Pro Anglers Begin Banking Big Bass Bucks Corporate Sponsors, Two Major Tours Propel Fishing Onto The Professional Sports Scene

Financier Irwin Jacobs has spent well over a million dollars building a sport and helping anglers take home paychecks they don’t have to tell fish stories about.

Jacobs owns Operation Bass, the company behind the 2-year-old FLW Tour, a national series of bass tournaments that is paying $3.1 million in cash in seven events this year.

The tour’s sixth event, the Forrest Wood Open June 25-28 on Lake Minnetonka west of Minneapolis, has a $1 million cash payout, the largest in sport fishing history. The top prize of $200,000 is the largest cash prize ever awarded for catching fish.

That’s just the beginning, says Jacobs, who talks of a future where pro anglers have the same status - and bankbooks - as enjoyed by pro auto racers and golfers.

“You could say we are where NASCAR was several years ago,” Jacobs says. “I see a day, soon, where $1 million paydays are commonplace.”

It’s possible, if America’s interest in fishing prompts companies to pour big bucks into sponsoring anglers and tournaments.

The American Sportfishing Association estimates at least 50 million Americans fish - 43 percent for bass - and spent about $24 billion on gear and fishing-related activities in 1991, the most recent year for which those figures were available. Angling had a total economic impact of $70 billion, the association said.

Up to 50,000 fishing tournaments are held in the United States each year, says Hobson Bryan, a sociologist at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

“Even the small club tournaments generate tremendous economic activity - boat sales, fishing tackle sales - in a community,” says Bryan, who has studied the social impact of tournament fishing for years.

The FLW Tour, sponsored nationally by Wal-Mart, is the new kid on the pro fishing tournament block. The Bass Anglers Sportsman Society held the first pro bass tournament 30 years ago and wrote the rules still generally used.

B.A.S.S., which has signed Kmart as a sponsor, is paying out about $4 million in cash and merchandise to winners of its 18 tournaments this year and reaches around 600,000 people with its Bassmaster magazine.

The two organizations schedule their tournaments so anglers can compete on both tours.

“This gives them two places to fish and two places to make money,” said B.A.S.S. spokeswoman Ann Lewis.

“It just makes the pie that much bigger,” adds Brian Sayner, Operation Bass spokesman.

Mike Surman, a 37-year-old pro angler from Boca Raton, Fla., who fishes both FLW and B.A.S.S. tournaments, says the expanded opportunity to fish for cash is making a difference.

“In the past you couldn’t make a living. Now, it’s gotten to be where the money’s there, and the sponsors are coming. Now you can make a living if you do good,” said Surman, who has collected about $45,000 in tournament winnings this year.

The types of companies that sponsor anglers also are expanding beyond those who sell fishing products, he said.

“There are restaurants, tire companies, gasoline companies, airline companies. Tennis shoe companies are getting involved, beer nuts, beer companies,” Surman said.

Those sponsorships help foot the bill for the pro anglers, who had to pay $1,250 to enter each of the first five events on the FLW Tour, which had first prizes of $100,000. The entrance fee for the Forrest Wood Open was even more, $2,500. Anglers who finish in 46th through 75th place get their entry fee back.

The really good bass fishermen live well off tournament winnings. Four anglers - Larry Nixon, Rick Clunn, Denny Brauer and David Fritts - have career winnings of over $1 million.

“The odds are with you that you can at least break even,” Surman said. “That’s enabling more people to at least give it a try and see if they are capable.”

Sayner estimated that fewer than 50 bass anglers make a living solely from tournaments and endorsements. About two dozen walleye anglers support themselves with fishing and sponsorships, said Jim Kalkofen, executive director of the In-Fisherman Professional Walleye Trail.

Pros fishing the big-bass circuits probably have between $50,000 and $60,000 invested in equipment that they carry on the road, Bryan said. A fully equipped bass boat will probably run around $25,000. On top of that, add tackle, fish locators and global positioning systems that can return a boat to a hot fishing hole.

Sponsors, who provide equipment for some anglers, are getting more involved in the sport as fishing increases its visibility through cable TV shows produced by Operation Bass, B.A.S.S. and In-Fisherman. The shows include tournament footage.

As for Jacobs, there may be more than a love of fishing behind his efforts.

He owns 12 boat manufacturing companies under the umbrella Genmar Holdings Inc., that make nearly 20 percent of the boats built in the United States. Those companies - including Ranger, Wellcraft and Hatteras - had $620 million in revenues in 1996.

As pro fishing becomes more visible, the big winners will become more widely known, demand for the equipment they use will increase and Jacobs will sell more boats.

But he swears that’s not his primary motivation.

It’s really about helping people he admires develop into role models and building a sport that brings families together, Jacobs says.

“Fishing is as family-oriented an activity as you can find anywhere,” he says. “My fondest memories involved fishing with my dad, friends and family.”