In the course of my work, I get a lot of questions about the Bassmaster Elite Series. As you might imagine, one of the most common is, “Hey Z, how can I get in the Elite Series?”
And my answer is always the same: Don’t jump the ladder.
Put another way: don’t put the cart before the horse; don’t run before you walk; don’t skip ahead – well, you get the idea.
The bottom line here is that tournament bass fishing has a natural progression ladder of competition: local events, regional events, AAA events and the pros. Okay, so maybe it’s not as officially sanctioned from the bottom to the top like other sports, but there is a ladder and all I can tell you is that the ladder does not lie.
Just because you hit a home run in your Saturday night softball league does not mean you’re ready to go play for the Chicago White Sox on Sunday. In the same way, just because you bought a bass boat and took third place in the 30-boat Kuttawa Bass Busters Tuesday nighter does not mean you’re ready to fish a Basssmaster Open next week – that’s just delusional.
Show me any successful pro on the Elites Series and I will show you a guy who proved his fishing ability through every level – local, regional, AAA and Elites. Look at one of the biggest stars in our sport today – Michael Iaconelli – he started fishing CLUB tournaments and Federation tournaments. Once he won the Federation, he went on to AAA tournaments and into the pros.
Do you think Aaron Martens won 300 bucks in a local derby and headed east for the big leagues the next day? Of course not, he climbed the ladder, too, fishing many local and regional events – proving he could win at one level before stepping up to the next. The name “Aaron Martens” was a household fishing name in the west long before he came east and began thumping skulls.
And that’s the point. You must climb the ladder correctly, establishing dominance locally, then winning regionally, then proving yourself in the AAA level. The ladder doesn’t lie! If you’re getting your teeth kicked in locally at 50 bucks per boat, trust me when I tell you this: you’re not going to do much better 800 miles from home against KVD and Hackney at five grand a pop!
When it comes to the ladder, I practice what I preach. Even back when I fished (eons ago), I cashed $100,000 in checks in three years at the AAA level and still did not step up to the Elite Series or a full season on the FLW Tour because I had not won at the AAA level. Operative word there being won.
Right now, my teenage boys are eaten up with competitive fishing, but I tell them the same thing about the ladder: once you win locally, then you can go fish some regional stuff. And once you win there, then you can go to AAA and so on.
Look, I do not doubt anyone’s fishing ability out there. I’m sure you’re a great bush flipper or ledge fisherman. But that really means nothing. My boys can punch holes in vegetation as well as anyone else. But that’s not where it’s at. In tournament fishing, the devil is in the details. It’s in being able to tie a knot while holding in 3-footers with three minutes left to fish just to cull one more time. It’s in being able to manage fish across three days of competition. It’s in being able to play the weather to your advantage.
So your ledge fish are on fire right now…what about tomorrow when they pull zero current?
The water temperature is 92 degrees, and you didn’t use ice or run your livewells on manual? And your dead fish penalty cost you making the Classic? Huh?
Your pull cable on your trolling motor broke and you didn’t know how to fix it?
You were five minutes late because you didn’t realize how rough it was on the main lake? Really?
These are the invaluable lessons local and regional tournaments teach you. Thousands and thousands of hours of repetition with things like time management, retying lures, locating tackle quickly in your boat, boat flipping fish, hand landing fish, culling, tossing out buoy markers, etc. These are the tiny details that are a lot easier to learn at 100 bucks per boat in a team derby as opposed to $5000 per event on the Elite Series.
If you’re winning and dominating locally, by all means, step on up. And if you hit some big licks regionally, then put some of the prize money up for an AAA series like the Bassmaster Opens.
But please, if you’re getting throttled at the lower rungs of the ladder, stay down there until you can compete at that level. I know too many guys on the Elite Series who make a living taking lots of money from ladder jumpers. If you want to fish the Elites, climb the ladder correctly.