How do they do it ?

[Somethins_Fishy]

Hello fellow fisherpeoples :-)

How the heck to tourny anglers manage to make a living off of tournament fishing ? Is it sponsors ? When you consider what the equipment costs, what it costs to travel and what lodging costs there seems to be no way that you could stay afloat (no pun intended)fiancially . Or are most employed in some line of work that allows them the time away and the money to support the lifestyle ? It seems to me that even if you won a few tournaments a year it still wouldn't come close to covering your expenses and paying your bills at home .

I always thought it would be a great way to live, but could never figure out how to make it happen or explain it to my wife ;-) .


Marc

They don't. The vast majority have some other income. Those that do, work harder for their sponsors than most who have a full time job.

Unless you want to lower yourself and become a bass fisherman.

Have your wife get a second job, then you can follow your dream.

[Burr]

Well, if you take away the wealthy, then take away the ones with wealthy wives, and take away all the ones that work another job (many of which are self employed - the only way to get that much time off) and take away the ones in the industry first and tourney fishermen second, and actually find the few that do make a living being a fisherman - this is what I've found.

Invest about 10-15 years getting there - while your working your current job. Who knows what the future brings, it may be less, or it may be more - but that's what it has taken these people to get there.

Diversify sources of income - notice, it will take the full 10-15 years to find enough diversified sources of income to support tournament fishing.

Create a portfolio of sponsors - be very careful here, if you make a bad choice, or jump around alot, you will lose value. If your not sucessful here, you will never make it. It will take the 10-15 years to steadily increase your value to sponsors, and increase the level of support returned to you. You'll start very low, earn every promotion, and work harder than you've ever dreamed.

Work boat shows, seminars, and write articles for publications. Promote and brand yourself. This will really get rolling about New years, and fill the calender with appearances right until the tourney season. That is 'every' weekend. If your not booked every weekend after Jan 1 - your not getting there.

Now that your gone every weekend from Jan through Nov, work all week at your job - and since you like to deer hunt in November, have a good lawyer so the divorce doesn't cripple you financially. A mistake here can really slow things down. It's going to cost ya, but you have to manage how much.

You now have limited, to no, personal life. You may as well cut way back on any non-fishing expenditure, if there even is any left. Your never home anyway, so what do you need non fishing things for? With no family and no other 'things', your life is almost all fishing. The only thing left to do is figure out how to quit the job, and work harder to be a pro fisherman.

Continue to invest and promote yourself - are you a brand yet?

At this point - tournaments are simply an outgrowth of your new occupation. If you win $0.00 in tournament activity, and you've done the above well, you can still make money, if you work really hard.

The few that make a living as pro fisherman - do not do it on tournament winnings. A diviersified source of fishing related income, cultivated industry contacts, and hard work allow the pro fisherman to fish for a living. The few I know work harder than most, and are very good at it.


Think of tournament winnings as a bonus for the year - some years ya get em, some years you don't. Making a living comes from all the other stuff.

In a 150 tourney field - there is one winner, and 149 losers - you'll learn how to be humbled.

Not true if you fished well enough last year on say the FLW, the top 5 anglers for the year made:

1) 96,350
2) 23,700
3) 26,700
4) 111,350
5) 25,100

So if they had $3,000. into each event (on the high side) thats $15,000 including the championship. So the key is to out fish people! Some guys make a living off other anglers entry fee's. Not a bad gig if you can make $2,000 bucks fishing for a week with a chance at even more. Now add some sponsor money and the winnings go up. The angler of the year or the #1 guy made just shy of 20k per event for the year, not bad for a weeks worth of work? In this game there will always be people who cash checks fairly regular, and there will always be guys giving away money regularly. The key is to get into the habit of cashing, not the other way around! LOL

[Burr]

>Not true if you fished well enough last year on say the FLW,
>the top 5 anglers for the year made:
>
>1) 96,350
>2) 23,700
>3) 26,700
>4) 111,350
>5) 25,100

3 out of the top five are below poverty level. It takes more than that to live. So 2 out of 150 made it - whhooooopeeeee. How much says the same two don't do it 2 years in a row?



> So if they had $3,000. into each event (on the high side)
>thats $15,000 including the championship.

Now 3 out of five are way below poverty - they could work at Mckie D's and do better!

So the key is to out
>fish people! Some guys make a living off other anglers entry
>fee's.

So, give me 1, just 1 name who makes a living off of Walleye tournaments alone? It doesn't exist - with the exception of day dreams.


Not a bad gig if you can make $2,000 bucks fishing for
>a week with a chance at even more.

Actually, the pro's invest 10 days into each major tournament, unless the prior tournament creates a scheduling conflict.



Now add some sponsor money
>and the winnings go up.
Exactly my point - you make a living on the 'other stuff'.

The angler of the year or the #1 guy
>made just shy of 20k per event for the year, not bad for a
>weeks worth of work?

1 winner, 149 not winners. And very, very rarely, is the angler of the year, the #1 guy for more than a single year. If it's you this year, you'll likely make more money in Vegas betting against yourself to repeat. Who, maybe Seelhof won the championship 2 years in a row - and since then, how many checks has he cashed. It's not that he isn't a good fisherman, and a very professional pro - it's because it is so hard to do with such good competition.

In this game there will always be people
>who cash checks fairly regular, and there will always be guys
>giving away money regularly. The key is to get into the habit
>of cashing, not the other way around!

Cash checks regular? The best pro anglers in existence don't cash checks regular. Take Perry Good and Mike Gofron for example - or Gary Gray when he was fishing. Very, very good anglers - none of them cashed checks regular. If your better than them now - just think how good you could be if you practiced even half as much as they do! And when you do make it, you can come back to WC and read about how your not a pro since you use bobbers! LOL

Fishing is fun - but think about it. Pete Harsh is fishing 18 tournaments this year - 18! If he only puts in 10 days in each tournament, thats 180 days on the water. Up here in Minnesota, we feel fortunate to have 180 days without ice!

Just funnin ya, don't take it wrong plz.

Well the top guy in the FLW has made $442,660.00 in 18 events, thats 24,592.22 per event he has fished. I call that making a living! 25,600.00 a week for 18 weeks.LOL

>Well the top guy in the FLW has made $442,660.00 in 18
>events, thats 24,592.22 per event he has fished. I call that
>making a living! 25,600.00 a week for 18 weeks.LOL

I have a little bit different way to look at this. He won 442,660 in 6 years. That's $73776 per year. Now, with $3500 per event for expenses, that's around $15000 per year in direct expenses. With boat payment and insurance expenses are about another $6,000 per year. That's around $41k profit per...not bad, however, consider this.

If he would have weighed one less fish on day-4 at the FLW championship in 2004, his carrer earnings would only be $142660, and thus his annual earnings would then be $2776/year.

To state it another way, he was one bite in 6 years from being in poverty from tournament fishing.

[Muleskinner]

Whats a boat payment?

Your math ability is impaired...where was the subtraction for expenses and what you should have earned if you were earning money in something other than fishing.

Let me tell you guys one thing. You find me a succesful pro walleye fisherman who owns his own business ( fishing related or not) and I will show you a guy who is writing off his fishing expenses as an adverising expense on his main business fishing related or not). In case you guys didn't know, advertising expenses are the least audited area by the IRS. Your advertising expenses could be female hookers to fishing hooks, as long as it doesn't exceed normal percentage, the IRS doesn't care and gives companies wide latitude on what you are spending the $$$$ on and what you consider consider advertising.

For example, most big successful construction companies that have tons of work going rarely advertise to get more work. Consequently, the owner(s) deduct their personal "hobby" expenses as a percentage against adverising costs on the main business, in this example a construction company. Don't kid yourself folks, if you got a guy spending mega bucks on his losing money "hobby", I will guarantee you can paper trace it back to another profitable (sometimes related sometimes not) main core business. IT is done EVERY single day. As long as you are the owner or majority stock holder of the company, it is PERFECTLY legal to spend money on your personal hobbies even though it is a stupid way to advertise your core company's products or services.

Secondly, it is pretty tough to be competitive if you are fishing on a limited budget with time constraints when you are up against some million dollar personally owned companies who are expensing off the the owner's hobbies. The guys that don't own their own companies could and do have wives that have high incomes and most importantly health benefits. Don't kid yourself, lots of shady stuff goes on behind the scenes.