1) What is the Cabela's Top Gun Championship?

It is the first time the best pros from both major tours – the Bassmaster Tour and FLW Tour – will fish against each other on one body of water.

> Quote 1, pro angler Greg Hackney: "The main thing is that the best of both tournament trails get together and fish. Some guys who don't fish BASS will be at Top Gun and some guys will be there who don't fish FLW. One group may underestimate the other group. I wish this would've happened sooner because I think this is a really big deal."

> Quote 2, BassFan COO Scot Laney: "You can call it the first-ever Super Bowl of bass fishing or whatever you want, but the bottom line is that this tournament is the first time that only the best pros, regardless of what tour or tours they fish, will fish against one another."

2) What makes Top Gun worth covering?

a) This is the first time since the FLW Tour debuted in 1996 that anyone has held a national tour-level event featuring the world's best pros. Why? Why now? What's taken so long?

b) Top Gun will have the best field of the three championships held this year:
Avg World Rank of FLW Championship field = 58.7
Avg World Rank of Classic field = 34.9
Avg World Rank of Top Gun field = 14.0

c) Believe it or not, Top Gun is the only championship where pros will be able to fish out of their own boats, with their own equipment, and wear their sponsors' logos every day. And it's the only championship where all 25 pros will fish all three competition days (no cuts, no brackets).

> Quote 1, pro angler Marty Stone: "There are many neat things about Top Gun, but one thing that stands out is that I can actually fish out of my own boat. That boat is an extension of me. I hope sometime in the near future we'll be able to do that even in the Classic. Then I can be just like other professional athletes. Like in NASCAR: When (the drivers) show up to a showcase event, they are able to showcase their equipment at that event."

> Quote 2, BassFan COO Scot Laney: "Top Gun was created to promote the anglers and their sponsors rather than to just use the anglers to promote the event's or the league's sponsors. The world's top bass pros needed and deserved an event – one that they strictly qualified for – where they fished out of their own boats and promoted their own sponsors, every day. Can you imagine NASCAR drivers having to switch cars halfway through a race, or golfers being handed a different bag of clubs for each round? Top Gun corrects that in bass fishing."

d) This is the first time in the history of the sport that the anglers will RECEIVE a four-figure appearance fee just for showing up and fishing vs. having to PAY four-figure entry fees for tour-level events.

e) The Professional Anglers Association and at least one major sponsor of one of the two tours are rumored to be putting together tour-level events for next year and beyond. Is Top Gun a sign of things to come in professional fishing? If so, why is this happening now?

3) How do anglers qualify for the 25-man Top Gun field?

Anglers must be either a) in the Top 25 in the world according to the State Farm-BassFan.com World Rankings after the end of the tour seasons, which means after this week's Bassmaster Classic, or b) one of the two tour Anglers of the Year.

Anglers on the Top Gun bubble fishing the Classic include: Tim Horton (AL), David Walker (TN), Jeff Kriet (OK), Dean Rojas (TX/AZ), Jay Yelas (TX), Brian Snowden (MO), Davy Hite (SC), Zell Rowland (TX) and possibly Gerald Swindle (AL). After the Classic, the World Rankings will be updated to establish the final Top Gun field.

4) Why is BassFan qualifying anglers for Top Gun via the State Farm-BassFan.com World Rankings?

The World Rankings' rolling two-year formula ensures that only the world's best bass fishermen qualify (no flashes in the pan), regardless of which tour or tours they fish. It is the best and only way to ensure an unbiased, sponsor-irrelevant qualification. If there was a better way, we'd use it.

5) Why is BassFan getting into the tournament business?

The short answer is, we're not. The reason BassFan created Top Gun and the similar Skeeter Weekend Warrior Championship, which features the best anglers from the biggest regional trails in the country, is simply because the fans demanded it and no one else was going to do it.

> Quote, BassFan COO Scot Laney: "The fans see the sport as a real sport that's about the pros and about fishing, even if the leagues still see the sport as primarily a marketing vehicle."

/00