Are walleye tournaments dying a slow death?

After watching TV coverage of a number of FLW walleye tournaments, one thing has become glaringly obvious–watching guys troll for hours on end or fishing livebait is extremely BORING!!!!!
Is focusing tournaments on major trolling waters or allowing livebait ruining walleye tournament fishing?
These issues were addressed and not allowed a long time ago in the major bass circuits(no trolling,no livebait)-no question on the money those guys are generating-even in bad times they are doing good.

It’s not the tactics, it’s the specie

The issues that I see with Walleye tournaments are below.

1. There’s no stepping stones to work towards top tier pro/am formats. Some will say there’s team events etc…, but it’s not the same. Bass guys can fish Club tournaments in a pro am format, local events, events like the BFL. It’s awful hard for somebody new to want to get into pro/am Walleye tournaments for $750 – $1500 with zero experience in that format.

2. Walleye tournaments are usually on big water (I mean big water 100,000 + acre bodies of water). This promotes the “Team” aspect more than bass fishing (which is another black eye for walleye tournaments).

3. Bass are found country wide. For the most part people in Texas/California don’t care about Walleye fishing, but they can relate to Bass anglers.

4. Walleye tournaments have decided they want the biggest bags possible at almost all events, which is why they have so many great lakes events now. This again is a big advantage to trollers, especially teams of trollers. (Yes I know, jig fisherman have won some of these, but not many). This is another turn off to a new angler or aspiring angler.

5. Walleye tournaments also have the feeling of “anybody can play if they can pay”, so you don’t feel like you earned your way in or that your competition did. This is something the bass guys have done well.

I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it at that for now. I just wish somebody would come out with a circuit in my neck of the woods that would require a little travel to fish 3-4 different bodies of water in a team format for $200-$250 per event.

It’s the CASH.

Big tournaments are keeping the small average fisherman out. Lower payouts to the AM’s or no payouts sooner or later will hurt. Teams on the pro side will hurt also.
Plus with big purses guys will cheat, plain and simple. The carrot is far to big to think otherwise.

Smaller local circuits are the future as long as they don’t get crazy with entries and pay-outs.

Plus, there is no way to make a weigh in interesting on TV, zero, none, nadda. Any crowds you see are friends, family, participants of the event.

I dont know I still love watching the FLW walleye tournies because of the tip and pointer you will get once in GREAT while. But for me there is nothing entertaining about some guy tearing around the bow of a boat jumping up and down screaming as his partner drives the boat in to a mat of weeds and the dude horses a 3 lb largemouth into the boat on 20 pound line. Its a horse a peaice As was stated above their home range is limited as will the number of veiwers be. I dont know about the rest of you but I miss the PWT they had some great shows covering some of those events, hilighting the winning styles of fishing.

Ben, I see your point and I watch the walleye shows for the same reason, since we are walleye fisherman we view for educational reasons-the general public(which is the majority of folks, even Californians and Texans)are watching for action and entertainment-which is also what drives the sponsor money as they want to reach the masses-not us the few. Whether you or I like it, the guy jumping around the nose of the boat and horsing in that 3lb is far more attractive to the general public than a guy pulling a crank or crawler harness, anchored on a wingdam or in Katrina with his deadsticks out soaking willowcats. Unfortunately, I am asking this question to a skewed audience, but have to say, everyone has had great and valid points.

IMHO – Dying is to too doom and gloom and misses the mark… If men and women have lost the desire to compete then maybe they will die but I don’t see that happening. If you’ve fished a derby or 2 you know there’s an “addictive” factor tied to competitive angling. I’d more say Walleye Tournaments are “readjusting” to create a sustainable future. Obviously the old way of doing business was not putting enough dollars into the right peoples pockets (sponsors – endemic and non-endemic) to grow and prosper.

When someone convinces me that men or women have lost the instinct to compete then I might accept the doom and gloom that the sky is falling… Until then I’ll throw my money into the pot when life allows as it’s an incredibly fun way to spend a LOT of money and fast. Wait, I’m getting confused with playing high stakes poker, LOL! Really, fishing tournaments are another “activity” that supports what makes America great! 99.9% of tournament anglers care more about the resource then 10% of casual anglers (not scientifically supported but you get my point). Do the math on who consumes/harvests a majority of the walleyes. It’s not even close so save your calculator battery….

Once again IMHO there are bigger issues that need to be dealt with to level the playing field. How does the young gun pre-fishing all by themselves compete against the likes of Parsons, Kavajez and Parsons on a body of water they have fished numerous times and have developed hundreds of “fishing friends” on? It can be done but your odds are a LOT better at the high stakes poker table. I know not the same amount of fun but it’s a pretty steep hill.

Like everything in life, things are a changin’……

Will be fun to see what people have to say as there are some “good tournament sticks” that visit this website but it’s fairly obvious that tournaments are not the main focus of IDO.

For what it’s worth…. Kurt

Great point Curt!

All kidding aside, I hate the slot formats, whether it’s Bass, Walleye, or Redfish. As a viewer of this type of entertainment, I want to see who can go out and catch the biggest fish, plain and simple, not who can come the closest to 20″ without going over and then strike gold with a kicker fish. That’s just dumb to me. You shouldn’t be punished for catching 24″ fish all day. I know they have to follow the state regs, but I really hate that aspect.

On the other hand, if they die off or at least don’t expand I get more time on waters with less people zipping around on it pretending to be a pro!
Sorry! Sometimes I just miss being able to have a patch of water to myself…no harm meant.
-Rev

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All kidding aside, I hate the slot formats, whether it’s Bass, Walleye, or Redfish. As a viewer of this type of entertainment, I want to see who can go out and catch the biggest fish, plain and simple, not who can come the closest to 20″ without going over and then strike gold with a kicker fish. That’s just dumb to me. You shouldn’t be punished for catching 24″ fish all day. I know they have to follow the state regs, but I really hate that aspect.

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That’s why I like that AIM Format. Less fish mortality and slots don’t affect the weighed fish.

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It’s not the tactics, it’s the specie

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It’s not the tactics, it’s the specie

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Maybe that’s why Bass is so popular. Since anybody can catch a bass.

I agree with what Kurt said.

Walleye fishing is very much regional and that will probably never change. This makes it very difficult to compare bass fishing tournaments to walleye tournaments. Sponsors want the maximum amount of exposure they can get, so they are more likely to back bass tournaments which have a much larger fan base. More sponsors mean more money or atleast more money compared to the entry fees, and therefore allow more people to compete. This hasn’t changed for years, but I think more circuits are adjusting and finding new ways to operate in the slower economy.

Walleye tournaments will never die. As Kurt said, as long as people want to compete there will always be an opportunity to do so. I really would like to see the FLW bring back the Tour and League format. In order to establish a true “professional” status, the major circuits need to have some type of qualification to fish the elite level. I like the idea that someone could qualify through the league to eventually get to the “top” level. I personally would fish the League because I want to experience the Pro-Am format from the boater side and eventually move up to the Tour.

BTW, Walleye tournaments are far from dying. AIM gave away a new Lund last year at the championship, MTT a new Skeeter, and I don’t think the FLW had a boat but instead a nice check. The MTT has promised a new Skeeter next year and the FLW has locked in some major sponsors to increase their payouts.

I fished many FLW tounaments, both Tour and League, as a co-angler. My friend and I also fished many smaller tournys as a team. Together we have spent many many hours analizing Flw, Pwt and smaller organizations.

Some conclusions;
1. Unlike maybe popular opinion, the most of circuit is for the organizer to make money and not for the fisherman.

2. Purses continue to decrease while entry fees increase.
The first championship, RCL, 1st place co-angler purse $150,000

3. Higher input cost to fish ex: hotel, fuel, bait, and gear just to name a few.

4. The “fisherman” is a marketing tool to the sponsers and public. The more sponsers the more money for the organizers.

5. Many organizers got greedy; reducing payouts to their marketing tools rather than rewarding participation.

6. Walleye Fishing is not near as popular as Bass fishing.

7. Many of the same marketing tools used in bass fishing are not implemented by the Walleye organizers.

8. Most of the veteren particapents belong to multi boat teams that share GPS cordinates, success reports and plan tactics where they let the leading team member fish the most productive spots, hoping all will share a paycheck.

9. The economy, no explanation needed.

These are just a few of the many limitations for Walleye tournament Fishing and entry level anglers.

I see AIM at least trying, but even their Catch,Photo,Release is yet to prove itself, in other words, people like fish to come to the stage. At least AIM has addressed this issue of artificals v/s livebait and verbally stated things must move in a different direction. All the others are just rehashing the same old, same old that put themselves in this mess to begin with. Think most the pros could do without the boat give away and would rather have the cash instead by a long shot. Nothing is new with the FLW this year, same old waters, same old rules, same old format, same old players fishing livebait,same old players trolling miles at end, using the same old techniques.

The bass world has tons of cool new baits every year, new ways of fishing them and what have we gotten—the slowdeath hook!!!!!(BTW, they work great, but still is just a hook.)

Excitement is what seals the deal and on the major level, really has nothing to do with us fisherman v/s general public. Like others have mentioned, the smaller tourneys (MTT, Full Throttle, local tourneys, etc.) are just fisherman based and really have no national stage-so in a nutshell, does sponsorship really matter in those cases-most likely not. I see the majors as AIM, FLW and MWC, none of the others really have any national exposure nor will unless they take a gigantic leap.

I think the greatest hurtle against an all artifical, trolling limited series would be this: most anglers would have a hard time even catching a walleye on a consistant basis and 3/4’s of them would quit. Talk about seperating the men from the boys.

BTW, I would be one in the “hard time catching a walleye on a consistant basis” group.

My two bits on the boredom. I think it was hinted to in an earlier reply.

As a Film Maker and Art Director of Video – I can honestly say that some (some) of the boredom is due to the video presentation itself and not to the actual event.

A Production Manager, Art Director and one good Videographer can make a video on how to boil water your next dvd favorite.

Sadly, even while fishing has so many interesting facets, every episode is not entertaining.

Boogs

It will most likely cost your 30-50k to get into a new tourney ready boat, equipment for somebody who wants to do it well will be 5-10k, a truck to pull all this 20-40k, and each tourney will probably cost 2-3k (minimum) for travel and other expenses. Don’t get me wrong we truly appreciate the sport’s and our sponsors, but even with their generous support it still requires a strong financial standing to compete. Now factor in that you probably have to make the top 10 to make back what you spent and it becomes hard to justify.

Yes all the other factors (regionality, obscurity, tourney management) play a part in why some circuits struggle, but I think bottom line it comes down to money. As I sit here typing this I still wonder what I will do next year because as wimwuen mentioned there are very few “starter” circuits that prepare you well and help you make the ever important connections needed to SUCCEED on a larger circuit.

I love to compete and I’ve enjoyed all the people I’ve met tourney fishing over the years, but financially it is extremely tough.

I will say I hope competitive walleye fishing never goes away. It makes us ALL better fisherman.

I see the FLW going down hill because of Ranger Boats. They are trying to monopolize the sport in a way and this has forced a lot of guys to hang it up or step back to local levels. When the big benefits come from owning a Ranger the guys with long time commitments and sponsorships to other manufactures start to get discouraged. I think a lot of these guys are showing up back at their local tournaments. Many sponsors don’t care what level your at as long as your exposing and selling their product.
The NTC (National Team Championship) is a huge tournament with a huge number of teams from across the contry. After being at the last 4 NTC tournaments I think it’s growing.
Walleye fishing is not the largest industry and when someone tries to monopolize part of it I think they are the only ones who benefit. Competion is deffinately good for this industry.

Just my $.02 from the Southern end of the walleye belt.

Need to separate PRO tournaments from regular tournaments in my opinion.

They pay boats to winners so they can advertise huge payouts when they factor the list price of a boat into the prize money.

The reason people want to fish tournaments is to test their skills against the best. In some cases they just want to learn, although a guide would be cheaper. The top pro doesn’t want to test their skills against anybody, they wanna win, grab the cash and move on. It takes a bunch of people with little or no chance to consistently place to fund the handful of winners. So, just like in poker, if you look around and can’t figure out who the mark is……….

Finally………..would you guys quit referring to and trying to make fishing a sport! It’s a hobby, and now they are playing for money and it’s all your money.

Go fish a nice local club tournament. Relax, enjoy yourself. Drop $50 bucks for a entry, maybe win a couple of hundred. I think you will find most guys will have more fun.

Good points Brian, my original question was in regard to the major pro tourneys, not the local or smaller ones. Many good points have been brought up, but some off topic from the original question.

Far as money goes, I’ve never heard of suppliers of minnows, crawlers or leeches ever kicking sponsor money into any tournament.

All the RCL big money went away for one reason–with the current walleye tournament formats, there was no return on investment. Walleye fishing is big enough regionally(entire midwest, out west, east past Erie and down below Nebraska-even south into Bull Shoals)that if done right the fan base would be there–but right now, some of it’s tactics could be greatly confused with catfishing!(sorry BK!-knew I could draw you into this somehow!).

I think that AIM is on to something but they need to take it to the next level using technology that exists today.

I agree 100% that weigh-ins are THE most boring sporting event I’ve ever witnessed.

Take the AIM format, and use cell phone texting or cell phone picture sending to make a ‘real time’ event that can be followed by viewers throuhout the day.

You catch a fish, photo it on the tape, send it to an event organizer back at landing, and it’s put on the website, picture and all with a live updated leaderboard.

Put a handful of webcams in some of the top boats and now you’re starting to talk about interesting. This could be videocast in front of an audience who’s back at the tournament site drinking the sponsors beer and the sponsors food, etc, etc.

This is something I would watch but I’ll never go to another stage weigh in.

Eric

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I think that AIM is on to something but they need to take it to the next level using technology that exists today.

I agree 100% that weigh-ins are THE most boring sporting event I’ve ever witnessed.

Take the AIM format, and use cell phone texting or cell phone picture sending to make a ‘real time’ event that can be followed by viewers throuhout the day.

You catch a fish, photo it on the tape, send it to an event organizer back at landing, and it’s put on the website, picture and all with a live updated leaderboard.

Put a handful of webcams in some of the top boats and now you’re starting to talk about interesting. This could be videocast in front of an audience who’s back at the tournament site drinking the sponsors beer and the sponsors food, etc, etc.

This is something I would watch but I’ll never go to another stage weigh in.

Eric

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Eric, I believe that AIM is trying with in boat cams, the GPS live tracking that they currently use depends on phone network coverage, I know they were having problems with it on Devils Lake due to the lack of cell towers.
I also agree with one of the earlier posts that a good camera/editor/producer could make a world on differance.

Way cool, 155 votes in one day.
Thanks for all the opinions guys!

Jeremy

I don’t believe live bait will be the downfall for walleye tournaments. Twenty years ago when a lot of the pro fishermen got started, you could buy a top-notch rig for $10-12,000. Now, the pros spend more than that on just their outboard. That will discourage most of the young people from fishing and that WILL be the downfall of walleye tournaments.

I have a hard time going with the “everything has gotten too expensive” arguement. My previous boat was an 18′ Yar-Craft that I bought off of IDO for $10,000. I fished some local tournaments out of it, but I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t have competed on any any body of water with it. The top speed was 40 mph which would only put me 10 or 15 minutes behind the fastest boats on most bodies of water. A few years ago, an angler cashed quite a few FLW checks in a 17′ Alumacraft with a 75 hp motor. That includes Mille Lacs in 2-3′ waves. Ron Seelhoff took his older 18′ Pro V to the Championship 2 years ago and did well. I could name quite a few more too.

That’s fine if you didn’t want any contingency money. The FLW and Ranger made it so only Ranger owners could break even without at top 5-6 finish. Based on a full field, the FLW used to pay $1500 to 50th place with contingency money of $1500. 1st place was a $40,000 difference between somebody with contingency and without. That’s a big difference.

Things are a little different now. Contingency money is pretty much a thing of the past (what is left is nothing like it was). Here’s my point, typically the guys who buy a $10,000 boat don’t have the money or time to fish an entire pro level circuit. Not that it can’t be done, but for most of us a $10,000 investment is pretty big.

Nobody else has brought up the time issue. With all the major tournaments being on huge water, it makes it pretty much mandatory that you have a week or more to prefish, especially when you’re prefishing against teams of 4-5 boats. Anybody who thinks they can go to a 100,000 acre lake blind and compete with the elite teams in pro Walleye fishing is a fool.

Good point. Ever hear KVD get up on stage, or in an article, talk about his “teammates”? How about Ike? Maybe I am missing something, but I never have. This idea of “teams” has really gotten out of hand. Sure, there will always be networking, but really-teams????? On another site Al Linder did a great commentary on many of these aspects I and others have brought up. In the end, these things don’t effect me-the only level I fish are the small local ones that are soley based on entries and not sponsorship money-but these things do effect others that want to make it to the next level. Progress and change always meets resistance. There is a lot of comfort in same old, same old and that seems to be the fate major walleye fishing has progressed to. How ’bout those new 2010 nightcrawlers!

Marshall and Kurt have hit the nail on the head squarely, been there tried that.

I also agree that teaming up is not good for the sport.

Watch FLW Outdoors TV enough and you will see plenty of stories on “teams” in the FLW Bass side. They’ve done the behind the scenes view and openly talked about sharing expenses and info with a teammate.

Doc, I also have to disagree with the notion that walleye fishing doesn’t bring about innovation. We have better boats, electronics, equipment, and tackle because of professional walleye fishermen. In the end alot of presentations have bait on the line, but the tackle leading up to it is always changing. I personally would rather watch an angler try to coax a 10lb walleye out of 30 feet on 6 lb. line then watch some guy swing for the fences with a pool cue and ski a fish across the surface with 30 lb. braid. Just my opinion though.