Ready to switch from co to pro?

If you're a co-angler thinking about moving up to the front deck, make sure you're comfortable with the boat, confident in your fishing ability and able to accept the financial burden.

B.A.S.S. Nation clubs serve as the ideal training centers for novice competitors yearning to learn more about bass fishing.

Thousands of bass anglers are introduced to tournaments and hone their skills while fishing in a club as a nonboater. After having some success in the club and buying a new boat, these back-deck anglers start thinking about moving up to the front deck. But are they really ready to make that move?

B.A.S.S. Times surveyed top B.A.S.S. Nation anglers Jeff Lugar, Teb Jones and Brian Maloney to find out when they moved to the front deck and what advice they have for co-anglers wanting to make the same move.

When Jeff Lugar joined his first club in northwest Ohio, he owned a 13-foot aluminum boat, which was too small for Lake Erie and the other big waters where the club held tournaments. After fishing as a co-angler in the club for a couple of years, Lugar bought a 17-foot bass boat. Qualifying for both the Ohio B.A.S.S. Nation state team and the Bass Fishing League All American as a co-angler spurred Lugar to make the move to fish competitively from the front deck. (Lugar now fishes for Virginia.)

“In the back of the boat, I was learning from the other guys, but I was also learning things not to do,” said Lugar, a two-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier and 2013 B.A.S.S. Nation Championship (BNC) winner.

“I spent a lot of time fishing out of my little boat, and I felt like I was a little bit better than the other guys at reading electronics and maneuvering the boat. So I wanted to make that step.

“I found out that when you are able to find fish on your own and are able to learn to make decent adjustments to the variable conditions you are facing and still consistently catch fish, then you are ready to be in the front of the boat.”

Teb Jones, a 2015 Bassmaster Classic qualifier, fished farm ponds before joining the Petal Bass Club as a nonboater. After competing as a co-angler for a couple of years, Jones bought a boat and decided to move up front.

“I wanted to catch more and bigger fish than anybody else,” Jones recalled. “It was just my competitive nature at that age. I just had to stand on the front deck.”

The former Mississippi B.A.S.S. Nation president advises co-anglers to bide their time to become familiar with operating their own boat and making their own decisions before moving to the front deck.

“Try not to grow too big, too fast,” he said. “I believe you should be comfortable with the system before you make the next leap.”

“I have seen some guys in their first tournament they have ever fished from the front deck and they are not really comfortable with the routine yet. They get overwhelmed by the process, and it chews them up and spits them out without them having a chance to be competitive. Some of those guys may have great skills, but they find the tournament process intimidates them.”

Two-time B.A.S.S. Nation Championship qualifier Brian Maloney of Missouri owned a boat when he joined his first club but decided to compete as a nonboater because he had never fished tournaments before.

A year later, he was competing from the front deck.

“I felt confident I could run the trolling motor right, and I wanted to read that graph and swing the boat in the direction I wanted to go,” he said of his decision to move up front.

Maloney suggests co-anglers must consider the financial burdens of becoming a boater and avoid worrying about whether they are going to tear up their boat or spend too much on gas money. “When you can accept those financial burdens, then you are capable of fishing on the boater side. If that other stuff is wearing on you, you aren’t going to make it,” he said.

Maloney said when co-anglers can catch fish in any situation boaters put them in, then they are ready to move to the front deck.

“If you have the confidence to fish behind somebody, then you are at that level where now you can go to the front of the boat,” Maloney said. “Your confidence is going to carry you out there on the water to make your own decisions.”