Reading the other post brought up this question for me. Personally I don't think the economy is too blame for trails getting lower numbers. People are spending more money nowadays on fishing than ever before. Look at how many new boats, new trinkets, and all the other accessories that money is being spent on. People have money and unlike in the old days, they are willing to spend it.

I think the difference is simply the vastly increased number of trails/tournaments. 10-15 years ago a Fisherman's calendar might have had 2-3 tournaments on it per month for one lake. Nowadays your bigger lakes have 15-20 tournaments a month. Your taking the same number of anglers (probably a few more than 10-15 yrs ago) and simply spreading them thinner. Take me for example...I'll fish a tournament every weekend, but even doing that I have to choose which one I'm gonna fish for that particular weekend, thus another trail is gonna suffer because I can't fish more than one.

How do we fix it? Simple. Be patient and with time some of these trails will fade off into the wild blue yonder. I've already started to see it on Rayburn with a couple. When it gets back to the right number of tournaments then we will start seeing the 200+ boat tournaments again.

Supply and demand is basically what it is. Why doesn't everyone drive a Ford truck? Cuz we have choices of several other brands. If Chevy, Dodge, Nissan & GMC went under, then Ford and Toyota would get all the business (entries).

If a trail doesn't draw they won't be around for very long

Nature will cut the fat so to say

I think its the number of trails. Too many out there. Its gotten to the point for me even though I can easily afford it I am not going to go fish a 10-20 boat tournament. Even if you do well you will lose money. Granted no one is living it up on the winnings at a local level just saying I want a shot to break even or come out slightly ahead if I have a good day. I also think when you add 6-8 events to a trail with that low of a draw you will not get as many entries either.

Throw in having to get boat passes, reservations and other deals like that to prefish and fish some of the lakes and it just takes a lot of the want to out. I also think certain divisions hitting the same lakes year after year at the exact same time gets to be monotonous.

I would love to see an individual trail with 6 events(within a 100 mile radius) no prefishing and all wanting to fish must registered by the Friday before. The guys registered get texts/emails on where and when the tournament is on Saturday or Sunday. Make it $100-150 entry fee and a year end Championship done on mystery lake deal as well. Then again that would be adding another choice and further diluting the way we spread out between the trails now.


If anything some of these trails need to merge and combine efforts.

I think it is screwed up beyond repair. You have too many trials, now you would think that would sort itself out except half the people running them are doing so as a hobby it seems cause you damn sure don't make money off 10 people showing up. There is no incentive to travel, you can sit on your home lake and fish something almost every weekend. I fact I am starting to think the ones that will travel, myself included are idiots. It doubles or more the expense and the odds are not in your favor for sure. When you do the math on fishing an event that has lets say 15 teams which is pretty common around here lately the guy in second doesn't even make out cause by the time you figure gas, entry, maybe one prefish day your in the red and god forbid you get a hotel room, now what should happen is you don't fish that event but that's becoming the rule not the exception for turnout.

To many trails!!!!!

Bass tournaments are the Debil.

I think it is a combination of both. Think about it. $200+ in gas alone to win $300 - Entry fee. Many won't fish. Numbers will drop. Trails covering up each other. It is saturated. I still believe that TD's could do a better job of scheduling not on top of each other on the same lakes.

It's not just scheduling on top its every weekend on the same lakes. During certain times of the year you can just fish that lake every sat and Sunday, some even schedule events based on practice days for the events the following weekend figuring guys will enter cause they are there anyway.

As this thread goes on there is another speaking of a different format. That's is the problem there are so many options and if you don't like everything about one then hell, just go start another. It's pitiful.

This may not be a popular response but I like things the way they are. I want to fish trails with a turn out of 35 to 50. I am only fishing tournaments to keep my interest in fishing going. There are about 4 or 5 lakes I care to fish they are all nearby and I do not need to pre fish. I check a lot of trails pick 10 to 15 dates and pay only if I have time to fish that day. JC Outdoors, Media, BLT, Ignition are the trails I am interested in fishing. I will fish Bass Champs or larger trails if they come to my lakes but I will not travel to fish other lakes on their schedule.

Exactly! So here we are discussing why trails are failing and another person starts a thread discussing what format of a trail he should start. LOL.

"Hey Bubba, my head hurts. I don't like it."

"Bubba, it hurts cuz you drank too much beer last night."

"Give me another beer."

I'm not sure if it applies to most tournaments, because most payouts correlate with entries, not an announced fixed prize. Tournaments honestly don't have a ton of risk. They still make some money with less or more entries. If they aren't covering the fixed costs, then they will probably get sick of it after awhile.

The nature of a trail is each year there are a few people that can't be kept happy for whatever reason be it that they did poorly or something on the trail isn't what they think it should be. New trails come and go. Also how the lake is fishing is huge. When a lake is fishing good then it's easier to get the numbers.

Just the natural cycle of things.

But right now, they don't come and go. They just keep coming! Therefore diluting the tournaments for all of us.

The economy is fine. Too many trails. We quit and four more showed up. Lol.