both. I want there to be so many conflicts that the anglers have to choose."
A Message for the Leagues
Though it may end up being easy to pick a tour based on the schedules, Blaukat noted that it won't be easy overall.
"FLW and B.A.S.S. have to understand that the decisions anglers make about which circuit to fish will have a tremendous impact on other areas of their lives," he said. "It goes way beyond just fishing. It gets into the personal relationships which you and your family have made, financial factors and career goals. People's lives are being toyed around with here a little bit, and I hope both organizations take the responsibility and realize that the way they do business is having an impact on the anglers' lives."
Because it is such a major decision, Blaukat said he hopes that "each league will take care of those fishermen who decide to fish with them. I hope they realize that the fishermen made tremendously difficult decisions (involving) themselves and their families, and I hope they return that and honor those fishermen that treat them well.
"It's not as simple as saying we've got this or that to offer the fishermen," he added. "There's a lot more involved with it." For example, "the fishermen who have sponsors have the ability to form a long-lasting relationship with those sponsors. But because some sponsors might find conflict with anglers fishing other circuits, the compensation those anglers receive is cut back. So there are a lot of variables there."
He noted that "the fishermen were forced into" the effects of this season. "It was not chosen."
Staying In the Moment
"I look at where I finished in (the FLW points) and I can't believe I finished that high," Blaukat said. "I feel like I haven't been around any fish all year, I feel like I've been distracted mentally a lot, and I think the big fields have really undermined the ability to locate water.
"I'm amazed, looking back, that I finished 9th," he said again. "I just don't feel that I've fished that well."
The last tournament of his year is the FLW Championship in September. Will his good fishing continue there? "I don't really have any feelings one way or the other because of the bracket format," he said. "I think it makes for an exciting event, but I don't think it's a fair way to run a tournament. There are too many inequities. An angler could be on the winning group of fish and get knocked out in the first round.
"That's what a lot of the sport is. The anglers' plight isn't considered as much as the big picture," which he said he understands "from a business standpoint."
But because of all of that, "I'm really just going to fish in the moment," he said. "I've been reading a lot of Zen lately. But it's the hardest thing to do. It's hard to stay in the moment and not think about the past or what's coming up in the future. But that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to keep my fishing here in the moment, and take it one day on the water at a time."
Notable
> Blaukat has also said that "so many relationships are torn apart and (other bad things happen) in people's lives because of tournament fishing. In this sport you can get so focused on what you're doing, almost to the exclusion of everything else in life. And if it's not handled right, it can affect relationships, it can affect you in emotional and physical ways, and can affect your self-esteem. But the sport also has a lot of positive things." In his case, one reason he wants to simplify "is to spend more energy on home life. I think that helps your fishing. I've seen the Hibdons, Clark Wendlandt, Dan Morehead and other people do that. They've cut back on fishing, and I think they've really benefited from that."
> Here's how Blaukat fished this year:
B.A.S.S.
- 1/2003 – Harris Chain of Lakes – 166
- 1/2003 – Lake Okeechobee – 125
- 2/2003 – Lake Seminole – 81
- 2/2003 – Toledo Bend – 117
- 3/2003 – Lake Eufaula – 105
- 3/2003 – Santee Cooper – 168
FLW
- 1/2003 – Lake Okeechobee – 32
- 2/2003 – Atchafalaya Basin – 54
- 3/2003 – Lake Murray – 47
- 4/2003 – Beaver Lake (Wal-Mart Open) – 92
- 5/2003 – Kentucky Lake – 23
- 6/2003 – Wheeler Lake (Forrest Wood Open) – 18
