By John Neporadny Jr.
Special to BassFan

Professional baseball, football, basketball and hockey players are easy to identify. Just watch a MLB, NFL, NBA or NHL game and you will see two teams full of pros.

Identifying a professional bass angler is harder, though, especially since the term "pro" in fishing is loosely thrown around these days. The national tournament trails are filled with anglers trying to make their living by fishing, but there are also anglers who have full- or part-time occupations in other fields that allow them to pay their entry fees and expenses so they can compete nationally for the thrill of fishing in big-time tournaments.

So, how do we identify a professional bass angler? Some of the best sources for that task are the pro staff managers for companies in the industry, since they must decide which anglers will represent them on the tournament trails. Three such people were surveyed, and their answers appear below.

Rick Emmitt
Bass Pro Shops

Emmitt believes a true pro angler has the skills necessary to remain competitive for a long time at the top level.

“Pretty much anymore a pro angler can be a guy that may not have the skills to truly be a pro angler, but if he has the funding and enters a pro division then he is considered a pro angler,” Emmitt said. “But if you just have the money to enter a tournament on the pro division side you are probably not going too last long if you don’t have the necessary skills.”

Anglers sponsored by Bass Pro Shops possess a combination of fishing expertise and promotional and salesmanship skills.

“We are not always looking at the performance – that is definitely a factor – but we are looking for guys who know how to represent our brands and can sell product for us,” Emmitt says. “They are good on stage and good with kids and have the personality and respect in the industry that they don’t have to win all the time. So if there is a guy who is well-respected, has been around for a while, has a good name that people know and he can sell product, we want to be associated with him.”

Bass Pro Shops classifies its pro staff in three sponsorship levels. The company’s Elite Pros compete on the Bassmaster Elite Series or FLW Tour.

“Most of them get a retainer or a salary as well as a deal on a boat,” Emmitt says. “Some get a free boat and some get discounted boats and such.”

The next sponsorship level is the national team, made up of anglers who fish Bassmaster Opens, the FLW Rayovac Series, BFLs and on the pro side of large regional tours. They receive heavy discounts on boat deals.

The third level of sponsorship is the state team anglers, who receive boat discounts and fish regional and local circuits along with BFLs and Bassmaster Opens.

Mike Eutsler
Lew’s

Having competed in bass tournaments himself for several years, Eutsler has a good idea of the difference between a pro and amateur angler.

“Fishing is what he does for a living,” Eutsler said in describing a pro. “He doesn’t have any other source of income other than what he obtains from fishing. It might not be from winnings in fishing, but he promotes the products like Lew’s, does seminars and interviews, writes articles and goes to writers’ conferences and represents his sponsors.”

Lew’s offers various levels of sponsorship for its pro staff.

“We start out at the Ambassador level, which is an entry-type guy who maybe fishes a few tournaments and maybe has participated with local dealers,” Eutsler says. “So we start them off with just a small discount.

“The next level is the VIP, which is somebody who does fish a lot of tournaments and is maybe recommended to me by dealers or our reps. From that level we go to our VIP Plus guys who fish national tours of some sort, either Rayovacs or Opens.

"Then the next level is what we call our Elite, Tour or National pros. These are the guys who actually receive salary and fish the Bassmaster Elites or the FLW Tour and they are full-time professional anglers.”

Lew’s also has a sponsorship program for fishing guides.

“As long as a guide is officially licensed by whatever entity in each state we will provide them with a good discount because they get the product into the fishermen’s hands,” Eutsler says.

David Ittner
Yamaha

Ittner defines a pro the same way his company classifies its pro staff.
“We have three things that we look at with every one of our pros,” Ittner says. “We look for the 'hero pro'. That is the guy who is up there in the Top 30 at all (Bassmaster Elite) tournaments. He is also often in the Top 12 fishing on the final day.”

“The second thing is the sales pro. Let’s face it, every one of us are in business to make money. If our pro staff that we have on contract is not out there selling and promoting our product we are not getting the value out of any pro staffer then.

“The third thing we look at is being a communicator. Not only do they have to communicate on social media or Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, they have to be able to communicate with journalists and when a microphone is in their face on stage and with our customers out there.”

Mark Copley
Strike King

Copley defines a pro bass angler as someone who strictly fishes for a living.

“That is his job,” he says. “Pro doesn’t always mean professional, though. It also means promotional to (Strike King).”

Strike King provides three levels of sponsorship: National Pro, Regional Pro and Guide.

“A National Pro is someone who fishes either the Bassmaster Elite Series, Bassmaster Opens, FLW Tour and Rayovacs,” Copley says. “A National Pro gets a monthly stipend and unlimited products.

"A Regional Pro is someone who we don’t pay, but gets varying credit allowances toward baits at a highly discounted, below-dealer price.”

Copley noted that a Regional Pro could be a newcomer in the Bassmaster Elites or an angler who mainly fishes Bassmaster Opens, Rayovacs and BFLs.

Copley emphasized that guies have been instrumental in promoting Strike King products throughout the years.

“Guides are pros on the lake that they are on and a lot of those guys fish BFLs and Rayovac circuits, too,” he said. “There are some guides we have that get a really big allowance, so it depends on that person. What we look at is how they help influence sales. If we can see a direct correlation of sales being reflected they will be rewarded for that."