FLW Rayovacs WHY???

ok guys I am supposed to be fishing Amistad this week at the FLW Rayovacs but my boat is in the shop and I don't dare or never will borrow a boat so I have to miss this one. But why is it that everywhere else in the country they can pull 150 to 200 boats but here in Texas they can only get 112 ??? This doesn't make sense to me why we cant get at least 150 in this trail? What are your thoughts?

Lakes?
Money?
time of year?
schedule?




What is it? look at every other region and they get a lot more than Texas.

I haven't looked into it much, but don't they need a co for every pro? $500 for a co-angler fee is pretty steep IMO. I realize it's only $75 more than the BASS Opens, but I bet they would get a much better draw if the co fee was between $300 and $400.

Most events are much closer to where guys live I assume. Amistad is a long haul!!

This ^^^

so you guys are saying if they had one of these events on Cedar Creek, Ray Roberts, Tawakoni, Lewisville, or Ray Hubbard they would fill up you think?

I personally don't think that's it at all....

ton more tournament trails to compete with in Texas.

I think we are blessed here in East Texas with great lakes and so many to choose from. Anglers are picking one or maybe 2 of there best lakes where they can catch fish pretty steadily and good ones and if a tourney comes to that lake then they jack pot it. Its hard to find Anglers from this area anymore to follow a circuit and fish all the tourneys but to sit back and choose which tourneys they fish that come to there favorite lake there favorite time of year. Does this make sense?

Times are tough and lot of people cannot afford to take time off to chase a dream. These men put their families first and bills and in theses days its tough to make a living so spending thousands of dollars to chase a dream just doesn't make sense. They fish the ones close to still get to fish their dream and maybe win a little. Theses men get to be with their families fish some tournaments and not spent a fortune doing it. just my .02

field size was held back from a lack of co-anglers...

makes sense to me....

Well if times are tough and you look out east at full fields, times aren't tough out there? Its obviously more than just one factor, but limited coangler and distance play a big role. Plus amistad is a shell of what it once was. If it was old amistad, march, and closer to central Texas, I think the turnout would be much better.

Well you can fish a lot of other trails here for a lot less money. Some guys aren't interested in fishing anything but their lake, so because of that there won't be a big turn out unless it is on their home lake. Maybe back east they don't have as many trails to compete with, $1500 for an entry fee and a week off work is a little hard for a lot of guys.

Hard to say, for me I don't have any aspirations to run all over the state to fish qualifing tournaments, then run out of state to fish a regional, then somewhere eise to fish a championship then hope I'm the one to make it to the Cup. But I hope the turnout picks up for your sake.

Good luck

In addition to the tournament trail choices we have in Texas, the long haul to Amistad, the high entry fee, they also ran off a few guys when they eliminated the championship. I know it's back now, but they'd have never lost those guys to begin with if they hadn't dropped the championship in the first place.

I couldn't get in because there was not enough co-anglers and I bet because of the haul there is what held a bunch back I'm betting there is more at texoma

I think it is a few things also not just one it's where they are at seems they are always south and deep east and I know there is one on Texoma this year ,maybe cost but one factor is there are a lot of tournaments in Texas to fish just my two cents.

In the southeast U.S. the states are smaller and the tourneys draw from several states. Just like in east Texas they draw from Tx. La. and Ar. on a regular basis. Once they get as far west as the metroplex or Austin they only draw from Texas. If anglers that lived in Arkansas fished Amistad they would have about 1500 miles of travel alone.
Amistad does draw from New Mexico but there are not a lot of tourney fisherman out that way.

Its pretty expensive to draw that many anglers that far of a distance? JMO Skeeter? My work schedule doesn't allow for me to put the time in to compete at that level right now, I'd just be donating which isn't a good fit for me.

I signed up as a co for Texoma but it's a lot of money. It will be interesting to see how many entries we have for that one. I didn't have the time or money for Amistad. They were almost begging for co's at the Mesquite show a couple weeks ago

I think they would have drawn more co anglers from west Texas if the oil crunch hadn't hit. People out there losing jobs and the ones still working are trying to hang on to their coins and jobs. $500 for co is a little steep,maybe not if you were able to draw some good pros and you could consider it a learning experience.Had some friends went the co route a few years ago and all they got was the wanna be pros.

This was an interesting article from Joe Balog. But with 112 anglers payout is tough. Seems like a bad model IMHO. 250 boats and your guaranteed not to get your money back. Numbers don't make much sense to me.
http://www.bassfan.com/opinion_article.asp?ID=1301#.VN0GWr6ihkg

Move the days to Friday ,Saturday and Sunday and it will fill up. I fished them for several years but basicly had to use all my vacation to do so.

#1 - Texas has more and better tournament competition (TTT, Champs, BLT).

That is the main reason! Beyond that...

#2 - Rayovac doesn't make financial cents 3+ days practice, 3 tourney days, travel distance, and the paybacks especially without a Ranger.

#3 - Rayovac and Opens are for solo fisherman that dream about the Tour or Elites. Since it is so hard travel wise for Texans on either top level schedule and we have so many good opportunities just within the state there isn't as much demand for the Triple A's here as stepping stone.

#4 - Until you can go back into history where you had to work hard just to make the Rayovacs and had to sign up for the entire year, many get turned off competing against jackpotters and the Rayledo sticks. Get it back to a true state series where everyone signs up for the year (like the tour) and you could have 150 full fields.

I don't think entry fees, travel, or coanglers have too much to do with it.

If I were betting they do away with texas divi and go back to just the central and throwing a rayburn in with centrals

I know plenty of guys fishing the rayovacs that don't care about the tour. They fish them to compete, get a decent check and not worry about tour bs and entry fees.

I wanted to fish as co-angler but schedule dates conflicted with other trail and then haul to amistad was too much. Coach

It pains me to say it but Rob Lay is 99% right on this.

obviously out of 115 guys there are "plenty". I'm just answering why we don't fill fields and that was a distant #3. really not much should be reasoned after considering all the great tournament trails we already have in Texas. I bet most other states wish they had what we do.

Amistad is fishing bad and a whipping to drive to. Rayburn Toledo are money pits for the non locals. It's a lot of commitment it time to prefishing enough to give yourself a fighting chance. Regular working guys I'm sure have a hard time missing that much work. I would fish them in a heartbeat but for the fact that I suck number 1 and number 2 I would hate to have some co in the boat with me and cause him to suck also. Lol

I fished Amistad as a co-angler and im sighed up to fish the other two in the series. If the low number of co-anglers is the reason for low turn out then FlW has to blame themselves for part of that by not letting co's have a chance at the Forrest wood cup. I know it is a long shot but at least before now there was a chance. Just about everything a co-angler does is a long shot and takes some luck: who u draw, how their style matches what u do, how their boat runs, their attitude, etc. Im boatless this year and thought i would give it a try. I met some great people and had a chance at some money. Im glad i was there. It seems to me the co-angler side would draw more people. Assuming your not in ranger cup: co-angler could win $27000 boat, angler who spends 5-times the money with entry, prefish, boat maint,towing,etc. wins $33000.

I cannot figure out why neither BASS or FLW do not fish lakes like Palestine and LOP

Lack of vacation days is my excuse.

FLW Everstarts had event on LOP a couple years ago, very low turnout and jackpotter won it. I think Jim Tutt talked them into trying it. I liked event, but tough fishing.

http://www.flwoutdoors.com/bassfishing/a...sional-results/

When is the Texoma event ? I may want to try and get in on the non boater side.

It is because a bunch of people got ticked off they did away with the real TTT

They have had everstart at pines and bfl at palestine quite a few times

I hope that the Texas division can garner some additional following so we don't loose this opportunity. This provides a lot of exposure for angler's and has the opportunity for a huge payday. If you haven't tried it I encourage you to do so, which every side fits you situation. Going different places and fishing against the competition will make you a better fisherman at home. I always learn a lot at these events.

Russell Cecil

April 30-May 2

If they don't pass a budget by this weekend Amistad will be closed!!!! Part of the homeland security shutdown for no funding!! Just like before!!!

Did you see the results Amistad is not half the lake it use to be. Not many limits or big fish long way to go for poor fishing.

Have you ever competed on either of those lakes, Doug?

I fished Amistad as a co-angler and had a good time. But I was talked into it at the last minute. I was not going to do it because of the $500 entry. I do fish the BFLs and going from $110 entry to $500 is pretty steep. I think they would get more co-anglers to sign up if the entry was somewhere in between, say $250 to $300. Just my 2 cents worth!

Rob pretty much nailed it.

Competition is the big one, you have BassChamps and TX Team Trail, Big payouts for little coin and they due pay pretty deep along with bonuses and side pots as well.

Secondly that some have touched upon it but I don't think have really pinpointed it, Travel. Since TX is so huge, they are only able to really pull from Louisiana, Arkansas and OK. To have a tourney on Amistad, they have to drive 8-10 just in TX. Don't get me wrong, others come from other states as well, but they are definitely the minority and those typically will fish all the events in all the regions. Look at where they have all the other divisions tourney lakes, they can pull from 6-10 states because one does not have to drive more than 4 hours to get there. I live near Austin, my drive to Amistad 5 hours, Rayburn 5.5 hours, drive to Toledo 6 hours drive to Texoma 4.5 hours. These are average drive times and do not include N/S portions of the lake. The other divisions can drive 4 hours and come from two states away.

Third, time off - this is another huge factor. I will typically fish the two weekends prior and then drive on Tuesday and fish the rest of that day and Wednesday. This takes a major toll on the body and equipment, tow vehicle. Why, because I don't have the time to take off a full week, 3 tourneys, that is 15 days, 3 weeks of vacation. If I had the time, I would take the whole week off.

One that I feel that has been missed is the championship, they took it away 3 years ago and brought it back last year and this year. I think that was a big deal and left a very bad taste in a lot of anglers. When they took it away, only the AOY made it to the cup, so if you bombed the first tourney, then why continue. I do like the fact that they can take more to the cup from the championship format they have now and they had more Texas anglers in the top 10 last year than any other region.

One final thing I believe is also big contributor is the entry fee, went from 1,000 to 1,500 and they dropped a tourney, so instead of paying $4,000 (4 tourney's) you are paying $4,500 (3 tourney's). $500 more in entry fees and fishing one less tourney.

FLW is a business and they have to make changes/adjustments to keep that business going. I will bet you a crisp $100 bill that they treat each division as a separate profit center and can tell you what there margin is for each division. While I do not know if the TX division is profitable or even break even, they know, and they know how many anglers they need to break even. Why is it that in the past they only limited the field to 150 anglers? That was there magic number to sustain a good margin. Since the TX division was not pulling the 150 field and has not in the past 3 years, they were keeping track of how many they were having to turn away in other divisions. So a business decision was made to open the field and not limit the number of anglers. By doing this, it allowed them to pay much deeper into the field, thus increasing anglers participation because it allowed an angler to have a shot at winning, top 10 and also a better chance at getting a check, but it also increased there margin as well. While other divisions getting more anglers does help the divisions not getting enough anglers (TX), it will only be a matter of time and the business decision will be to drop the TX division. I know they do not want to make that decision, but business is business and FLW may be forced to do so.

Just my .02

This is a great topic and needs to be addressed not only by the pros and co-anlgers but also the principals of FLW. I fish as a co-angler and cannot say enough on how efficiently the tournamanets are ran. My main reason for fishing is to gain knowledge and techniques on the “how to”,” when to” throw what lure in that day’s conditions. I zeroed both days at Amistad but was not one bit discouraged throughout the tournament. I gain one or two points in each event and chronicle that in a log to reflect back on. Every pro I have drawn has been exceptional at giving advice when I have asked “why”. Timing and placement of the tournaments in my opinion are critical to get the maximum draw. There are many parameters that go into the scheduling. Ron Lappin had made mention of the issue (lack of draw) in the pre-tournament meeting and they are open for suggestions. More incentives? Less money for entry? Reduce the cost to an angler if he or she enters all tournaments in that division.

Well I will support them to the end. And when that comes I guess I will switch over to the Tour. I hope the Texas divison stays for I have met so many good people and that will be hard to replace. Best fishing family in the business.

98% of it is "#1 - Texas has more and better tournament competition (TTT, Champs, BLT)." A tiny % may be travel related, but not enough to cause a difference of 60-70 boats.

Entry fee and time off aren't really valid reasons because the other FLW divisions have the same constraints and have no issue drawing

Texans like Team Tournaments better? Just a thought.

Always wondered the same myself. I prefer an individual tournament. I don't like to argue where to fish. I want to blame myself if things don't go right. Plus I'm already married, I don't need another relationship. LOL!

I had a kid, so I had to drop out this year. LOL....I think there was also a baby boom, I know a lot of my fishing buddies finally dropped the hammer and said it was now or never. I'm sure some of us will be back within time. (Might be 22 years from now....hehe, I'll be one of those old farts retired and prefishing for 3 weeks....yeah right LOL! I can dream).

I agree, it's the best trail I ever fished. It's becomes like a family of fisherman, not to mention the staff of FLW is the BEST. Some fisherman come and go, but you see a lot of the same faces year after year. Yes, you do learn a lot. A TON!! Best experience I ever had.

I hope Texas can keep it going!

Would one of the mods be kind enough to pin this or somthing like this to the top to help support the FLW Rayovac in filling up and keeping the Texas Division . This would be a Real loss for some of us who love to fish it.

I am going to have to disagree with the time off. Other divisions do not have the same constraints. Champs you have Sat/Sun to scout and then off limits, show up and fish. TxTT, while you have the Sat/Sun before, it is off limits till Friday. That is only one day off as compared to the 5 days one really needs for FLW. Take this year Rayburn and Texoma in a 4 week time frame, one would need to take off 10 days to prepare for FLW, that is in one month. Granted they schedule these two with a 4 week time period. Champs and TTT schedule one event a month.

I was comparing FLW TX division to the other FLW divisions.

You have a valid point in regards to the other divisions having better numbers. That brings it back to why does the the FLW Texas division have less numbers? Do you think that if the Amistad tournament was not schedule for Valentines week we would have a better turn out? I have to believe that we would have had a few more entries if it was scheduled at a different time. What about Lake Conroe as a venue?

Agreed.

Before the real TTT ended Everstart filled up in a couple days. to get in you had to call in the first few minutes. now you can sign up at the event. But the entry was 750.00