Dakota Ebare "Fish The Way You Want To Fish" on MERCER-215

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
He is a Bassmaster Elite Series rookie, but he's no rookie. 2
MLF wins over $1,000,000 in earnings.
Dakota E Bayer joins me this week.
Oh. I'm Bob Cobb for the Bassmaster.

(00:23):
Welcome to Mercer. Welcome one.
Welcome all, friends, family, freeloaders, fishing freaks, and
of course you, my humpers. Happy hump day to all of you and
welcome into the Awkwardly Honest fishing podcast that goes
by my last name, which is Mercer.
This is the 215th edition of theMercer Podcast, and I thank you

(00:46):
for spending a little bit of your week here with this show
and our particular brand of tomfoolery.
I hope you are having a wonderful week and I thank you
all for tuning in week after week.
Moment of total honesty as you watch this.
God willing, I am not sitting here I am elbows deep in small

(01:06):
mouth bass hopefully away shooting shows upcoming episodes
of Facts of Fishing and got a big week planned this week.
So let's hope that the fish godsopen their bounty to us because
one thing is guaranteed, no matter what you're fishing for,
you put a camera in a boat and it gets a lot tougher.

(01:30):
So send some good vibes out to the universe.
Hopefully we are wrecking them. It's going to be a fun podcast.
I easily could have just been like, hey, gone fish.
And sorry, can't help you out. But I've told you guys, if
you're committed to come here every Wednesday, I'm committed
to be here every single Wednesday.
And we have a great show for youhere this week.

(01:52):
Dakota E Bayer is our guest. And Dakota is an amazing angler,
an amazing human being. I mean, a former bullfighter
came out of the gate swinging ina big, big way at MLF, has
multiple wins there over $1,000,000 in earnings, and then
risked it all and said, hey, I want to fish the Bassmaster
opens to qualify for the Elite Series because it is my dream to

(02:16):
fish the Bassmaster Classic. And I am all about people who
chase dreams. So this will be a fun show.
It'll be a very interesting showbecause this this podcast has
always been a platform and I've always said anglers are free to
come on here and talk about whatever they want.

(02:37):
And we have had a lot of anglerscome on here and talk about how
they don't like forward facing sonar.
Well, we're starting to hear theopposite from some anglers.
We're starting to all of a sudden, now that, you know,
there's a chance that it may be limited, we're hearing more and
more anglers coming out and saying, hey, wait a second, slow

(02:59):
down. And Dakota is one of those.
He makes some very good points and no matter where you sit on
the fence, whether you're for forward facing sonar against
forward facing sonar, or if you're just tired of hearing
about forward facing sonar, whatDakota says here this week, he
said with passion, belief, and from his heart.

(03:23):
And I think you'll find it very,very interesting.
But rather than me building it up, let's have a very real and a
very cool conversation with Dakota E Bear.
Dakota E Bear, How are you? Good man, how are you?
Good, good. I feel like I always feel weird

(03:44):
at the beginning of these because we have actually been
talking for a little while and then I'm like, we're going to
record now. Now I have to act somewhat
professional. They have missed all the good
stuff so. Yeah.
No, it's good, man. I I just got back home today.
Flew up to to or not Minnesota, Michigan, had some, got some

(04:05):
unique business opportunities coming that I'm really excited
about, but spent all day at meetings yesterday up there and
it was fun, man, it really was. It was nice to get out of the
heat for a day and now we're back home ready to rock'n'roll,
get on the water and get ready for 10 Killer.
Is it wild when you get in the air and it's like, it's not hot?
Like when I got home from from Texas, I was in my backyard and
I'm like, it is so weird to feela breeze that isn't hot.

(04:27):
Like it's just refreshing. Well, what's crazy man, is that
like you leave here and you just, you like time jump back to
three months. Like all of a sudden, you know,
there's Turkey strutting everywhere in the springtime.
Everything's just blooming. Like it's like, you know, it's
just crazy. It's, it's so wild.
Like you go back it feels like 2months in time and it's pretty

(04:50):
refreshing honestly. For for a big part of the
season, that's how I feel. But the opposite where I'm down
like I'm down in Florida in an event for two weeks and things
are great. And then I come home and I'm
like, oh, there's still snow. It still sucks.
I guess unfortunately for me, I don't usually ever have to see
it that way. Like it's always, it's always
refreshing for me to go back up north.

(05:12):
Whereas for you, at times you, yeah, it's still frozen.
Tundra So this year has been tough on you.
I mean, and it it, you know, with, I mean, seemingly from the
outside, it looks like up to this point your fishing career
has gone pretty freaking smooth.But the elites?

(05:34):
Not so much. Yeah, man, they're, they're kind
of they're, they, they gave me awake up call.
I got a little tasty humility, you know, and I, you know,
honestly, I, I struggled a little bit last year in the
open. So this has probably been two
years in the running of me kind of getting to the point where
I'm at right now, I'd say, But there's, you know, there's,
there's a lot of dialogue context behind that.

(05:56):
And I, I think I have a pretty good grasp on that now at this
point. And I, and I'm actually kind of
thankful for that. Like it has been a disaster
season for me, really on paper for me, like in my mind, but
I've I've reached a point where,you know, I feel like everyone,
you know, no matter what you're doing in life, whether you're a
baseball player, football player, you're a Carpenter, a

(06:18):
realtor MC, at some point in time, you might have had an off
event where you're like, dude, Ikind of sucked up there today
you. Know like.
We don't see it because you're always just Mercer, but
honestly, and and so I think those times in your life are
they they kind of give you a unique perspective that
sometimes you need. And I feel like I'm at that

(06:38):
point where, you know, I realizethat.
Look, man, this Fort is, is turning fast.
There's so much young talent that's coming up so fast.
And contrary to a lot of people,I feel like I'm excited about
that because that's going to push me to get better.
You know, and I'm, I see, you know, we see all the negative,

(07:00):
you know, all the negativity towards all the young anglers
coming up because they don't fish the right way or this or
that. But in reality, I think it's a
great opportunity for the sport to grow.
And you take me example as an example of that.
I'm 32 years old. I've been fishing really good.
But man, it seems like I'm, I'm honest enough to say I kind of
slacked off a little bit over the last year or so just working

(07:23):
at the trade, just getting busy with other things.
And it didn't take but just a little bit of time and all of a
sudden bam, like these guys are getting so good so fast, they'll
pass you up in a heartbeat. So it's been good for me to kind
of be able to take a step back and say, say, Dang, I really got
to get my ass back to work. And so that's the way I'm taking
it. I'm taking it with, you know,
positivity, trying to at least and and knowing that, hey, look,

(07:45):
it's not the end of the world. It's not the end of my career.
It's just been a tough couple ofevents and it's going to make us
better down the road. How do you do what's so rare
that that is rare for, you know,I mean, it's real easy for
somebody in your situation to not look at it the way you do.
Well, I didn't look at it that way after day 2 at fork.

(08:08):
Like, I mean, I did, I did, but you don't want to ask me about
it, you know, like I was, you know, I mean, I was dude, I was
mad like I was mad mad. Like I wouldn't want to be
nowhere around me. But you know, it's been a few
weeks, you know, it's been a couple weeks since the day three
at Sabine where I didn't catch abass.
So, and it's been like so crazy though, like I had a 2 day or a

(08:32):
Toyota Series event here at Rayburn, I'm leading by like 9
lbs going into day three. I had 62 lbs in two days, you
know, like I'm saying. And both the first two days of
that tournament went so well. Like I was so dialed.
Like I knew where to go, when togo there, and it all just felt
perfectly into place. And on day three, I catch 10 lbs

(08:53):
and I lose. Yeah.
And then you take fork, you know, having a really good first
day, bombing on day 2, having a really good tournament, Sabine
bombing on day three. It's almost like, and then
watching live the next day and seeing guys catch them off the
individual piece of structure that I fished, it's like, man,
sometimes things just out of ourcontrol.

(09:15):
And it's not really like we can you can either do one or two
things. You can completely let it train
wreck, wreck you, or you can look at it from a positive
perspective and say, Hey, what am I going to do about it?
And that's when I kind of go into the whole campaigns things.
Nobody cares, work harder. You know, that's his whole deal.
You know, he's and, and to me that that's what stands out.
It's like, look, man, you ain't got nobody to blame but you.

(09:39):
Like I'm in total control of, ofmy work ethic and what I do to
prepare for these events. And if if I'm not having success
in the water, I'm to blame. So I have to go do a better job.
And that's just the way I look at it.
So I'm going to look at it and, and it, it does take a little
time to get that perspective because you may be madder in
hell in the moment or for maybe a couple days and you should be

(10:00):
as a competitor. But you've got to be realistic
and know that tough times are going to come.
And how you respond to those tough times, I think is really
what makes a an individual. I don't think I've ever asked
you this, but why did you feel the need to move to the elites?
Because to be honest, I mean, things going really well for
you. Look what drove you to say how I

(10:23):
want to fish the elites. Yeah, I look like a dummy right
now, but I, and I say that jokingly because I, I'm not in a
bad spot. I and, or, or anything like
that. There's not look, man, if you,
if you're fishing at the professional level in the sport
and you're doing good things forthe companies that you work for,
you're not in a bad spot, right.But obviously, yeah, things were

(10:44):
going great for me at the eliteshere.
I mean, at the Bass Pro Tour, I was able to really do a good job
for the companies that I was representing or still am
representing and everything was good.
But I, I always want to fish theclassic, you know, I always want
to fish the elites. And I felt like, you know, it
was just the right time to try to do that.

(11:04):
And there was a lot of grumblingand stuff going on over there.
And I was just kind of get, I got involved in the politics of
that a little bit and it was just frustrating as hell.
So I said, you know what, we're going to start fresh, get a
clean slate going and we're going to we're going to try to
qualify for the elites. And I was very fortunate to do
that. And now I'm getting my tail

(11:25):
kicked in the elites and it's a complete freaking like civil war
over here. And I'm like, what did I do?
And now, you know, and now I find myself like feeling very
passionate about it yet again, even though I swore to myself
that I would never get involved again.
And and in a way like I'm, I'm not, I'm well, I guess I am, I'm

(11:48):
sitting here talking about it right now, but dude, I just want
to see the sport go where we allwanted to go.
Like, you know, I just feel likeevery year we just like shoot
ourselves in the foot, man. And it's always something like
we always like we, we build a hill every year to climb, you

(12:10):
know, it seems like, and it doesn't matter where you're at
there. There's and I knew, like I knew
then, like I, I wasn't looking at the situation with Major
League fishing and saying like the grass is greener over here.
I'm gonna go over there. No, no, there's there's no doubt
that the grass is greener where you water it.
There's no doubt. And where you are, you're able
to, no matter where you're at and live like you can always

(12:32):
look at it from a positive or negative perspective and you can
make the most of it or you can Waller in it.
So I, I, I'm not, I'm I'm very well aware anyway.
So that that's kind of a rundownon that.
Honestly, it wasn't that I thought I was getting into a
stress free like no drama, perfect world over here.

(12:54):
And I, I, I do, I think, and I'll say this too, like there's
man, there's a lot of opportunities at, at Bassmaster.
It's awesome to be an elite series angler.
And, and it's, it truly is. And it was really good being a
Bass Pro Tour angler. It that those, those two years
of my career were phenomenal forme and for my brand and for the

(13:17):
companies that I represented. So I, I don't think a lot of
guys would probably say that, but I'm telling you that like,
man, it's what you make of it, you know, and there's a lot of
opportunities right now in our sport for, for especially young
anglers and really it doesn't matter but how old you are.
But there are a lot of opportunities for guys in our

(13:38):
sport right now. There really is.
And that's contrary to to to what you may hear on the
Internet. But there really is.
So you said you're in the middleof a civil war.
Explain to me what you mean by that.
Well, man, I mean, it's no secret, you know, I mean, right
now the big debacle is over Fordfacing sonar.

(13:58):
But if it's not one thing that it seems to be another, you
know, I mean, last year it was all about the rookies being all
cheaters, you know, and it's allthese young punks coming in that
are all cheating and everything else.
And then so, you know, Bass madea decision to change the the
rules to kind of suit that and all the angers to a fit about

(14:20):
that. And, you know, I mean, the, the
solution of the problem last year was to, you know, more
polygraphs and let's, you know, that made a huge uproar about
that. Well, last gave him more
polygraphs and now it's a problem with the polygraphs.
Like we're taking too many polygraphs.
So it's just like this constant like revolving just and it's one

(14:41):
thing after another, you know, and the thing about it is like
all of it, like we're not we're and while we're doing that,
we're missing out on a lot of opportunities to be growing a
sport. Like we are spinning our wheels
and it's over stuff that really at the end of the day, know what
I'm saying? I mean, people cheating is
definitely a bad thing. Like it it's something that we

(15:03):
need to do something about and they did.
But I'm not saying that no means, but I mean I'm just.
So you had said you're in the middle of a civil war.
Explain to me what is that is. Yeah, man, like, I mean, it's,
it just seems like it's always something, man.
It's like and it's it's just really frustrating to see the

(15:24):
industry like and it's not really the industry because the
industry is not doing that bad it but like to see professional
fishing spinning its wheels. You know, you know, right now,
obviously the hot topic is forward facing sonar and like
that is like we what we feel like, not we there.
There's a small percentage of the sport that feels like it is

(15:45):
like the end of all times. And it's the topic of
conversation that's going on right now, obviously, of whether
or not we keep that in the eliteseries or we remove it or we do
a 5050 split or this or that. So that's that's what's going on
right now. But before that, you know, it's
all about the rookies cheating. You know, last year was a huge

(16:05):
deal about all the rookies were cheaters.
Net reality of it was it was it wasn't that.
You know, there might have been a couple rules broke, broke by
one of the two of the anglers, but I'm pretty sure they were
reprimanded for that and they'reprobably better anglers now on
and off the water because of it.They made mistakes.
They're younger guys and it happens, OK?
It's reality of it is England, New England Patriots to play in

(16:26):
the football once. Guess what?
Life goes on. Like, I'm not condoning it.
I'm saying whenever things like that happen, you, you know, you,
you applaud the appropriate penalties to the situation, you
move on. You know, people make mistakes.
So I'm not crucifying anybody over that.
I'm just saying that was like the end of that was in the world
last year. You know, that was the end of

(16:47):
the sport, right? Because we got these young guys
coming in that are all cheaters.And then so the solution to that
was let's take all these polygraphs and let's do all this
and let's make the rules stricter and let's do that.
And then we do that and all of asudden now all the anglers are
pissed off because we got a bunch of polygraphs, you know,
and, and, and the, and the wrongguys are getting caught.

(17:09):
Like we ain't caught a rookie yet.
Like, so that's not cool. I guess, you know, I mean, it's,
it's just been so frustrating tosee all this kind of go down and
just see how much effort is going into things that like,
man, we're it's just so there's so much effort going into, you

(17:30):
know, really us and we're not moving the needle.
No, the other huge deal. All right, for for how long now
has entry fees been a problem? You know, I mean, if we could
just get away entry fees, like everything would be just fine.
They take away entry fees and the whole world goes to hell.
Like it was a huge deal. And I realized on paper the

(17:54):
payouts look terrible and this and that, but I mean, what the
money just don't grow on trees? I mean, it's got to come from
somewhere. And so that leads to the next
deal about. So now, you know, there's a
percentage of anglers that thinkthat live scopes in the world
and that they want to eliminate that.

(18:17):
And they're like, So what about all the companies that have
spent all the money on lithium batteries and all these, you
know, the MBT, all the money they've invested in those
screens, wiring harnesses, all the innovation and baits, like
all this stuff, Where's that money?
So we're just all of a sudden wewant to do away with that.

(18:40):
So like, I feel like we're in a situation right now in the sport
where Dave Mercer may be able tofall out.
You good? No, no, I'm good.
I just had to cough. I just moved.
Away I was good, no, but so likewe're at this place where, and
and I mean disagree with me if you feel like I'm wrong, but I

(19:00):
feel like regardless of everything else, we're in a post
COVID hangover in this industry.You know, 20202122 exponential
sales like blew the I mean companies sold more than they
could ever sell. Like ever think about selling

(19:22):
sold out everything they had to the point where they couldn't
make the money because they couldn't get no more because
they had sold everything they had?
Yeah. People spent so much money and
now things are catching up. They paid astronomical prices
for boats and now they they wantto get a new boat, but they
can't afford to sell their old boat.

(19:42):
They're not buying new boats. So that looks bad.
Same thing they bought all this tackle and stuff, You know, like
everything is just in this placewhere in it it'll work.
It'll lie itself out like it's just going to take a little
time. We all knew that that was going
to happen. Like nobody was looking at the
sales in 2021 going man, this isgoing to keep going forever.
Like everyone knew that was eventually going to like take a

(20:04):
little bit of downturn and smooth itself out.
And that's what it's done. And like I.
I hate it. I hate to see that for the
companies that I work with, but it will cut like it'll line
itself out like it will 100%. But the one thing right now in
the industry that's driving sales electronics, like that's
the one, that's the one thing that's driving innovation and

(20:27):
baits. We got all these new baits that
are coming out, all these, all this money that's been invested
in the different types of forward face and sonar baits and
all of that, all the money that's went into the bigger
screens and the bigger batteriesto support these bigger screens
and all this stuff. Mounts, mount companies.
Look at companies that beat downand all these different, yeah,
all of these different companiesthat make mounts.

(20:49):
So now we're just going to be like, well, now we don't that
money's not good enough because like, isn't it mind boggling
that people are like, these electronic companies are buying
the industry? Yeah, it's called business.
Like, yes, they pay for us to promote and use their products,

(21:11):
which in turn sells products forthem.
Like, that's the way the world works, right?
Like is that money not good enough?
So if we eliminate forward facing sonar or we even restrict
forward facing sonar, like theseelectronic companies are going
to pull back. So that means less money in the

(21:32):
pot for Bassmaster, which in turn means less money for Elite
series anglers. So I don't see where that's a
good thing at all. And like, I just I don't
understand how we can have Lake Fork being the highest numbers
ever and a bass master event on Fox, you know, and I've actually

(21:55):
like fact checked that and you can't skew the numbers on on big
Fox. But it makes a good big makes a
good Internet clip to do that, though, like people will people
will love your video if you if you say you can.
You can't skew Big Fox's numberslike you can't.
And I I like I have reputable contacts, they're in the

(22:17):
production industry that have the ability to see the numbers.
And I promise you, bask in lie about the numbers on big.
Fox but the fact that we're evendo it like OK, so we love this
sport everybody. What do you love forward facing
sonar or don't you? If you're listening to this
podcast, you love this sport. I mean me, you before I knew

(22:38):
you, I knew you loved this sport.
You know what I mean? But it's clear.
But at a time when that number comes out, we're spending time
just dissecting it and saying, well, that's not real because I
and I don't like about it. So it's arguing about it.
It's just it's insane they use. Foreign facing sonar.

(22:59):
So those numbers can't be real because people don't watch
foreign facing sonar and like upuntil this point, somebody's
been watching this for the last 5 minutes and they're like, this
dude's just a forward facing sonar freaking nut and that's
all he wants to do. No, wait, let's pause for a
minute. This ain't about forward facing
sonar. This is about us as a sport

(23:19):
growing and moving in the right direction and not wasting time
or petty crap that's being used as an excuse for something else.
Like that's what this is about. You know the the fact the
argument that forward facing sonar is ruining the sport, It's
not. It's just not like you can't
show me. You can't show me the numbers of

(23:40):
that. Like you can't, you can't show
me you can't prove to me that that former face is on a running
sport. You can't OK, you may, you may
say, well, you know, I work for this company and they're not
selling as many crankbaits anymore.
I work for Strike King. OK, we may not be selling as
many crankbaits as we were a couple years ago, but you know
what, we've got a lot of really good base now for Forward Face

(24:01):
and Sonar and they are selling them.
And guess what? If we spend as much time pushing
what's really going on on the water instead of just fighting
over Forward Face and Sonar, youknow that there was a bunch of
bass called at Lake Fork on a dadgum 6 XD But nobody talked
about that. You know, nobody talked about
fighters freaking swimming a jigwith a rage crawl in the back of

(24:22):
it. You know, nobody talked about
that because it's not it's not trending.
They can't get clicks off of that.
So we're not going to promote that.
That's the problem I have, you know, it's, it's all about the
narrative. It's not about growing the
sport. It's about the narrative.
And that's what pisses me off. You know, that's what really,
really bothers me because if youlook at it from a hole, you know

(24:44):
that the other argument is as well.
I got a buddy that's that's 55 years old that sold his bass
boat and he don't fish tournaments no more because of
live scope. Well, for every guy that sold
their boat and doesn't fish tournaments anymore because of
live scope, there's 10 college anglers per chance to replace
that guy. So where are we at?

(25:04):
Like who's really going to carrythis sport, right?
And, and I hate to say it, but the guy that sold his boat end
up in fish tournaments anymore because of live scope.
That's it. He was looking for excuse to
quit fishing tournaments anyways, I promise you.
Because like you shouldn't allowand there's not like I just, I

(25:25):
hate to see people like not go fishing because of what someone
else is doing. Like man, if you don't want to
use Lasco, don't man, go flip. Go throw a frog.
I love throwing a frog as much as anybody.
Today's high tech fishing world can be a real pain in the neck,
especially if you're running thewrong mount.
Beat down outdoors. They bring the graph to you and

(25:48):
they support this podcast and care enough about you to make
this a short ad read. Check out beat down outdoors.
Now back to the show like. If fishing man, go do it the way
you want to go do it. How it's always been.
Yeah. You've always been able to fish
the way you wanted to. Fish, I'm not going to go tell
Greg that he can't go flip a jigno more.

(26:10):
How would that go just because that guy, I want to throw my
minnow Like, look, I don't want to throw.
I mean, sometimes it's awesome when you're catching 8 pounders
of fork on it. Sometimes when you're grinding
away, just begging that you catch 5, it's frustrating.
I'd rather go flip a jig, but I'm not going to tell Greg that
he can't go flip 1. Like, you know, I, I just don't,

(26:33):
I don't know. It's just so frustrating to see
the industry spinning its wheels, man.
It's so frustrating. And and like the fact that we've
had the biggest youth movement ever in the history of the
sport. Easton Folligale wins the
classic and he is like, he is the dream story.
Like there, there should there. That should have been the most

(26:54):
celebrated moment in the historyof our sport, bar none.
Here you have a kid who not onlyis a great angler, but is a
phenomenal person, a phenomenal representation of the sport,
went to college, got a good education, dedicated, has
dedicated his life up until thispoint at 20 years old and goes

(27:14):
and wins the classic and then gets an asterisk put beside it
because he followed the rules and and won the biggest
tournament in bass fishing. Are you serious?
Like that's where we're at as a sport.
Like man, that right there in itself is what really like
that's that's why I'm so fired up about all this.

(27:36):
You know, instead of celebratingwhat Easton accomplished, we
want to put an asterisk beside it because he followed the
rules, because he because he used live scope, because he
worked his ass off more than everyone else at 22 years old
and he outfished everybody. I called him the other day to,
to ask him a question about how he felt about something.

(27:58):
And, and he's so indifferent. Like he's just such a good like
he, he, he's not, he's not like me.
He's not going to get fired up about anything.
He's just so level headed. But I called him and he's, I was
like, you know, what did you hear about this?
And he's like, no, I'm, I've been idling all day.
I'm like, you're idling all day.Where are you at?
He's like I don't in Knoxville getting ready for the classic

(28:18):
next year. How many guys are out there
idling all day long for however long for last week and a half
since the tournament? Wow.
Like, dude, that's why he's winning and it ain't because of
the what's on the front of his boat.
You take that stuff off the front of his boat and he's still
going to win. You're not going to beat him.
You're not unless you out working and good luck doing

(28:40):
that. You know, so it it that's that's
my thing, man. It's like they're gumming.
Like what's going to change if we if we limit law scope, like,
how's that going to help? At what point?
Where where? Please tell me, like, what is
that going to do? Yeah, like how is that going to

(29:02):
help? I don't have an answer to that.
I think it's going to appease some people.
I mean, I think that that that the people that are against it,
but I, but I honestly, I've saidfrom the start, 5050, whatever
it ends up being, it ends up being disgruntled men anyways.

(29:25):
Like I think if you took Fork, for example, Tucker Smith won at
fork and there are people who will say, well, he won because
of forward facing sonar and clearly he used it.
I mean, nine of the top 10 used it.
So they'll discredit his win. But let's just imagine that fork
was no forward facing Sonar and Seth Fighter won.

(29:45):
I still believe that a year fromnow people will still say, well,
yeah, but Seth wouldn't even have made the top ten with that
weight if we allowed forward facing Sonar.
So it's it's going to be debate.Whatever way you look at it.
The one way I would look at it is with guys like Easton is it's
his opportunity to prove to the world.
I mean, you feel, I feel like he's proved a lot already, but I

(30:09):
mean, there's a certain percentage that until he is
competing in events without it, they will just think that he's
made by that piece of machinery.So there's there's that side to
it. But ultimately the one thing you
say stands out to me that if that same amount of energy was

(30:31):
put into like a people really cared about the sport and
promoting the sport, if the sameamount of energy was put into it
that's been put into this debatethis tired like it's why do you
think, why do you think this is such a big thing?
I think because there's, becausethe sport has evolved so much in

(30:54):
the last couple years and it's changed so much.
And I, dude, I hate to say this and I, I shouldn't say this
because I respect every single angler in this sport.
I, I do. And I grew up idolizing some of
them, watching them. And I, I still to this day
respect them. I'm fans of them.
Like I'm, I'm literally like a fan of some of these guys still

(31:15):
to this day competing against them.
But this sport has been so closeknit for so long.
And now because of high school fishing and college fishing,
it's, it's growing and it's growing fast.
And our place in it is limited now.
Our time in this sport is limited because of the turnover

(31:35):
in it. It's becoming like a true sport.
And some of the people that are in this sport that have the
biggest voice are being pushed out because of new competition,
because of young anglers who areutilizing the tools that are
available to them. And they're going out kicking
and screaming and fighting and clawing and trying to cause as

(31:55):
much more commotion as they can on the way out.
And I hate to say that, but I'm a call balls and strikes.
And that's not probably something that's very popular to
say, but I've always been honestand and true to what I believe.
And I've also always tried to look at things from the outside
looking in. Like I'm not saying this from my
perspective. I've got my tail kicked by live

(32:17):
scope this year. OK, I'm in 70th in points in the
elite series and I can catch them without.
So it would maybe even help me right now and get some of these
younger guys. I'm not saying that it wouldn't
if we didn't have a live scope of the next event because
they're so dialed in on what they're doing.
But I'm a catch back up to them because I'm a go work my ass off
and I'm gonna make it right. But I don't think some of these

(32:38):
guys are willing to do that. And I get it.
Like they fish a certain way forso long.
Damn, it's not right that I got to go fish off the bank now
whenever I made a living on a bank for 30 years.
But it wasn't right Whenever side image you come out and half
the anglers were good at that and the other half didn't know.
I mean, side image, every, everyera of the sport has been

(32:58):
dominated by technological advances.
I mean, whether it be maps back in the day with Roland Kevin
using side Imogen and down Imogen and and even then having
better maps and the advancement of Braid.
Randy Derman kicking everybody'stail on Rayburn.
You know, 25 years ago, wheneverhe invented Braid, that wasn't
fair that he had Braid. Nobody else did.

(33:19):
He's slipping 25 foot of grass. Like that wasn't fair at all.
But everyone has always figured out an edge.
As long as it's within the rules.
I don't see it. Like it's just it's been always
part of the sport. You know, basketball, football,
basketball isn't played the way that it was 10 years ago, is it
not? The way baseball is played has

(33:40):
changed now. And there's people in basketball
that will tell you how it's changed for the worse in their
opinion, you know what I mean? There's a lot less.
I mean, it's all about the threepointer.
You know that that that in theiropinion has changed the game in
a negative. You know what I mean?
You got these guys. And if you put it in terms, I
mean, they just got a cheat code.

(34:01):
They just sit out there and theyhit those threes and you don't
have to be good at anything else.
But it's not that simple to hit the threes, just like it's not
that simple to use that technology, clearly.
I mean, that's one that I think anybody can agree that the
Internet has made it seem like you put that box in the front of

(34:22):
your boat and it's just like playing bingo when they call
your number. I mean, you're going.
To I don't know how many viewersare going to watch this, but I'm
going to go ahead and remind them of my weight on day 2 at
Lake Fork. And it was like 1 LB and 7 oz
after I caught 31 the day beforeand I utilize it all day long.
And they wasn't a damn one of them big ones drop in my boat,

(34:43):
you know, So we, we, we've covered a lot of ground there.
But my, my point being is that man, right now where we're at in
the industry, in the outdoor industry as a whole and really
don't the society where our, oureconomy as a whole is in a post

(35:05):
COVID hangover, right? We got a couple things that are
still hot and heavy right now inthe, in the bass fishing
industry. And it's a lot of it's being
driven by electronics and the youth involvement in our sport.
We're trying to cut out the electronics, cut back on the
electronics, and we're cursing all these young kids for being

(35:26):
good at what they're doing. Look, is it fair that 20 years
ago not every 19 year old had a bass boat and you know, a bunch?
What? It's just a different time, man.
You can't, you can't hate these having those opportunities be
mad at their parents for kickingor for working their tail off

(35:47):
and being able to provide, however they got it, a boat for
these kids to go chase a dream. And yet again, these kids are
fishing, they're in the outdoors, they're doing
something they're passionate about, ain't hurting a damn
thing. They ain't on the streets.
You know, they're working their ass off and they actually have

(36:07):
an opportunity to go get an education and potentially miss
professionally one day or get a job in the industry or there's
so many opportunities and we're going to make them the bad guys.
Are you kidding me? Like it's just mind blowing,
man. Like it's just, it's, it's just
wild. Like if you look at the last two
years in the and like the the the the way that's been, dude,

(36:32):
that ain't cool. It's not cool at all.
And so like we said earlier, so if we just focus as much effort
on positive things in the sport and growing the sport and
figuring out ways to be more innovative with the sport, if we
put all the effort we put in thespinning on wheels and fighting
over stupid crap that don't really matter.

(36:56):
And I'm not saying that four faces sonar doesn't totally
matter because it does to somebody.
I'm not trying. To say the difference.
Or valid. But I'm just saying, what if we
put all that effort in the conservation?
Like what if we put all that effort into getting grass back
in these lakes and making the habitat better and better
restocking programs because there's more pressure on the
lakes than ever before? What if we put all this energy

(37:19):
just into that to where wheneveryou showed up at Rayburn next
year in January, you could go throw a trap or a red eye shad
and catch them. Because there's so much grass
somewhere in the fishery so healthy that you don't have to
go sit out in the lake and scopeone because there's no grass,
you know. Or what if, you know, we put as
much effort in a restocking programs because the reality of

(37:41):
it is that there's more fishermen on the water than ever
before. And that's a good thing, right?
For it's a good thing for me, it's a good thing for you.
You're wearing a BKK hat. It's a good thing for them,
right? So it's a good thing for
everyone. Bass Pro Shops, Strike, King
Lou's, Cabela's, all that. And we don't need that number to
go down like we don't. And so why not provide more

(38:04):
opportunities? Why not figure out a way to make
the fisheries better to make people want to go just like
Fork? I guarantee you there's been
plenty. How much, how much, how much
like revenue do you feel like that event probably generated
for Lake Fork? How many, How many?
I bet you can't get an Airbnb upthere right now.

(38:26):
I mean, I don't know how much revenue had driven, drove,
driven. It's not a right way to speak,
but I don't know what the actualnumber is.
But I just know how the people of that community respond to you
when you go to a store, when yougo, you know what I mean?
They're excited to have the Elite series there they want.
For catching those bass because my store is going to have

(38:50):
business now for the next year even more than that.
Like people guarantee you that every single place is booked up
for that week next year at Lake Fork because they know how good
it could be and they're going tobe there.
You know I mean so think about and Texas Parks and Wildlife has
does such a phenomenal job and making that into the bass

(39:11):
fishing factory that it is if weweren't fighting so much over
this crap. What if we, what if Garmin and,
and, and and bass mash putting that much effort into the
conservation efforts of making these, all these fisheries
better, you know, you know, restocking programs and all of
that, you know, but instead we're, we're, we're just
spinning our wheels, man, going round and round and round in

(39:34):
circles and whenever. And the problem is that the
biggest thing is I've said that like 17 times, but the we're
going to limit live scope. We're going to limit live scope
next year on the elite series. Probably, maybe.
I hope not, but I bet we will. And if they do, guess what?
The 5050 won't be good enough because in the 50% of events,

(39:57):
like you said, they'll be an asterisk beside the ones that
the guys win with it. They'll be an asterisk beside
the guy, the ones the guys win without it.
And for the 50% of events that we have that do allow live
scope, the people that don't want live scope, we're going to
fuss that much more in those 50%of events.
It's going to be the end of the damn world and all all 50% of
those events. And they'll be another push a

(40:18):
bit next year. The problem is, like you said
the other day, everything in thesports temporary, it all has its
place and it all ends up panningitself out.
And you know what? In two years, there's going to
be 20 more college anglers that move up into the elite series
that are freaking snipers. And that's all they want to do a
scope. And guess what?
That vote ain't going to be the same.
Yeah. Well, that it used to be 10 fish

(40:40):
limits, used to be 7 fish limits, now it's 5 fish limits.
That stuff changes. And that I've said that about
live scope from the beginning. Like, I don't think, I don't
know a lot of 20 year olds that don't like it.
So kick and scream all you want and hate it as much as you want.
And I get, dude, I get there. There's parts of it that I don't

(41:02):
like. I don't like how it's less
entertaining on live because somebody gets, it's like talking
to somebody when they're texting.
But that's also what I would sayback to the younger generation.
That's. Your job, like your shop.
It's it's if you look at the history of bass, there's been so
many big moments and, and, but the the they bass provides a

(41:27):
platform, you know what I mean? They can't make the moment.
Bigger. They.
Provide that platform you to entertain.
It's up to you to do it in that moment.
And we have we have missed that boat.
I think at, you know, at times and, and I don't mean to cut you
off, but you, you may have a very good point that at times it
is boring to watch, but you know, it's really boring to
watch to somebody that's flipping, that's not talking

(41:49):
about what they're flipping and you're looking at the back of
their head all day long. A guy that's dragging a Carolina
rig all day long, that's pretty damn boring too.
If he's not telling you what he's dragging a Carolina rig on.
You watch a guy sight fishing. That's quite possibly the most
boring thing in the world is to watch a guy sit there and sight
fish. But you know what else?
I'll flip it around the other way The other day, whenever Drew

(42:09):
Cook was about to catch that 4 pounder on day four at at
Hartwell and he was narrating every single thing about how he
was slipping in there, why he was slipping in there, what the
bass was doing. Oh, she's nosing down on it.
She's not paying no attention. I'm going to wait.
I'm going to hold it here for 30seconds before I shake it like
I'm he. Dude, I was on the edge of my
seat driving my truck. I'm like, dude, he's about to

(42:31):
catch her. He's about to win this
tournament on this fast right here.
He created that. He did his job as a professional
angler and he was doing what could have been the most boring
thing in the world to watch, buthe made it entertaining because
he did his job as a professionalangler.
You know, and the you could do the same thing with live scope,
especially with the ability to put that thing on the screen and

(42:55):
be able to show in real time exactly what I'm doing and meet
a narrate on why those fish are there and how they're reacting
to my bait and how the bait set up high in the water column
today because it's sunny and thewater's warm up there or
whatever it may be like. There's so many opportunities
for us to make this sport more entertaining than it is with or

(43:16):
without lifescope at the end of that, that that point, at that
point, if it's the professionalsobligation to do that, to do
that to the best of his ability,and it's also bass masters
obligation to give us that opportunity, which I feel like
they do, but they can. I think there's some innovative
ways on how we can even grow that even more, you know, and I,

(43:41):
I mean, I just, it's just food for thought.
But you know what? I'm.
Saying and, and I think I totally agree that there's lots
of ways they can make it better and they are working to try and
make it better. But ultimately at the end of the
day, the anglers got to feel a little bit of that.
I, I will say that the weird thing that is happening is, is
you've got a group of anglers that are very quiet and don't

(44:04):
want to show baits, don't want to play the game that
everybody's played for a long time.
And, and it, I think that technology does that to you too,
to a certain extent. Like when me and you were
talking, I pick up my phone and I start texting, we're still
talking, but I'm not focused on you.
And, and that is part of it. Like on camera, it plays out

(44:27):
rough. And I think that's hurt some of
these young anglers because theyaren't doing that part, which
makes people viewers dislike it more that that don't really
probably dislike it. I mean, they dislike it as much
as they disliked drop shot and on 2D sonar, you know, years
ago. I mean, if it's the same thing.

(44:49):
But I mean, I think every again,back to effort.
Everybody's got to put that effort in like if we really care
about growing the sport, becausehere's the truth.
I mean, every time passes for everybody and in 10 years, 20
years, it's going to look totally different for everybody,
myself, yourself, everybody, no matter what age you are, you

(45:13):
want that time to make an impact.
And, and, and there's being mad at youth is probably not the
right approach in anything. Like I mean, it's undefeated in
the history of mankind. You can, you can hate the 9 year
old that lives down your street,but guess what?
One day that 9 year old is goingto be your boss, most likely at

(45:34):
something it's. And, and you know what the the
reality is that at some point intime, youth and technology
probably combined are going to push me out of the sport.
Without a shadow of a doubt, it's an inevitable.
It's coming. It may not be until 20 years
from now. It may be 5 years from now, it
may be two years from now, but it's coming.
It's going to happen. And I'm very well aware of that.

(45:57):
I'm very well aware of it. And but I know that the only
thing I can control is the fact that I optimize my opportunities
and do the best I can in the space while I have the
opportunities in front of me, you know, and that's, that's my
working my tail off, working as hard as everyone else.
And, and, and that's just all itcomes down to.
You know, at some point in time we all reach a point in life

(46:20):
where more there's more important obligations than
spending every day on the water.Yeah.
It says you have family and other.
I mean, I don't spend as much. I've got to figure out a way to
spend more time on the water now, you know, because I'm not
having the success, success thatI once had.
It's happening to me right now because of obligations that I

(46:41):
have from a business perspective.
Now, these are all great obligations that I'm very, very
thankful for their obligations that I've worked my tail off
for. And then you throw in maybe
family on top of like, you know,someone that has kids and, and,
and a wife and all that. And I get it.
I totally do, but you can't be mad at a kid that's 21 years old

(47:02):
that fishes every day from daylight till dark and say that
it's not fair for them to have success because they work from
daylight till dark at the craft and you have other obligations.
It's not their fault, it's not the kids fault you know it's not
the younger anglers fault. I mean, it doesn't have to be
the kid. It could be the guy that retires
at 50 years old, sells his business and decides he's going

(47:24):
to fish for a living and does itevery single day and has some
success doing it. And there are some older anglers
that have embraced the technology and are very good
with it. Very.
So it's not limited to, to, to just the younger generation, but
I just don't want to see us holdthe sport back and keep it from

(47:48):
growing and, and just trying to preserve it, you know, like I
feel like at a, at an extent, we're trying to preserve the
sport and keep it as close knit as we possibly can.
Cause it's been that way for a long time.
It really has, I mean, it has you, you, we have the same guys
for a long, long time. They were always household

(48:09):
names. So if you were in charge of bass
and you were in charge of makingthis decision, what would you
do? Dude, I, I wouldn't want to be
Chase Anderson in a situation like it's not, you know, I mean,
like it's not an easy decision now because you've got a certain

(48:30):
percentage of anglers that, you know, have voiced their opinion
and you don't want to just say we don't care because they do
care. I truly believe that they do
care a lot. I mean, look at all the changes
that have been made the last 12 months.

(48:51):
Like they're trying, they're listening.
They're listening to it. I mean, they're, they're making.
I mean, MLF wasn't doing that. Well, you look at just the
changes in in the lie detector protocol, the amount of more
money they're spending doing that bigger, you know, more lie
detector tests, more stringent truth verification tests, and

(49:14):
guess what they're getting? Roasted over it by the anglers.
Yeah, yeah, they they're doing exactly.
And the anglers asked. For it and.
They asked for it and now they're getting roasted over it
like MLF didn't do that. Boy.
Hey, I boy said this the way it's going to be boys and girls
and they're doing what they wantthem and they're cutting the

(49:35):
field and they're doing this, they're doing that and they're
but they're doing what they haveto do to make the business work.
Aveco not only makes incredible outdoor clothing, but they care
about anglers. With their 10% pledge, Aveco and
the Shed family donate at least 10% of the company's profits to
conservation and making fishing better.
Now back to the show. And that doesn't always benefit

(50:00):
everybody, but, and that's the, you know, that's the, that's
the, that's the evil truth aboutthis deal.
There's 100 and what 101 guy? How many guys are in the Elite
series now? 102. 102, that's 100 and two
different businesses. Yeah. 102 different people

(50:20):
trying to run their own personalbusiness and what's good for me
probably getting good for the guy sitting beside me.
So we're all voting on all thesedecisions to be made, and you
can't blame a guy for voting forwhat's best for him and his own
personal business. But just cuz somebody's voting
for what's best for their personal business doesn't mean

(50:41):
it's best for Bassmaster and doesn't mean it's best for the
sport of bass fishing. And don't if all the NFL players
got together and all voted like we talked about the other day,
that's a very good analogy. You think NFL players want to
play on Christmas Day? Nope.
You think they want to play on Thanksgiving, You think they

(51:01):
want to play on Mondays and Thursdays and all?
No, probably not. But the NFL looked through the
situation, said, look boys, we're going to pay y'all a lot
of money and we're going to market this right and it's going
to be good for the whole damn NFL.
So you're going to play on Christmas Day.
And guess what? They probably some guys ain't
real happy about it. But it's just it's business

(51:24):
decisions, you know, and and it's no different than this
situation we're in right now. Like, yeah, we can.
So let's just say. So you asked me the question.
You asked me if I'm Tracy Anderson, what do I do?
OK, so I'm not Tracy Anderson. Obviously I don't know what he's
going to do. But I can say this.
Let's say we decide to listen tothe anglers.
Let's say we make it 5050 next year.

(51:46):
Well, then Garmin and Lawrence pull out money.
All of a sudden, there's less money in the pot.
So that all now all of a sudden the payouts are less.
How much uproar is that going tomake?
And then we still have the asterisk beside those events,
that one way or the other, oh, if it was live scope, he
wouldn't have won if it wasn't live scope, blah, blah, blah.

(52:07):
So it still creates a mess, man.It's a mess.
It's a mess. Now.
MLF does what they do and it's unique, right?
Because they have officials in every boat, they have different
periods. It's just a totally different
structure and it's very unique to, to the and it's helping
them. It's it's, they're being
successful with it. But we can't do that.
And we shouldn't try to do the same thing they're doing.

(52:28):
And we shouldn't and we should do our own thing.
MPFL fell in a really good spot with no live scope.
They were in a position where they didn't have any electronic
sponsorships anyways. Like they weren't getting no
money from Garmin, they weren't getting any money from from
Lawrence. It didn't hurt them financially
to limit technology in their events.

(52:51):
It actually gave them a unique, it gave them a unique niche in
the marketplace and gave them a spot.
It gave them a place. So this is where we can go and
have a raw old school tournament.
We can embrace it and I think it's great.
I do. I think it's great.
I think it's awesome for those guys.
I mean, I think it's good that they can go over there and
compete and not have to worry about it.

(53:12):
And it's so, it's so funny to see guys go over there and have
the success that they're having.And these are guys that I, I, I
love and adore. Like they're awesome anglers.
I freaking love them. But it's so cool to like, it's
interesting to see them go have the success they're having in an
event where Alaska's not allowed, but the then being in
an event where Alaska's not evenreally a factor and they still

(53:35):
don't do well. And I'm like, man, like it's
that just shows how mental this sport is, you know, And it it
it's just, it's wild. It's just crazy to see that, you
know, like the Sabine River, I think threw a little bit of a
message out there, right, Because live scope definitely
was a factor. But let's just say it was a what

(53:56):
what percent factor? You watch the whole thing.
What percent factor was live scope in that event?
Not a big one. I mean, it it played, it did it
definitely. I think it played more than it
looked like it played. I mean, but I, I don't know
percentage wise. 10%. 10 percent, 15% tops.

(54:21):
You know, like, yeah, you're right there.
How many guys were in the top ten that we you would consider
scopers that weren't scoping? Lots, yeah.
If you look at the top 25, it was a lot, lot of that.
Like that actually weren't really scoping.
Like they were actually like fishing.
Yeah. That just throws a weird kink in

(54:44):
the whole thing, you know? I think the mental side of it is
the biggest, like you said, BillLowen, look at him.
I mean, he self admittedly last year got wound up in the the got
to get rid of band band live scope and you know, was real

(55:04):
down and literally spent the offseason saying, Hey, I'm going
to fish the way I got a fish. Like when I can fish my way, but
when I need to do that, I'm proficient in doing that.
And he isn't missed a cut this entire year.
I mean it's literally you look went from his worst season in in
his elite series history and he's been there since day number

(55:25):
one since the elite series started 2 not missing the cut
and literally the only thing he says he changed was his head and
the and the way he's thinking. His attitude, that's awesome.
Like how awesome is that? Like that to me, that's it's
just doing what you got to do tostay relevant and like to, to,

(55:46):
to survive. And dude, life, just life, man.
It don't matter. Like everything, the way we sell
real estate today is different than the way we sell real estate
five years ago. So I remember my mom was a
salesperson. I remember, you know, growing up
and her talking about these new sales people coming into her
company that that knew how to use computers and like she was

(56:09):
never going to do that. And she was the last generation
of people that were like that got by.
And, you know, she was a good enough salesperson that people
kind of cleaned up some of her stuff over the years.
You know what I mean? Where they would do the computer
stuff. But now you can't get a job
without using the computer. You can't be a good enough
salesperson and that, I mean, ifthe trend continues in fishing

(56:33):
that it did in everything in life, in photography.
I mean, there was a group of people who shot with Phillip and
decided digital cameras. That's not real photography.
It's not what I do. Well, guess what?
They're not doing it anymore. You know what I mean?
Now it's dominated by that. So that's not an opinion.
That's just facts on how the world has worked in every

(56:55):
business, not just bass fishing.I do think that we've probably
learned as an industry like we don't maybe need to exploit
everything in the future that that's, that's possible.
Like, you know, like, for example, we don't need to have

(57:16):
six graphs, 7 graphs on every boat.
We don't necessarily need to have transitioners pointing off
every corner of it. OK.
And I may get reprimanded about that a little bit from from
companies that I work with because guess what?
Bass Pro Shops, they sell live, they sell live sonars and they
sell grass. So the more people that we want

(57:37):
to put on boats, the better for Bass Pro Shops and the better
for Garmin, the better for Lawrence, the better for
Hummingbird and all that. But whatever.
I think we realize, man, like wekind of got to keep this in a
realistic, you know, like in a like we got to keep this
somewhat realistic, like we can't get stupid with it, right.
So I think that's been done likewe've done that.

(57:57):
I think it kind of checked the rains a little bit.
That doesn't mean that somethingelse won't come down, you know,
the pipe at some point in time, inevitably it probably will.
But I think he at least checked the rains a little bit to say,
hey, look, you know, but I just don't think that limiting it in

(58:17):
our space because now one of theother organizations have done in
the place that they're in. I just don't think it's the
right move. I don't think it's going to
solve the problems that we feel like we have.
I think it's going to create just as many problems as it
actually they it's going to it'sgoing to help a couple guys ego
and then it's going to like create another problem here and
it's going to create another problem here, create another

(58:39):
problem there. And I just don't think it's the
right direction to go. And I just hate to see us
spinning our wheels as an industry and not moving in the
right direction. And I quote me on this, I
promise to you if they limit it or they ban it, they'll be just
as much commotion about something else next year and
we'll just be kicking the can down the road.
And and so like, what's the solution?

(59:01):
Like, what are we? Somebody in this industry has to
take the reins. And I mean that from an
organization standpoint, like I hope it's Chase Anderson and I
hope it's Bassmaster and I just because selfishly, that's where
I'm at. But there is so much potential

(59:23):
out there in the outdoor industry for this sport to grow,
especially with how much youth wants to be involved in it right
now. Last weekend at Sam Rayburn
Memorial Day weekend, I tried taking family out on Sunday to
hit the shad's pond. Dude, you couldn't freaking find
a bank with hay, grass to get onwithout three boats on it.
It was unreal how many people were fishing out there.

(59:46):
The fishing industry is not dead.
It's just diluted and spread outright now.
There's a lot of controversy in it.
That's it. But people are still fishing and
fishing a lot, you know? So I just hope and pray that
somebody in this, like in this industry takes control of the
situation with with with the correct vision, in the right
mindset in mind and is able to bring this thing to the next

(01:00:07):
level. You know, because if we keep
doing what we're doing right nowwith this, the way we're doing
it, like you think these giant non endemic companies are
looking at this situation and going, that was like something I
want to put my name on. No, that's, I mean, if you're

(01:00:28):
the dude looking at getting intopro fishing and you Google it,
the first thing you come up withweights and walleye and the next
thing you come up with is the controversy over Ford facing
sonar. And what I mean it's.
You. Think the last thing you want to
do is be part of that. You think I don't know Coca-Cola
cares whether not we use Ford facing sonar or not?

(01:00:53):
I would assume not no do. You think they care about having
youth involvement in the sport? I would assume yes, very much,
yeah. Do you think they would like to
see a competitive like marketplace where like guys are
really working their tail off and like, there's like this
exciting turnover and like people are just earning?
I don't know. Just I've stolen some ideas out

(01:01:14):
there. I'm just thinking, I don't know.
And I maybe, dude, I maybe like just a lunatic in East Texas.
I don't know, but I just try to look at this from a ceiling, you
know, looking down, Hey, are we moving in the right direction or
are we just like kind of spinning on wheels here?

(01:01:36):
Does it concern you that I mean,just by saying this, you'll
probably deal with some blowbackfrom some people?
No, I'm speaking what I, what I,you know, and like I, I've
talked to enough people in the industry that don't they're not
emotionally attached to it be inone way or the other that are

(01:01:57):
very like, let's can, can I bring up the fact that you just
talked to Rick? Yeah, sure.
Of course. Yeah.
What did Rick say? Rick said you cannot handicap.
You cannot handicap knowledge. And he said he's learning how to
become a better angler. He's seen things like Shane

(01:02:19):
Lehue catching Frey garters, theway he's catching them and all
these different opportunities. And in his opinion, he equated
it to flipping and things like that.
He said when flipping came along, they wanted to ban it.
They said that that you were accessing fish that had never
been accessed before. You were doing it in an
unsporting manner. You know you're doing it.

(01:02:41):
What if they'd had Facebook thenI think it would have been in
the same dumpster fire. Yeah.
I think whenever Kevin was smoking everybody's tail with
side and I, I, I think that if there was Facebook in that way,

(01:03:01):
I think there'd have been a lot of people on Kentucky Lake real
mad, real mad that they're, they're, they're, they're old
school holes got exposed and allthat.
You know, and that's something else.
We, we, we didn't talk on which,you know, we're getting long
winded in this. But you know, I mean, I just for
guys to say, and I say I want tosay this to encourage people

(01:03:23):
like you have more of an opportunity right now than you
ever have before to go to Sam Rayburn and win a big event.
Because especially whenever Rayburn is good, like when
everybody wants to be at Rayburnpre spawn, you know, if you

(01:03:47):
weren't one of ten years ago, ifyou weren't one of a couple
teams, you didn't have a chance.You know, 10% is always 190% of
tournaments here always. And most of them were one off
the same couple spots. And if you weren't one of the
original guys that were entitledto fish one of those couple

(01:04:08):
spots, guess what? You didn't have a chance.
You showed up on one of those spots, man, You was you were a
hole poacher, you know, like that was you were somewhere you
weren't supposed to be. You know, I mean, I'm serious
like that. You know, Rayburn, a lot of
events have been one off the same couple places.
People would always rotate through them.

(01:04:28):
Some weekends it'd be Rambo and some weekends it'd be Albert and
Clayton, and some weekends it'd be, you know, Dickie catching
them here and there. But dude, I mean, it was a very
small group. Todd Castledine and Jason Bonds
ran it for a long time. But those guys were so dialed in
on what they were doing and theywere catching them off little
places. And if you weren't on one of
them places, you didn't have a chance.
You did. And Kent, like I said earlier,

(01:04:53):
10% of the guys always won 90% of the tournaments and they've
always won it in 5% of the water.
But now you can show up at Sam Rayburn and there are people
winning tournaments in places that ain't never been won
before. You know, the whole lake is
open. We don't have to.
So there's more anglers than ever before on the water.
There's not more water. Life ain't get no bigger.

(01:05:16):
I'm just using Raven, for example.
Their new pockets aren't showingup every day off paper, you
know, And now with the lack of grass, for whatever reasons, and
most of our fisheries, there's less habitat.
So we got more anglers, less habitat, more pressure.
Well, here at Rayburn at least, you ain't got to fight over the

(01:05:38):
same little pocket or the same little hard spot no more.
Because I can go find them on timber submerged out in the
middle of the lake or I can go find them swimming around the
dam or I can go find them swimming out on some rock down
the dam or or maybe an open water on thread Fin.
They don't get like that on Raven here a whole lot.
The big ones don't. I'm telling you some secrets,
telling you some juice, but they, the big ones don't float a

(01:06:00):
whole lot here every now and you'll catch a big one for sure.
But well, I'm going to say this.They don't float over open water
a whole lot. But the point being is that
there's so many opportunities now to win all over this lake.
You just got to go out there andput in the effort and Ford faces
sonar gives you that opportunity.

(01:06:21):
You know, so that's why I like Isupport that because it forgives
more anglers opportunity to literally catch more fish in
different areas than ever before.
OK. And and rather than I mean, it
was the end of the world whenever so and so got into it
with so and so over your fish inmy hole, you know, yeah, blah,

(01:06:42):
blah, blah. You're on my brush pile.
You don't now. It's just you don't hear about
that no more. Not nearly as much because the
whole lake plays. And, and I'll take it even
further than that because I talked to, I talked to Corey
Rambo last weekend and he's one of local hammers here at
Rayburn, caught more 30 LB bags,anybody I know dragging a
Carolina rig. And he was like, man, I just, I

(01:07:04):
can't, he's like, I don't know where the big ones are.
And he was probably bullshittinga little bit because he's a
bullshitter, but just like any other good local fisherman.
But he's like, man, dude, I fishmy tail off all day long
catching up in over 3 1/2 lbs. He's like, dude, I drug Carolina
rig on some of the best stuff onbrim beds.
I drug around brush piles. I drug it around, you know the
best points on the lake And I didn't catch a 3 1/2 LB or why

(01:07:26):
it should be one on every one ofthem.
Dude, they just don't live therelike they used to.
They don't because of the pressure.
They've been caught off them hard spots so many times because
they're they're not secrets. No more mapping if anything has
exposed everything. Oh, mapping's huge and nobody
mentions it. Nobody.
And if you ask me on my boat, like if you said, OK, we're

(01:07:47):
going to eliminate electronics, what's the first thing that you
defend, like of your electronicsthat you want to keep?
Yeah, I honestly, I think that the first thing I defended, the
first thing I say I have to haveis mapping.
Map, Yeah, sure, 100%. So because of the maps that we
have now, thanks to Garmin and Hummingbird and all that, dude,

(01:08:09):
there ain't no secrets no more. So you thinking that you're
going to go have a hard spot to yourself out here on Rayburn for
a three or four day event? Dude, you're not, you're not,
you're not going to have it to yourself.
You're not going to win termitesoff of one spot anymore.
You're just not going to do it. And because those fish don't
live on them places like they used to, when I say live there,

(01:08:31):
I mean they don't stay there. They may go sit there, but
within two days they're going toget jerked, fuck and boat
flipped. Like it's just is what it is.
You know, there's so much pressure on the lakes and it's a
good thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing
because in order to say that that's a bad thing, you'd have
to say that there should be lesspeople fishing.
If they're less people fishing, there's less people buying

(01:08:54):
products and there's people buying products.
It's not good for any of us. So I'm like, dude, no, I want
all the people out there and I want them fish in the bank and I
want them fishing in the middle.Not just nobody talks about that
fact. Like nobody talks about the
anything positive about it otherthan, Oh my God, they're
catching all the fish in the lake.
You know, it just opens up more opportunities for more people to

(01:09:16):
be successful if they look at itfrom a positive perspective,
Just looking at a pure opportunity standpoint, it
really does. You know, if a guy shows up a
rape or he don't have to necessarily know like the best
and he can go spend enough time out there to figure out where
fish are living at that time andcatch him and be successful.
And somebody will say, well, that's not fair because I've

(01:09:37):
been fishing out here 30 years. I earned my right to to go, you
know, but did you did you own it?
Do you own that brush pile? Like do you own that hard spot
or do you own that stump? Do you own that?
Like, because if somebody else goes fishing, they're wrong for
doing that too, you know, like these are just petty things that
we've fought for years in the sport, you know, and I get it.

(01:10:00):
I'm not saying I don't. I found places on Raven before
that. I'm like, man, I hope nobody
ever shows up here. But guess what?
They do, and they're going to continue.
To do it. So I just say that to say like,
look, it's just a different perspective to think about.
Whenever you look at the opportunities that it does
present, it just opens up the entire lake for opportunities
for people to fish and they havesuccess.

(01:10:22):
So there's just that side of it.And then somebody on here at the
other point I really want to make was that somebody gonna
say, well man, them fish ain't smart enough to just not go sit
on a point because they're gonnaget caught.
Like they don't adapt like that.They're gonna say that a fish
don't think that much. Well, no, they're not out there
doing a mathematical equation intheir head saying, man, if I go
out there on Monday, I got a good chance of staying there

(01:10:45):
till Wednesday. But come Thursday, the weekend
traffic's going to hit and I'm have to get my ass back out
there in open water. No, they ain't doing that.
I'm not saying they are. But I will say this, when we
talked about this the other day,used to you could go throw an
Alabama rig anywhere and four orfive of them will swim out of
nowhere and eat that son of a gun because they had never seen
it before. And it was, it was new to them.

(01:11:07):
It was. And now you, it's just like any
other bait. The fish have adapted to it.
Same thing with a whopper popperor even a crank bait or a new
jig or a minnow for that matter.Used to be able to like 4 years
ago, I could throw a minnow at every single one of them out
there and they bought it and nowit's one in 10 they've already
adapted. So that's going to limit the

(01:11:29):
effectiveness of these new techniques quickly and it
already has. It's made it very difficult
whenever it three years ago, yeah, it was stupid because the
fish had never seen it. And now they've already adapted
to it. So fish do it that adapt, they
adapt to the pressure that we put on them and it's just their

(01:11:50):
way of surviving. And and you know, it's just,
it's just nature, just it's pretty damn cool really, if you
think about it. And they're going to continue to
adapt. We're finding new ways to catch
them. And I think that it's an
exciting, it was really excitingat Fork.
I mean, you know, so and I and Ithink you even mentioned like

(01:12:12):
now you your car. And it's funny that now we're
like looking at actually doing something about this and, and
and limiting for and now all of a sudden, like at the same time,
like people are like, whoa, wait, wait.
So now, like you're starting to hear the other side of it.
Well, the silent side's been theones that have been using it and
just been like, I don't want to now they're going to start

(01:12:32):
talking. I mean, prime example.
I mean, if we, if, if that wasn't being thrown around that
it'd be 5050 me. And you probably aren't having
this conversation because you'relike, whatever, that's what I
that's how what I whatever you don't have a, you don't have to
stand against something if it's not against you, you know, and
that's what we're, we're going to start to hear from a lot of

(01:12:55):
young guys who do like using it.And I mean, your points are very
valid about how fish adapt. I mean, and they adapt to
electronics. I mean, on the Great Lakes, we
used to be able to drop 2 fish on 2D sonar and you would catch
every single one. I mean, there was, I remember
literally not even, there were times where you could catch fish

(01:13:18):
without even standing on the front deck of your boat.
You would literally idle, see them drop it off the side and
you catch every, every single one.
And now it's. Had 30 lbs one day on Ontario
doing exactly that and never putdown the troll of motor.
I mean never put down the trailer.
It was so much fun. You just idle around.

(01:13:40):
We were both sitting there like this idling with the with the
drop shot dangling in the in thesplash wheel and it was a race
to see if you could get their drop shot down there the fastest
with a three quarter oz freakingweight.
And every time by the time the by the time you got on the back
deck, you'd hold on. There was a four and a half five
pounder on it. Yeah, well, that's changed.
They don't. They don't need, They don't get

(01:14:01):
more. They don't.
They don't do that. No, actually, they still might
do that because that's actually a little different.
I don't know. I mean, yeah, there's certain
fisheries. They don't mind the motor
though. But but when you think about it,
that's a fishery, OK? So when people say the fish
won't adapt, well, that's a fishery that gets protected a
lot of the year by Mother Nature, whether it's wind or

(01:14:22):
ice. So those fish don't even get
near the pressure that a Guttersville or any of these Sam
Rayburn, any of these bodies of water get.
And they adapted. So things will adapt.
So what I take from this is the people that have talked about
growing the sport for a while and maybe they didn't mean it

(01:14:43):
because it seems like it's growing.
Thank you. I'm I'm really glad you said
that. I didn't have to.
Say it because. That was like the message.
Like the whole time as a kid, like I remember hearing that.
That's what inspired me. I watched Jordan Lee win 2
classics and I was like, dude, Iwant to do that.
Like, and it was all about growing the sport and growing
the sport. Well, guess what?
It's growing. And all of a sudden we're like,

(01:15:05):
do we really want it to grow? And I think hell yes, we want it
to grow. And I'm just kicking and
fighting and trying to, to, to promote the growth.
Hey, that growth is going to push me at that day.
I will. I will.
Well, I mean, it's, it takes a lot of balls to say what you

(01:15:29):
what you're saying. I think we're going to hear more
of it. And I think I've been, if
nothing else, the comments on this podcast will be
entertaining because I know there's a certain percentage
that they dislike it and that's their right to dislike it.
And anybody that says anything positive for it will be looked
upon negatively by them. And I get that that's dude,

(01:15:54):
there's people who look at bass fishing as negative.
There's fly anglers that are like you guys use 50 LB braid.
It's but ultimately everyone's allowed their opinion.
But when that opinion overshadows the good, and there
is so much good right now, I mean.
And it is overshadowing it for sure.

(01:16:16):
Huge. Huge.
Overshadowing the good. I've run a Yamaha outboard for
over 30 years. It has got me home safe each and
every time. If you enjoy this podcast,
remember Yamaha supports it and they care enough about you to
make this ad read very short. You know, back to the show.
You know, it's and you take Easton's story and I think

(01:16:39):
that's the biggest 1. And I'm not saying Easton isn't
benefiting from being a classic champion, but the fact that
there was even the slightest bitof BS about that just makes me
like fighting mad. Fighting mad, you know?
So that's a great example of what you're saying.
Like just the the BS right now overshadowing some really really

(01:17:01):
really good inspirational stuff.How many college kids have
gotten scholarships in the last couple years to go get an
education from Basses? Which at one time while I work
for bass seemed like that was fantasy talk when people started
saying one day kids will get a scholarship like that was and

(01:17:25):
I'm talking while I work for bass.
So within the last 1516 years, this conversations happened
where people thought that was foolishness and now nobody
thinks that is foolishness because it's happening as much
as it's happening. The fact that nobody's making
videos about the fact that we had a 22 year old and a 20 year
old standing side by side at theSuper Bowl of bass fishing that

(01:17:48):
was televised on Fox network Foxthat day, and we're making
videos about other stuff. But in that moment.
Blows my mind away. That and the the point that I'm
driving home is that you had a 20 year old or 22 year old in
the biggest stage of the sport that have both, both earn their
right to be there, like earn their right to be there.

(01:18:10):
Loving or hating Trey McKinney works his ass off.
He's been doing it for a long time.
There's video of him fishing with Aaron Martins or whoever
way back in the day. You know, all that stuff.
The kids been working his tail off that since he was a little
kid. But you've got a 20 year old, a
22 year old standing on the biggest stage, just sport.
And the people that are trying to get live scope banned hate

(01:18:31):
that. And that's the problem I have.
It's not the technology, it's the fact that they're not
supporting those kids who have earned their spot because
they've used technology that they don't feel like it's
suitable, and that's just mind blowing to me.
You know, it's mind blowing to me.
I can't erase the feeling that Ifeel like you should grab 2

(01:18:53):
beers, smash them together and say right now.
And that's the bottom line. I.
Got a water if you want to do that one.
That's freaking Robertson's thing, dude.
I ain't taking. Wrong.
No, no, but I feel like you're you've been on a very Stone Cold
Steve Austin speech here in the last.
I mean, you've been very passionate about what you feel.
Man, I I just want to see, I want, I want to try to see the

(01:19:15):
sport grow. Man, I want to see, I want to
see more opportunities for thesehigh school and college anglers.
I want to see the I want to see Bassmaster grow.
Because if Bassmaster figures out a way to grow this sport and
take it to the next level, then it gives me a even better
platform yet to represent Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's and Nitro

(01:19:37):
Striking and Lose. Which then promotes more young
kids to want to be in this spaceto, to, to get their parents to
go buy them a boat to get their parents to go buy them tackle.
If the sport grows, it benefits Bass Pro Shops, it benefits me,
it benefits you, it benefits everybody.
Like that's where I'm at with it.

(01:19:58):
Look, I, this isn't about my personal initiative.
This isn't about creating an environment that's going to
necessarily make me have an edgeon the water.
This is about like focusing on the things in the sport that
matter to move it in the right direction so that we can all
benefit from it. And it may even be the guy
that's fishing in a John boat ina farm pond somewhere that don't

(01:20:19):
care the slightest bit. About live scope, you know, I
want that guy to enjoy fishing just as much as, you know, what
I'm doing on the Bass Master Elite series.
You know, and that's the whole thing that you don't have to,
you don't have to use live scope.
You don't have to be a professional fisherman.
You don't have to fish on the Elite series.
There's the MPFL that doesn't allow live scope.

(01:20:41):
Go fishing. You know, it doesn't mean that
necessarily. That's what the future of
Bassmaster needs to be with all of these young anglers that are
using the technology and aspiring to be there.
So that's just where I'm at, man.
There's a lot of different opportunities in this sport.
Take them, use them, maximize them.
Go fish the way you want to fish.
Enjoy the outdoors. Quit fighting over stupid, silly

(01:21:03):
crap. Quit trying to push your own
personal initiatives and shooting down the sport.
You know, like that's, that's mywhole message here, You know, go
fishing, enjoy the outdoors, Quit fighting, quit bitching.
More fishing. That's me.
Hey man, since when did the fellow Anglers become the enemy?
They're not. We got real.
There's real people who while we're arguing about this crap,

(01:21:25):
there's other people that are lot smarter and are our real
enemies that are think. Think about the fact that we're
we're we're in a country. No, no offense, Canada right
there and it's recorded. I love Coop Galat.
I'm sorry, I don't like everybody said that, but like,
man, we're we are we're on sorry, Johnson brothers.

(01:21:49):
So we're we're on a continent orthere's a there's a lot of
people in this world. Really.
I mean, I'm going to South Africa in a couple months to go
fishing that tournament over there, dude, we're bass fishing,
man, for money and calling a living and doing it for fun.
And you got a lot worse situations in the world and here

(01:22:15):
we are fighting over the right way to bass fish.
Come on, man, come on, I'm in onthat.
Yeah, that's a strong ending. Strong ending.
You're going to win 10 Killer, right?
Yeah, Zona, you know, we talked about that a while ago, Zona
said. He picked me again to win 10

(01:22:35):
Killer and I've let him down. I think I'm 5 for five for
letting him down. South 10 Killer's the one.
Dude, this podcast has some power.
I mean, I do not have any power,but this podcast we've had, I
mean, Hamner won the Classic right after being on this
podcast, Takumi won last year, Smith right after being in this
pod. There's been a bunch.

(01:22:56):
So I love it, dude. Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm about laser
focused. I'm mad at them, dude.
I'm, I'm, I'm feeling like I'm feeling rejuvenated just because
like be having such bad tournaments, like it just makes
you, you know, just forget abouteverything else and just get
back to enjoying it. And so I'm back to that point.

(01:23:16):
I'm excited about getting a 10 killer.
I'm excited about going fishing here in a couple minutes when I
got this podcast. I'm going to go try to tune up
for the next several days and we'll see you in a couple weeks
or in a week and 1/2. Yeah.
See you then. Thank you very much dude.
You bet man, Thank you. Great stuff from Dakota E Bear
and I. I'm looking forward to the
comments on this show because I'm know they are going to go in

(01:23:38):
all different directions. But the one thing that he said
that really stands out to me, and I've kind of believed it for
a long time, it's just bass fishing.
It's what we do because we love it.
So let's all get along. Other anglers are not the enemy.
And I think some of what Dakota shared, you're going to hear

(01:24:02):
more of it. I mean, it has been a quiet
group because hey, they're just enjoying using the technology.
And there's been a lot of peoplethat have been very vocal that
are against the technology. But now all of a sudden you're
going to start to hear from the other side.

(01:24:23):
And I thank Dakota for, quite frankly, reaching out to me and
being like, hey, I got some stuff I want to say and I'm
willing to say it. And he knows by saying it
there's going to be some people to push back against him.
But I also think it's pretty cool that he's standing up for

(01:24:43):
some younger anglers that maybe don't want to paint the target
on and say something. Regardless, a great
conversation, a great podcast. I thank Dakota, I thank you guys
for tuning in. Make sure to like, comment,
subscribe, do all those things that help stroke the algorithm,

(01:25:04):
whether it be on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you are
listening. I thank you for tuning in.
Keep the grow going. Have a great week, enjoy being
and as always Bob Cobb, take it away Jing.
Please like, comment and subscribe because Bob Cobb of

(01:25:25):
the Bass Masters told you to youhere.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

The Breakfast Club

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dakota Ebare "Fish The Way You Want To Fish" on MERCER-215

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

The Breakfast Club

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Dakota Ebare "Fish The Way You Want To Fish" on MERCER-215

On Purpose with Jay Shetty