When I dedicated myself to full-time professional fishing 12 years ago, the pro fishing landscape was much different. Back then, winning events in the top national tours still carried a lot of weight. Winning rendered a lot of media coverage, increased exposure and opened doors with potential sponsors. If you fished professional-level tournaments, caught bass consistently, qualified for championships, won events periodically, garnered media, promoted sponsors, worked sports shows and performed seminars, you could make a good living as a professional angler.
More than a decade later our sport has changed quite a bit. With that, there has been a major shift in the role of a professional angler. Tournament performance does not play as big of a role in a pro’s exposure portfolio as it used to. Winning still has merit, but with so many tournament winners each season, it just doesn’t have the same value in the sponsorship marketplace as it did before. Instead, some portion of the performance side of the portfolio has been replaced with the necessity to represent your “brand” in the vast world of social media and YouTube. When I say a necessity, I mean it’s mandatory.
This fact became apparent to me in 2018 when I won a Bassmaster Elite Series on Lake Travis. After the win, I waited for media requests, photo shoots and calls from new potential sponsors – and the phone didn’t ring. Some of that was because of timing. We had back-to-back tournaments and within a week of my win, there was already another winner. It seemed like the limelight of my win lasted for literally 15 minutes. By the first day of the next event, it seemed like I had never won at all. Don’t get me wrong, the money I won was nice, but I was unable to harness that win for extra exposure or to pick up a new sponsor or two.
The one call I did get from that event was a wake-up call. I took a full assessment of where the sport was in terms of promotion. It became apparent companies actually preferred promotion of an angler’s performance through self-created content. I began examining other pros’ wins at the time and realized the extra media exposure they got from their wins was actually self-generated on social media and YouTube. They created multiple postings and videos following the win, promoting boats, motors, electronics, rods, reels, line and lures. They would even create separate videos for little tricks they used to win like lure scent or special wiring harnesses for electronics – made by companies that paid them for the winning exposure. Essentially, these anglers took their tournament win into their own hands and squeezed every bit of value from it through these platforms.
At first, I felt a little conflicted about this. I thought promoting a win was the job of media and tournament organizations. I kept thinking: I didn’t become a professional bass angler to be a “YouTube influencer.” I became a professional angler to fish against the best anglers in the country and beat them in competition. Everything I did was about finding bass. I would barely take five minutes out of my practice day to eat a sandwich, much less fool around with cameras and making videos.
My how things have changed. I realized right then I needed to either get in the influencer game as a pro angler or go find something else to do. With that, I decided to become the master of my own exposure’s destiny.
In 2020 fellow Bassmaster Elite Series pro Drew Cook and I teamed up to start our own YouTube channel called The Cut Line, a docuseries where we give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at our practice and tournament days on the Elite Series. Drew and I work together to break down lakes and have open discussions about what the fish are doing and how they are changing. The viewer gets to see our process of zeroing in on productive waters. As each episode unfolds, a picture of what the fish are doing begins to develop through our fishing and conversations. And every now and then, one of us even gets a win.
When we first started the channel, I was a little skeptical. In addition to the long days that already come with the sport, making content put a lot more on our plates. In the beginning we would only get a few hundred views. I remember thinking: This just isn’t worth it. But then we started getting a couple thousand views per video. Then that turned to 10,000 views. Now some of our videos have reached the 50,000-view count with a couple pushing the 100,000-view benchmark.
Once the numbers started growing faster, I went from being skeptical about YouTube to being fascinated by the whole video-making process. I enjoy it now much more than I ever thought I would. When we read the comments and questions, it’s apparent the viewers are savvy anglers who are engaged in the content. It’s like having our own fan base that follows us on tour remotely. So I must admit, becoming a YouTuber hasn’t been so bad after all.
I am starting the 2024 Elite season without a title sponsor or a reel sponsor. Some of this is due to timing. My previous title sponsor Bagley stepped away late in the game last year. My point of this column is really to say this: If Drew and I had not put the sweat equity into building The Cut Line four years ago, I would be in a real bind right now. Each time I speak with a potential title sponsor, they don’t really care that I’m a two-time Elite Series winner and six-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier. What grabs their interest is that I’m part of YouTube docuseries that could possibly show their products at work as I make my journey across this country trying to win another Elite Series or possibly even a Classic. They want to be a part of the story as it unfolds, not after the fact, when I’m just another winner.
As a case in point, recently SPRO asked Drew and I to help them design a line of soft-plastic baits. They want our thought process on bait design documented on The Cut Line as we work on this project together. That opportunity does not come along if we were not in charge of our own exposure and promotional capacity. With that, I can honestly say social media and YouTube have opened new doors to making a living as a professional angler in the modern era.
