OppOrtu
By dan o’sullIVan
Story & Photos
B
ass anglers have something that not a lot of other sporting enthusiasts have; a chance to participate in their sport and make money while doing it. For sure, everyone can endeavor to pursue a professional career in a sport, from professional ball sports from youth, or even to the Senior PGa tour, if they work hard enough. But, in bass fishing, we can enter any of a number of tournaments across the country and have a chance to cash a check to offset our expenses, or in some cases make money doing it. in the State of California, there are dozens of option for us to put up our money and enjoy competing against others on a fairly high level. in other words, what we have are opportunities. We play in the kind of sport that affords us chances to build a career, no matter the age we are. if we really wanted to, whether 16-years-old or 60; we could start now and work our way up to where we could compete on the Bassmaster elite Series or FlW tour. and, we’re blowing it. We hear every day from people who have some major problem with the one component of bass fishing recreation that is the one thing that sets our sport apart from every other hobby - the payback. Not enough money, organizations and sponsors taking too much out of the purse. i know of no other business that would operate on as tight a set of margins that tournament organizations do. So many of us see an 80 percent payback and complain about it. We hear claims that the organization is “pocketing” too much of the money at that point.
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