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| Message Subject: EXTREME MAKEOVER: WALLEYE TOURNAMENT EDITION | |||
jerry |
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Member Posts: 2567 Location: Manitowoc, WI | I was considering writing a new thread on this subject of tournament walleye fishing. I would title it "Extreme Makeover: Walleye Tournament Edition". It doesn't exactly pertain to the subject of what makes certain guys better than others, but it's something that definitely needs to be addressed. The current model for tournament walleye fishing is broke, as the support from manufacturers due to the economic slump is waning, and if it continues the tournament walleye fisherman will no longer exist. I would like to see some opinions on what needs to be done to make tournament walleye fishing a viable career. A few years back I considered just fishing for a living and dedicating everything and all my time to walleye fishing. In the end, I just couldn't see dedicating ALL my time just to one thing, with kids just getting into their teens, as I hate missing any of their events. I also found myself not enjoying the many hours on the road away from family, so the decision to pull back and make this more of a hobby versus a career was easy for me. I've heard the age old "to make a million in tournament fishing you need two million", so what I'm looking for is new ideas....thinking outside the box. One of the things I think should be pursued is more involvement from the NPAA and the tournament circuits. I think that, like in golf and other sports, top tournament fishermen should be paid to appear in certain events. It's difficult to compare golf to tourney walleye fishing, but I would like to see where guys were given an appearance fee for being in an event. I do not have the particulars of such a thing worked out, but the idea is there. At this point, I think it is far-fetched, but it is something that could be built upon to make tournament fishing more viable. | ||
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| Brian Hoffies |
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| So which pro would you want to see fishing for Walleye's? How close do you think they would let you get? Think they would let you in their boats to check for the colors and lures they are using? Forest Wood appears at Frankie's from time to time. While I think what he did for Bass fishing is outstanding I don't think he is popular enough to warrant a appearance fee. The only places the pro's might get paid appearance fee's would be shows and seminars, maybe a couple of the bigger names might squeeze a few bucks out of a dealer for a open house or something. While in a perfect world guy's could make a living from Walleye fishing I just don't ever see it happening. The very few who do certainly aren't giving anything up to help those who aren't. I think folks need to be happy with the club tournaments, smaller tourney's with small entries. The idea of people making a living from fishing is just a fantasy for most. Reality is it's nearly impossible. It is an interesting subject, but the ending is always the same. | |||
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| jerry |
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Member Posts: 2567 Location: Manitowoc, WI | I agree with most of what you write here Brian. I only offer this subject as a discussion topic for the board. I do know one thing: if the current model of little to no reward for a top ten tournament finish in a major event continues the major circuits will not exist in the future. Many who fished the FLW and/or PWT events of the last 5 years quit because of that reason. The best example if the FLW Tour: two of the last three championship winners do not fish the circuit any longer. What does that tell us? | ||
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| iceman35 |
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 Member Posts: 650 | most pros get fees for going to shows and seminars, quite a bit actually... I'll throw my 2 cents in, since we gotta go outside the box... skip the big championship... that way money isn't taken out during the year... if your gonna have a championship, make it double entry... open to guys who fish the whole year... make every event 100%+ cash payback( no boats!)... let sponsor dollars pay expenses... skip TV coverage, web coverage is live... maybe offer a DVD afterwards... this could all be done quite easily.... just need some folks with time and motivation... please don't flame me too bad... | ||
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| RedNeckTech |
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Member Posts: 319 | What needs to be done is make the tournaments an attraction not just an event. You need the general public to spend their money. It would take awhile to fully incorporate but if you started to develop tournaments into things like festivals, like many cities have across America, instead of just a fishing tournament, it would attract the general public with vendors, entertainment and other things that many people that could care less about fishing would enjoy. It would appeal to a broad sector, relieve the financial burden for prize money and the public would support it. Festivals bring in huge money if done right. | ||
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| BOXMAN |
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Member Posts: 96 Location: DeForest, WI | Hi Jerry- I don't disagree with what you are saying or doing. However I just looked up the Championship info you posted and see that both Dustin and Tommy fished the Leech Lake 09'. Not saying anything with that, as I know several guys that I used to love to follow aren't fishing anymore. I hope that things can get corrected so that we get to see sustainable growth in walleye tournament fishing. How else do new techniques ever get to the average Joe, unless you know tournament fisherman or are on the water 7 days a week. Thanks for coming up with a great idea. Edited by BOXMAN 6/30/2009 8:21 AM | ||
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| sworrall |
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Location: Rhinelander | That's precisely what AIm has done, RedNeck. www.aimfishing.com | ||
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| RedNeckTech |
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Member Posts: 319 | Not at the scope I am talking about. There are many ways to skin a cat and just because AIM has tried it one way does not mean it was the correct approach at the idea or at the right scale. Is it set up and promoted where the main part is the tournament with the side attractions for the public or is it set up and promoted where the attractions for the public are the main part and the side event is the tournament? If the tournament takes a back seat to the attractions the public would have a bigger interest, the tournament has to be the background noise. Edited by RedNeckTech 6/30/2009 9:04 AM | ||
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| Sunshine |
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Member Posts: 2393 Location: Waukesha Wisconsin | I believe that RedNeckTech is correct on his assumptions for the most part. If you look at BASS tournaments and see footage of all the "extra curricular activities" they have going on for spectators, you'll see that families come for other things besides just the weigh-in. We have this a little with walleye tournaments. When the PWT was around they had rock climbing etc. going on occasionally. You need to draw the spectators in with more booths from vendors, more face to face with Pro Anglers; have kid casting competitions; have vendors require their sponsored Pro's to hang around the last day to explain product; etc.etc.etc. You need to make it more interesting for the whole family. And most importantly, you need to get the word out with local media that all of these things are happening. In most cases most people do not even know that a tournament is happening. All of the above is using an existing model that works. We still need to look outside the box and come up with ways that make the top Pro's a household names and make the weigh-ins a priority destination. The average joe or joe's family does not sit on a computer to watch tournaments (at least not yet). Having Pro's take regular folks out on rides; requiring some to take out local media while prefishing so they write articles; have raffles for vendor products; sell beer; make it a learning experience and and fun time for the family and you have a winner. How about a celebrity shootout for a day while fishing with a Pro? Have the DNR there to explain the habitat and creel census. Have the local fishing TV show shoot a day on the water with one of the Pro's 2 weeks prior. Have people register on-line for a chance to prefish for a day with a Pro. I know that we have bits and pieces of the above now but not to the level we need to attract the audience. We need to get out of the mindset that there is one silver bullet versus doing numerous things well to attract the audience. In the perfect world the tournament directors would hire a marketing agent to attract people. Build it and they will come. If they come the sponsors will follow. If the sponsors get more involved the purses go up without having to use more entry fees. | ||
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| RedNeckTech |
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Member Posts: 319 | You are right Sunshine. As my last comment here before I have to catch my flight, I must stress that the tournament itself may have to take a back seat to the attractions in the beginning. The main goal is to get the people there and get them accustom to the event, non fishermen will come just as much as fishermen. You need to develop a product the public wants...not try to get the public to want the product. Even in a down economy this could work, entertainment is very important. If WienerFest in Whitelaw, WI can attract 10,000 people to go there and eat hotdogs and listen to music, the walleye circuit should be able to double that if done right. Shape it right and don't over do it, it would work. | ||
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| stacker |
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Member Posts: 2445 Location: Fremont, Wisconsin | RNT, the festival that AIM will be a part of this week has been a main stay for Green Bays 4th celebration for some time. I really do not see that AIM is coming in as the main attraction for this festival. They are added background noise. But it will be bigger noise everytime they turn the hot plate on and the popcorn starts to cracklin'. | ||
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| Shep |
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Member Posts: 3899 | Stacker beat me too it. It would help if you had your facts correct before trying to douse whatever flames AIM is trying to get going. MWS had a tourney in conjuction with Depere Days back in 04? I think it was. Denny, do you remember? I think we were 8th or 6th or something. That was fun, as the stage could be seen from a ways off, and even with the wet weather, there seemed to be a lot of spectators. Course, maybe they had prior knowledge I was going to be there! I think what will ultimately determine if many of the "pro's" can actually survive tourney angling in the future, is real, individual sponsorships, and associate sponsorships. And those will have to be non-indemic to the fishing and boating industry for the most part. I have a couple sponsors right now that have absolutley nothing to do with angling, or boating. Do they pay me enough to make a living? No. But they get every penny's worth out of me, and more. Not sure, but tournaments are a lot like Auto racing. Most sponsors are outside the automotive industry, in the National pro circuits, and even at the local level. I really think this is the future, and without these dollars, the Pro Tourneys will never grow to support 50 pro's/teams. | ||
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| jerry |
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Member Posts: 2567 Location: Manitowoc, WI | My bad on the information pertaining to the FLW Tour championship. I was referring to 2 of the last 4, as in Robert Lampman and Richard Nascak. How could I forget Tommy Skarlis.....I hope he forgives me!! | ||
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| stacker |
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Member Posts: 2445 Location: Fremont, Wisconsin | I agree Shep, he seems to be 1 year behind in all his readings. Catch up. I think that was 2003, and you are right, they did seem to gravitate to the stage I got closer, hahahahahaha There will be no one "Little" thing that will change this sport. There will be no one HUGE thing that turns the sport around. HOWEVER, There will be many little sticks that glue together to form a bond, I think it has been said, to form a more perfect union. Thats it, a more perfect union between anglers and sponsors and the public. You can easily break one little stick, but when one becomes many, its darn near impossible to break them. If you take a branch that is the main beam that holds all the little sticks that feed that branch, it only takes a wind and snap, the main branch breaks and all the little sticks die. See what I am saying? As soon as tournaments are run for the good of the sport and not the greed of a few, the sport will grow. | ||
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| Guest |
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| I think the problem is that to many people think that they can actually make a living at walleye fishing and unfortunatly that just isn't the case. I don't see any sustainable way of having big payouts without the money coming from the contestants themselves. Let's face it walleye tournaments are not very exciting for anybody but the fishermen. Bass tournaments are boring and they are a lot more exciting than walleye tournaments. The thought that just because Joe Blow won a tournament on XYZ lure or in some certain boat means that weekend anglers are going to go out and clear the racks of them is wrong. It happens in some cases but overall it doesn't. Why? For one walleye guys are generally aff shore away from spectators and they're secretive of what they caught the fish on. The fact that they use live bait doesn't help either! It's hard to get sponsorship money from the kid picking nightcrawlers on the local golf course! I think a mind set change is needed, people need to love walleye fishing and if they want to throw some money in a pot for the guy who catches the most that's great, but trying to make a living off of it is not going to happen for 99.99% of the people who try it. Right now the couple people making it walleye fishing are basically just taking the money from the new guys. Once hte new guy looses all his money he drops out and is replaced by another new guy. I'm not saying that the people making the money are doing anything wrong just poiniting out what is happening. | |||
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| sworrall |
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Location: Rhinelander | 99.99% of the people who try it do not make a living at any sport. Those who do work very hard at it, and are very good at what they do. Competitive angling is what it is, and the Walleye end of it is going to be morphing quite a bit over the next couple seasons, to everyone's benefit, I believe. Those who do 'make a living at fishing' most certainly do not do so off winnings alone. Competitive angling is a major vehicle for marketing the product that IS the Pro. | ||
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| guest |
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| sworrel. I agree with everything you said except that tournament walleye fishing will be getting better in the coming years. We have been hearing and saying that for 15 years now and except for the occasional blip of good news and attention it is the same as it was 15 years ago. | |||
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| wishnfishn |
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| I think that tournaments and organizers need to look a whole different direction. Instead of having less tounaments they should have more. Instead of 4 to 6 big walleye tournaments a year they should be having 10-12. The key is to get large corporate sponsorship for the individual events. Take the PGA for example, you have your 4 majors whch are basically PGA sponsored events but then you also have the weekly tounaments that are sponsored by large corporations, banks and even former players. Imagine fishing the Humana Green Bay Walleye Classic or maybe the Bank Mutual Walleye Weekend on Winnebago. Cut the entrance fees down for the anglers but with the major individual tounament sponsorship you would be able to increase payouts. This would all be separate from the everyday series sponsors. B.A.S.S. has already started doing this. They also need to keep the tournaments in the same areas ie.....Erie then Saginaw, then a week off to travel to LBDN then Green Bay then Winnebago. Then another break before going to Redwing, Mill Lacs, Devil's Lake, then another break before a southern swing. You get the basic idea. Alot more time away from home, however the payouts would be higher along with more often, lower entrance fees help offset the gas prices along with not having to travel halfway across the country to get to the next tournament. You need to create a situation where a pro can fish 3 tournaments in a month, finish in the middle of the pack and still take home $20K at the end of the month. | |||
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| CNY LEE |
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Member Posts: 21 | You guys should come to NY or the NorthEast at that matter, you mention walleye tournament and you see people scratching their heads asking "What's that?" It just seems that when it comes to walleye's / tourney's or information it all centralizes around the mid-West, but if you do your homework and searching there are some great walleye fishery's in the East, South and West. The word and the tourny's need to get out to them and they will come but just have to get it out there. Oh yea, with the economy struggling I think some of the fee's are just outright CRAZY. What's up with member fee and tourney fee's? Make it so a working class person can save a little money to fish a tourney instead of having to save for a complete year just hoping to fish as AM. I'm just a hard core North East walleye guy venting and every year I'm learning more and adding more tech's to my bag of tricks and want to put them to the test, I'm the type of guy who likes to put my butt in the driver seat and not ride around in the passenger seat....... LOL | ||
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| sworrall |
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Location: Rhinelander | Walleye Tournament angling is WAY different today than it was 15 years ago. Not even close. | ||
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| iceman35 |
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Member Posts: 650 | CNY lee, I agree... nothing out here walleye tourney wise... Maybe I'll have something started this fall, stay tuned... I think you all agree that numbers are down, along with events to fish... AIM is one way to go... FLW is good, numbers down it seems, very pricey... favors ranger/evinrude guys... will they be around next year? What I think needs to be done is a mid level trail... lower entry... similar to the Stren series that FLW has for bass... very popular... with a lower entry, it would attract the guy who can catch em, could use a weeks vacation from work... as far as events to atract the public, let the fishermen show up... A city wants to host one of these for people to come to their town... The city of Plattsburgh NY loves bass tourneys, why? 200+ guys, living eating and spending money in there town... call up the mayor and ask him what the economy will get next week when FLW comes to town... Like I said above, screw the championship... 4-6 events 100%+ payback... Every body pays a membership to join, to cover expenses, then another say 5$ per event to help out for that event... Team or pro am... decide, like the pro am deal but the team deal is popular... 2 or 3 day everybody fishes every day... A little math... say 100 boats in a team event... $500.00 entry(could be more say up to around $750.00)... thats a $50,000 payback to say 20% of the teams... 100 teams pay a $30 membership, thats $6000 to run the trail... $5 per event to cover costs, thats $1000 to keep a roof over the guys running it... gas, meals etc... (that $5 is like about 1.50 per day for your weigh in... I like this idea) Stuff you'll need, trailer or truck, scales, fish care insurance tax guy, lawyer, etc... notice I didn't say computers... how about an old fashioned weigh in with pens and paper and a big board! Steve with his camera covering the event would be enough for me! watch it on the PC... before you hammer me bad, think about, some guy with a family to help could pull this off... lots of guys love this running tourney stuff... any money from sponsors or chambers would just be gravy... Any big time pro has a good tax man anyway to help write off expenses... He'd show up... to pilage the locals... True tourney guys are just that tourney guys... they love the competition... build it... they will come... my 2 cents... gotta walk now... | ||
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| RedNeckTech |
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Member Posts: 319 | Dousing flames? Catch up? I am caught up but my train of thought is in a different direction than yours. Can you guys, just for once, stop thinking like a tournament fisherman and start thinking marketing? If you can't seriously do that then stop complaining and deal with the fact tournament fishing does not appeal to the mass population. | ||
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| Brad B |
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Member Posts: 617 Location: Oshkosh, Wisconsin | Why would anyone with the capital necessary to hold a gala event like WienerFest skim a bit of profit off the top of the "beer/brat/games for the kids" sales to add it to the tournament purse? Especially if the tournament is only background noise??? If that were such a sure-fire way to make money, why isn't someone holding one of them in every city park, county fair ground, ball park, parking lot, corn field, and tricked out back yard in the Midwest? How much $$$ do you think a group like AIM has at its disposal to secure vendors, rent a facility, advertise the event, pay for insurance, and generally organize the event? Oh, and if the owner/anglers are running the show at Wienerfest, who is fishing? I can see it now - tournament boats won't have stickers from Berkley, Rapala, or Reef Runner on them, they have banners reading "SEE THE TWO HEADED CALF AT AIMFEST '09". | ||
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| Shep |
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Member Posts: 3899 | RedNeckTech - 6/30/2009 8:18 AM What needs to be done is make the tournaments an attraction not just an event. You need the general public to spend their money. It would take awhile to fully incorporate but if you started to develop tournaments into things like festivals, like many cities have across America, instead of just a fishing tournament, it would attract the general public with vendors, entertainment and other things that many people that could care less about fishing would enjoy. It would appeal to a broad sector, relieve the financial burden for prize money and the public would support it. Festivals bring in huge money if done right. just because AIM has tried it one way does not mean it was the correct approach at the idea or at the right scale. Yes, dousing flames. In one breath, you mention the very thing AIM is starting to do, stating that it will take a while, and in the next, you criticize AIM for not doing it correctly, or on a big enough scale. I think AIM is on the right track, and I also think that the 50 entrys in the first two events is actually pretty healthy. Despite lots of negativity from non-tourney anglers, the format is fresh, and attractive, and I think this series will grow and become the driving force in walleye tournaments in the future. Remember, by the anglers, for the anglers. I think what I had said earlier was not as the typical tourney angler, but merely pointed out that the money would have to come from the non-indemics to the fishing and boating industry. Right now, the FLW has some of that money, but they aren't really in it for the anglers. I should have mentioned this earlier, but for a model to look at, the Mercury Marine National Walleye Tournament has been run in conjunction with Fond du Lac's Walleye Weekend for 31 years. Easily the longest running, and most successful, Festival/Walleye Tournament format there is. 300 boats every year, and with a waiting list. Brings huge crowds to Lakesiade park for the festival, and I've never seen bigger crowds at any other Walleye tournament weigh in. The bridges are filled with people waving and shouting out to the boaters as they return to the weigh in. Not to mention the other activities and music spread over the park grounds that draw over 100,000 visitors each year! | ||
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| RedNeckTech |
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Member Posts: 319 | You just don't get it. WienerFest was ran by one man and he made $100,000 from a weekend event selling hot dogs and beer. Ralph takes off from his job as an CBS producer in L.A. and flies back to put this on and does very well, and draws 10,000 people. Keep it up and remain tiny...doesn't affect anyone but those who fish the tournaments. | ||
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