Is Pro Bass Fishing really all it’s cracked up to be?
If you’re into bass fishing or follow pro fishing, there are some derogatory comments about the sport from the “haters”. Enter pro angler Fat Cat Newton rattling off in this video in response to the subject.
Video Transcript
“Hey what’s shakin’? Uh. Bass fishin’. Professional Bass fishin’ is stupid. It’s just a joke. You’ve got a buncha guys who get out there in these jersies with a buncha sponsors and stuff on and all painted up in these boats with all different colors and names on ’em, and they just run around in these public waters, all to catch fish– just to throw the fish back! It doesn’t make any sense to me why you’d spend all that money just to catch the fish and throw them back. It’s stupid, what a joke! Wish I could fish [indistinguishable]
That’s somethin’ a lot of us hear from different people. I’m sure you guys’ve heard it, I know I’ve heard it, and uh-
To these people that think professional fishin’ is not a professional sport, bless your heart. Apparently you’ve never been across the water runnin’ about seventy-sixty miles an hour makin’ that long run, when the weatherman says ‘ah the wind’s gonna blow about five to ten miles an hour’ you get out there there’s thirty-four mile-an-hour gusts, you got three or four foot swells, and you’re tryin’ to run across that choppy, you’re gettin’ soakin’ wet in thirty-five, forty degree weather, and you’re gettin’ your GUTS beat out, literally you gotta stop to push your guts back up inside of you. It feels like you just got sacked by Brian Robinson in the back field. And guess what? you finally make that long run, and you’re hurtin’ and you get there ‘Yeah I finally made the run to where I wanna fish at’, and there’s Terrance or Bobby or Willie, who knows who’s gonna be there, because you’re on public water. You pull up and it’s Sappy McGillacutty fishin’ for crappie or somethin’, and he’s got a spinner rod upside-down, ‘cuz he don’t know no better. That’s what you gotta deal with when you’re a professional fisherman. ‘cuz you’re always fishin’ on public. Water. It’s always public. You never know what’cher gonna run into. It isn’t like Dale Junior leadin’ the Daytona Five-hundred. He’s leadin’ it, boom, you got two laps to go. He doesn’t have to worry about Roddy Burns comin’ outta the parking lot through the gate, gettin’ onto the track tryin’ to race with the big boys. It doesn’t happen, it doesn’t work that way. And a fella doesn’t have to worry about it in the superbowl, another team or y’know, the parks ‘n rec tryin’ ta come up and say ‘no we reserved the field for this time’. It doesn’t happen. It’s not public.
Professional bass fishin’ is always at the public’s mercy. These guys pay- Professional bass fishers pays anywhere from twenty-five thousand to forty-five thousand dollars a year to fish a tournament trail, dependin’ on what trail they’re fishin’. They fish for over a hundred-thousand dollars a tournament, a lot of ’em. S’ a lotta money. And when you gotta worry about Sappy McGillacutty bein’ on your hole when you get there, these guys are goin’ eight-nine months outta the year, these guys are travelin’, a lotta money goes into this stuff and a lot of it comes outta their pockets.
Some ‘a the folks out there, when they think of professional bass fishin’, They’re probably thinkin’ about a ten-foot john boat, a cooler fulla beer, and two dudes Terrance and Willy out there, gettin’ drunk tryin’ catchin; Brim (?). But it ain’t like that, you know what I mean? I ain’t got nothin’ against that life, that’s what I’m talkin’ about when I talk about when the time is right.
There are scholarships for bass fishin’. That’s right, Scholarships for Bass Fishin’. Why would you not want to get your kid off that gamer console and raise ’em on the water with a fishin’ pole? Why would you not wanna put him on a tacklebox, get him off the Xbox? Let your kid fish, he could get a scholarship! Be a professional bass fisher! Why would you not want that?
But for professional Bass fishin– there goes Terrance right there! They got the boat loaded up, they’re goin’ after those sippy holes, see what they can catch. The old sun of a gun, I hope Willie ain’t drivin’. He’s been goin’ at that sauce the past three or four days. I caught him right there in the yard, cuttin’ grass on the other day, it was three foot ‘a snow on the ground. He don’t know no better.
But professional Bass Fishin? These dudes are machines. At least like ninty percent of ’em. There’s a few of ’em that, y’know, about that beer gut ‘n butt crack life, but they can still catch ’em, they can still cast. It ain’t no joke out there, you gotta understand, these boys ‘r fishin’ three or four days at a time. They tryin’ catchin’ five fish by three O-clock and it’s holdin’ ’em there eight hours a day, standin’ up, up ‘n down, up ‘n down, You talkin’ about a thousand, two thousand casts a day, these dudes are machines.
They don’t have a team to rely on, like all these other professional sportsmen do. It’s just you, you’re out there. They don’t have a pit crew. They’ve got guys that help them out, yeah, but when you’re on the water, it’s just you. That’s professional Bass fishin’. That’s why it’s one of the greatest sports on this Earth, that’s why I love fishin’, and if you don’t love fishin’, hey, I hope you like Roller bladin’! I hope you like Crochetin’! I hope you enjoy watchin’ Teen Mom, I hope you like all that stuff. I don’t! I like Fishin’! Fat Cat Newton, I’m gone.
Excerpt from Outdoors:
“I still don’t quite see the point in being a “hater.” It makes less sense that professional bass fishing. These tournament trails have their place in advocating for better fisheries and producing economic opportunities, often in rural, poverty stricken areas where it can potentially bring momentary financial relief to the community. On top of that, some of the more successful anglers get to fish for a living while the rest of us have to keep our day jobs, and I think that bothers the “haters.” What do you think? ”
by Randall Bonner revised by CalSports
Source: Fat Cat Newton Facebook
