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I'm Brian Bashore, Professional walleye angler and owner of The Walleye Guys Guide service. I am here to reel you in with captivating stories, expert tips, and interviews with some of the biggest names in the fishing community. So, sit back, relax, and let the drag scream!
Brian Bashore (00:01.644)
Hey, welcome back folks. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Real Talk Fishing with No Limits brought to you by Seaguar High Performance Braids, Rufflin's Kennels, Clean Cut Cutting Station, and Seven Reels created by St. Croix Rides, keeping you on the water longer. Hey, we are going a little different route today, bringing in an old friend who you've seen his work. You know his talent.
but you may not know him as he is the man behind the camera on the Bassmaster Elite series and Bass opens and the Bassmaster Classic. Bringing in buddy Jake LaTondres out of Colorado. Jake has been on for like 15 years, been doing this stuff for Bass as a photographer, as a cameraman, got some stories. Just kind of touch on what it takes, what's involved with the live stream and the camera aspect of
of videography and these tournaments and what does that mean? And why aren't we doing this in a walleye world? What is this cost associated with it? The effort associated with it. It's really good insight that you all should really listen to cause I hear a lot of noise out there and wondering why the walleye world doesn't do this. Um, they couldn't pretty much tell you kind of why. And I guess between the both of us, we'll tell you why and how we, how we are transitioning and getting over to that. then as far as media goes, why you.
as anglers, especially aspiring to be pros should be doing some of this stuff as well. So good stuff, great guy. got some good stories. Um, just a plethora plethora of knowledge and experience and a history of, of how he's gotten to be where he is today. So it's a really good listen. Um, check it out, man. So stay tuned coming up right now. got Jake Latantras Media Mogul from Bassmaster.
Brian Bashore (00:02.126)
Hey folks, welcome back to another episode of Real Talk Fish. With no limits, are blessed today to be joined by one of the best, if not the best in the industry. The man is, might be known as the lucky guy, because everybody that wins a classic seems to have him in as the guy in the boat. Brings you those best top water frog bites you've ever seen.
It is Mr. Jake LaTondres from LaTondres Media. Jake is a cameraman for Bass, opens Bass Elite, Bass everything pretty much. And he's been doing this for a long time and is going to tell us a little bit of the ins and outs. And I'm sure you got loads of funny stories as well.
Jake Latendresse (00:49.13)
of stories. Funny stories, good stories, sad stories, triumphant stories, and self-destructive stories. You know how that goes in the fishing industry, I mean, pull out on day one going into a tournament with all the aspirations and confidence that you're gonna win and sometimes you come out at the bottom of the pile and it's just a, you know, it's big change in attitude and...
Brian Bashore (00:50.678)
Lots.
Brian Bashore (00:59.187)
Right, some scary, freaky stuff. Yup.
Jake Latendresse (01:18.167)
and character at that point.
Brian Bashore (01:21.454)
Yeah. When the wheels fall off the bus and we all spin out and you get to see it. got, I mean, you got a front row seat. You get to see the best of the best, you know, so you listen to her. She's got to tell us about what it is the bass world by way of, we got a lot of, obviously a lot of wall. I people listening to this stuff to kind of relate and understand how this stuff goes and why we don't do certain things in a wallet world and why, you know, bass does. Um, but we'll get into that, but a little bit more about Jake, Jake, for those who aren't aware, I mean,
I know you and Andy and then over street, which I over street retired now, I assume. Um, yeah, you got, these are, know, and James Hall from bassist, bunch of great guys, great organization, which is why it's been so successful for so long. Um, but doing what you're doing. And if you aren't following them, we'll put it down here in links. We got to follow Jay caught his Instagram stuff. Cause you get a little bit of sometimes the behind the scenes before takeoff or.
Jake Latendresse (01:55.474)
Mm-hmm. He is.
Brian Bashore (02:18.062)
Sometimes a little midday update too, sometimes I like to see or wouldn't, know, and who you're with that day in the boat too. I'm like, all right, that, all right, cool. But the announcers are always making it very clear. They're like, oh yeah, that's, that Jake's his camera guy. You know, when that really, really good shot comes through, they're like, it's Jake, it's Jake's his camera guy. But what, what's the background on you? Where'd you come from? How'd you get to where you are today doing all this?
Jake Latendresse (02:21.918)
Yeah
Jake Latendresse (02:40.707)
Yeah, so mean going all the way back to my childhood, I grew up on Kentucky Lake and have been around the fishing industry for really just fishing recreationally my entire life. And you know, you've been in the walleye world. I was actually very familiar with that because I used to fish the PWT as an amateur many, years ago. And that was really my introduction into tournament, professional tournament.
the circuit world and understanding how that all worked and really as a camera guy for bass It's very similar to being a coangler You know in the the wall I world I'm typically sitting or standing on the back of the boat While I have would have a rod in my hand in the wall. I world. I've got a camera In my hand or on my shoulder in the bass world but really I was there learning and you know understanding what was going on and
trying to, you know, gain all this information and put the puzzle together myself because first and foremost, I'm a fan of fishing, hunting, the outdoor world. And then secondly, you know, I'm a camera guy and a field producer, but that's what really got me into it in the first place was, you know, photography and just loving and having a passion for the outdoors, just like you and everyone that's trying to make a living in the outdoor industry.
Brian Bashore (04:07.488)
It ain't easy, it?
Jake Latendresse (04:09.624)
no. I would recommend what your parents tell you when you're little, go be a lawyer or a doctor or something and fish for fun. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (04:16.512)
Right. I mean, we're doing what we love. We do. mean, you take the kids out. You're in not the greatest bass fishery location out there in for calls, but you got some decent places around, but you get the boat out, you get to go fishing. The story, one of yours I love, if you could share it quick, is the north face. of what put you over the hump and got you in.
Jake Latendresse (04:28.476)
No, no.
Jake Latendresse (04:43.373)
Yeah, so for years I was rock climbing and ice climbing specifically was really my passion and you know, there was just something about ice climbing that intrigued me and growing up as an athlete, I always wanted to be a pro athlete and you know, never made that happen. So I tapped into the ice climbing world.
And it seemed like there wasn't nearly as many people ice climbing as there were playing baseball or football. So, and I had a mentor named Mark Wilford, who was a, he was a, you know, at this point, he's a hall of fame level alpinist and ice climber. And he took me under his wing way back in the mid, mid nineties and started taking me ice climbing. And as I developed and learned from him,
I started taking photos with his camera of him and he was an ambassador to different brands in the climbing world and the Alpine world, extreme adventure. So I took a series of photos of him up on an ice climb here in Colorado. And he was like, that's, you know, that's really good. We should, you know, try to get these published. And before that happened,
I decided to go on my first true Alpine adventure up in Alaska on Mount Foraker with a couple of buddies that were my climbing partners at the time. And we had spent 19 days on the mountain and got snowed in at like, I don't remember, 60 something inches of snow and two or three days and just completely demoralized. So we decided we were two thirds of the way up the mountain, decided to pack it up and just
come back another day and survive this. So we went down and it was we were crossing the Cahiltna glacier up in the up in the Denali range. Mount Hunter was in the background of yeah in the background as we were crossing the glacier to go back to the airstrip where the the the ski planes would pick us up and I just started snapping photos and when I got back to Colorado
Jake Latendresse (07:02.986)
One of my other friends who was a photojournalist in the climbing world saw some of my color slides and he said you should send some of those photos in to different magazine print publications and just see what happens. So I put I got a bunch of copies made of these different color slides maybe 10 or 12 of my favorite ones. I send them to different, excuse me, publications that I got information, mailing information from the front of the magazines.
And about six months, excuse me, about six months later, my friend Craig, the same guy came in and he slaps a North Face catalog down on, I was actually bartending at the town pump at the time. And he goes, I'm so sorry. I swallowed the wrong way. Yeah.
He slaps this North Face catalog down on the bar and he goes, do you recognize that? And my photo of that moment that we were crossing the Cahiltna Glacier with Mount Hunter in the background had made the cover of it. And my first reaction was I got angry because they didn't communicate with me. They didn't pay for it. Nothing, no, nothing. I did open the cover where the credits to the photo were and they did give me credit for it.
Brian Bashore (08:19.864)
then ask for
Jake Latendresse (08:30.026)
So I called the photo editor in California for the North Face and I got her on the phone. I was actually on a payphone at the time. This was in 1998. yeah, what exactly is a payphone? So I was talking to her and she said, before you say anything, I'm sure you're angry, but before you say... Oh my goodness. Pardon me.
Brian Bashore (08:40.563)
What are those things,
Jake Latendresse (08:58.442)
She said, before you get angry, just let me tell you that you did not include any return address, no phone number, no connectivity at all in your slide envelope. So we figured we loved your photo so much we would just print it on the cover. You would eventually see it. You'd get mad, contact us, and then we could settle up with you then. And at that time she sent me, I think it was $3,000 in this huge box full of North Face.
apparel and you know, it just really just boosted my confidence. I had no idea what I was doing. Just, you know, I had been in art my whole life so I kind of knew how to compose a photo and I got lucky with all my settings on my camera and the light was right because you couldn't, there was no Photoshop at the time. These were color slides and made the cover of the North Face catalog. It's my first publication.
and then started using that on my resume, started shooting for the Patagonia Apparel Company, and then I decided, you know, hunting and fishing was really my passion. And at that time, video, ice climbing videos, rock climbing videos, and the old, you know, Mossy Oak and Primos, and those really old beginning of time.
VHS videos were starting to become popular. So I contacted a guy named Jay Gregory a big bow hunter at the time who was in in jury marketing He was probably my favorite whitetail bow hunter in the world at the time and he was up and coming so I contacted him with a video I'd shot converting photo to motion photography, which is video and
did a bow hunt out in Nebraska on the Platte River, sent that to him and he hired me on the spot and just started, you know, elevating, elevating things from their connections and using those things on my resume. That opened some eyes because obviously the North Face and Patagonia and the Wild Outdoors were big names back then. So it gave me a, you know, wedged me into an industry. And of course, at that time, it was much easier to get into it because
Jake Latendresse (11:20.114)
there was a need for field producers in the outdoor industry. Not unlike it is today where it's so popular. Everybody's got a camera. Everybody's got access to free information on YouTube and all that. So it's much more difficult to get into now. But at that time, it was just a really just a slam dunk and a shoe in for me. So I'm very appreciative of all that.
Brian Bashore (11:29.944)
Right.
Brian Bashore (11:47.214)
And I mean, but when people don't, everybody's got a cameras, but there's so much skill involved in a, in a vision that does, I mean, people see things that are like, wow, that's really good. And they're like, oh yeah, that's all right. That's the difference between I have access and I've got one hour experience versus I got, I've been doing this for 20 or 30 years and that's what you got going for you. And it, and it all made full circle. I mean, town pump, the Platte river, whitetail stuff.
Jake Latendresse (12:11.09)
Yeah, it's...
Jake Latendresse (12:17.866)
Yeah, it's all I mean you were talking about Colorado not having very good, you know, not being a popular. I mean, it's known for rainbow trout and fly fishing world class, but bass fishing. No, not so much walleye fishing either, but we do have access to Lake McConaughey, which is a small version of Lake Oahe in Western Nebraska, which is only two and a half hours from my house. So that's mostly where I do.
you know, all of my outdoor activities, if I want to get into, you know, a deeper realm or a higher level of fishing and hunting, then I spend a lot of time in Western Nebraska.
Brian Bashore (12:57.292)
You are doing, you own that part of that place or your partners are just doing stuff over there. with the waterfowl and the whitetail stuff off the plat.
Jake Latendresse (13:05.45)
Yeah, I sold my shares. I owned 40 % of Prairie Rock Outfitters for several years. And as my kids got older, I needed to stay closer to home. I was gone all the time, guiding hunts and fishing trips and all that. So I decided to sell my shares a few years ago. And so I don't have that anymore, but I still have access to Lake McConaughey, which is a...
Brian Bashore (13:10.574)
Okay.
Jake Latendresse (13:34.186)
It's not a huge lake like the Missouri River impoundments are, but it's on the Platte River and it's the largest one we've got. It's 27 miles long when it's full and it's got world-class walleye fishing and the smallmouth bass are actually, you know, we catch five and sometimes close to six pound smallmouth in that lake now. So it's pretty, it's pretty good.
Brian Bashore (13:56.462)
wipers, you got wipers, which are fricking fun, which are fun. love them. That's what I miss about Nebraska is not getting the chasing wipers out here in South Dakota. Nebraska has them Kansas. You know, we got them all over wipers are fun, but the town pump, you're at the bar where the guy throws this thing down on your face. And here we are so many years later and you own the town pump, bar.
Jake Latendresse (13:58.494)
giant wipers yeah my goodness my goodness
Jake Latendresse (14:10.883)
They are.
Jake Latendresse (14:18.602)
Yeah Well, ironically today the town pump turns a hundred and seventeen years old on it was February the 26th the 1909 that the town pump was established as a bar. So we're celebrating our hundred and seventeenth birthday tonight and Yeah, it's just been a you know, it's really funded my my adventure activities and my bat my habits
outdoor habits for a very long time. I've owned it this coming July 1st will be 26 years that I've owned the town pump and it's just one of those special places that's lasted through the Spanish flu and all the wars and COVID and I mean all the things that you know the United States has gone through since the early 1900s the town pump has survived it so it's a survivor and I'm just lucky to be there.
Brian Bashore (15:14.474)
It is the oldest tavern in Colorado.
Jake Latendresse (15:17.222)
No, it's the oldest bar in Fort Collins. It's the seventh, the seventh oldest tavern slash saloon in the state of Colorado. And the ones that are older than the town pump are up in the Leadville, Colorado area where they were, you know, they were mining back in the mid 1800s. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (15:19.948)
In Fort Collins.
Brian Bashore (15:33.505)
Miners. Yep.
That's old. mean, I've been in it. It's not big. It is a tavern. It's a bar. We're not selling. There's no food, right? Nothing. It's we're here to drink. And Fort Collins is a college town. What college, what university is there?
Jake Latendresse (15:42.447)
It is. Colorado State University. That's where I actually got my degree in wildlife biology. I started out at UT in Knoxville and then I finished up my wildlife degree at Colorado State here in Fort Collins which is what brought me here in the first place.
Brian Bashore (15:51.918)
Okay, this car out of state.
Brian Bashore (16:09.422)
It's a really nice little town. Got a whole bunch of restaurants because I went over to the town pump to get a photo while we were eating catty corner in that little restaurant right there on the corner. I can't think of it's called, but it was good.
Jake Latendresse (16:12.35)
Mm-hmm.
Jake Latendresse (16:20.203)
Was it a pizza was it a pizza restaurant? Okay, it's Austin's probably
Brian Bashore (16:22.52)
Nope.
Austin's. Austin's. Yep. Yeah. It was good. I remember cause we had the kids, I think we were coming back from vacation and it was like June. And then the waitress were kind of done eating. Didn't know we're good. We don't need dessert. Well, she still brought over this giant Sunday type thing for my daughter. And it was good. We all ate them like, okay, thanks. You know, it was hard to not give this cute, little eight year old girl some dessert. And so the waitress has brought it. And it was, I just remember it vividly cause it was.
Jake Latendresse (16:40.522)
Hahaha.
Jake Latendresse (16:46.378)
.
Brian Bashore (16:53.794)
really really good all the food was really good but I told Tammy I was like hey I'm gonna run it I said that's Jake's place over there I don't I don't even know if it was open yet in the afternoon I'm like I just ran over and took a selfie in front of it I'm like these photos are legendary this place is legendary so very cool and happy birthday to the town pump I can imagine it's gonna be a wild one in there tonight so
Jake Latendresse (17:14.384)
Yeah, I'm guessing it's gonna be a wild one that is not uber is gonna be busy in front of the bar tonight Hopefully, yeah. Yeah Yeah, that's right
Brian Bashore (17:19.842)
That's good. That's good. It's perfect. Hopefully, And you had to step out for some stuff. Your kids are keeping you super busy. You've been traveling this the last year. Your boy's boxing, which I love boxing and watching that, that whole thing happen with them. That's pretty cool. I mean, let me just a little bit about that. Cause if y'all are, start following Jake on a social, this what his son's out there doing, the boxing is pretty damn neat.
Jake Latendresse (17:43.39)
Yeah, so boxing's been in my family lineage for my grandfather did it, my dad did it, in the Marines, I did it when I was younger. And one day, four years ago actually now, my son comes out of his room, he just watched Rocky of all things. He watched the trilogy of Rocky. And he comes out of his room and he didn't even know that I had boxed. Maybe mentioned it a few times but.
You know, it something that happened a long time ago when I was a kid. So I really didn't talk about it too much with him. And he just says, dad, can you please, can you teach me how to box? And I looked at him. said, yeah, I can. So I got, downstairs, got some mitts and I have a weight room and a workout center in my basement. So I got some gloves and I turned my phone on and started recording and I was holding the mitts up and he had this natural.
ability to move in and out and side to side with a wide stance and he was punching straight and I was like, huh, that's really interesting. And I said, would you want to take lessons? Would you want me to find you a coach? And of all places, I went to Facebook and posted this video and one of my buddies who I met in the hunting and fishing world on Lake McConaughey of all places
Responded back. I just said does anyone know of a boxing coach a good boxing coach in Colorado that I can contact for my son and my friend Scott McGuire sent me a Message back and he goes man. You should look I don't know where it is, but there's a guy that had built a Summer home on Lake McConaughey and he lives somewhere in Colorado. He was a professional boxer down in Nicaragua
and was an amateur boxer for many years and he's starting a gym and you should contact him. So he sent me his phone number, I called him and we talked about this and he goes, well, I'm only taking 14 kids and I'm only gonna take serious kids that wanna be competitive. I'm not a fitness gym, we're an actual boxing gym. And I said, I understand all that. My coach was actually the 1967,
Jake Latendresse (20:04.146)
Olympic coach Rayford Collins back in Tennessee. So I said, I'm very familiar with that. That's exactly what I'm looking for for my son. So I said, where are you located? And he sent me a pin and he was four miles from my house. And, and I was like, my goodness, this was meant to be. So I took my son down. We interviewed with him. He accepted him into his boxing program. And that was four years ago. My son has gone from that he's fighting and
Brian Bashore (20:18.638)
Perfect.
Brian Bashore (20:22.126)
Yeah.
Jake Latendresse (20:33.416)
national tournaments and the Junior National Junior Olympics, the Nationals in Lubbock, Texas. And I don't know where it's going to go or how long he's going to do it. I'm going to leave that up to him. I don't push him into it. He does it on his own and he just loves it. Last year he won a bronze medal in the National Junior Olympics. So he's pretty good at it. So, you know, we'll see where it goes and however long it lasts. It's totally up to him.
Brian Bashore (20:59.552)
But it's awesome watching him do it and it's a hell of a journey. And you know, the lessons he's learning, you know, just not boxing by life lessons, whether he, wherever it goes with it or not. mean, it's, it's pretty cool. I let UFC is the big thing and that's neat, but I've always been a big boxing fan myself as well. So.
Jake Latendresse (21:07.474)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jake Latendresse (21:17.254)
Yeah, it's. Yeah, same here and it's it like you just said, boxing to me for him is about work ethic, respect for the game, sportsmanship in the ring, you know, haven't been being able to handle a hard coach because he loves football and he wants to do something with that as well and all those things just to just the the the citizen that it makes you and.
and understanding work ethic is really what it's all about for me to my son.
Brian Bashore (21:49.452)
Yeah. And I mean, all your kids are pretty active and we got a gymnast on your hands as well. Don't you? mean, you're doing it right. Everything. Yeah. You're doing it all right. It is a, it is the toughest job there is out there, I think. So by all means, you know,
Jake Latendresse (21:54.923)
Gymnast track and field. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It means a lot to me.
Jake Latendresse (22:06.388)
He loves fishing too. He's a, I'm telling you, the kid can go to any pond in this town, which all these ponds in town are actually full of large mouth bass. And I would say they, they top out at, you know, three and a half to five pounds, but the kid can go to any pond in this town and figure out what bait to use and go find the first point or structure in a lake from the shore and catch big bass. He's just got a knack for it.
Which is great.
Brian Bashore (22:35.224)
That that's how a lot of that works. So he's got all sorts of directions he can go and you know, he's got the bet or the act, you know, and I'm sure dad's bringing home all sorts of baits at one tournament. So all of them, know, it let's get back to the bass side. How long have you been doing the cameraman thing for bass? And I think you just did a bass open last week even as well, didn't you?
Jake Latendresse (22:45.451)
yeah, all of them.
Jake Latendresse (22:54.97)
Yeah
Yeah, I did.
Jake Latendresse (23:03.988)
where am I? Sam Rayburn, Sam Rayburn Reservoir. We go to all these lakes, like I'm sure you are very familiar with. It's like you just, they just all blend together at some point. But yeah, we were at, at Sam Rayburn in Texas and that was a smash fest of giants. Before that, we were at Lake Martin in Alabama. And before that, we started the season at Lake Guntersville. And I started doing this in 2012.
So this is the beginning of my 15th season with Bassmaster. And it's been a great journey. We watched it flip from the, necessarily the old school guys like the Roland Martins and the Hank Parkers and Bill Dance and all those guys. Now, when I came in,
Brian Bashore (23:48.866)
Hank Parker, Bill Datsis, Jimmy Houston, yep.
Jake Latendresse (23:55.964)
I was still in the KVD era and Ott DeFoe and Rick Clunn was a, you know, he was a leftover legend and really kind of a history, Hackney, all those guys. And now, you know, it's really flipping into a new era and a new generation. Is the walleye world doing that with LifeScope 2? Is that that happening over there?
Brian Bashore (24:08.28)
Hackney, yep.
Brian Bashore (24:23.894)
Yeah, it's definitely changed some things and early on, and now it's starting to sick. Now that everybody's a little bit more better with live scope early on the few guys that got it. And we're just committed to it initially really have been cleaning house and are still doing really well, but it is getting a little bit more spread out just because everybody's kind of catching up going, this is it. This is what I got to do and becoming really effective on it.
Jake Latendresse (24:33.755)
Mm-hmm.
Jake Latendresse (24:45.514)
Sure.
Brian Bashore (24:51.63)
Um, and I know this season we have a lot of young guys, but there has been some new ones coming in and definitely the old adjunct in the walleye world. Same way. There used to be a lot of trolling and you just see a lot of older guys, you know, and you compare them to bass guys, not a lot of young fit people necessarily, but it's, it's, it's kind of leveled out a little bit. see very little trolling anymore and you see a lot, a lot more younger. It's still a pay to play type thing with not a funnel feeding until
Jake Latendresse (25:02.046)
Yeah.
Jake Latendresse (25:12.49)
Leveling off.
Brian Bashore (25:21.133)
What we got coming, moving forward into 2027. Um, so he's it's, and it's not cheap. So there's a lot of, know, most everybody has a job outside of it. We're not making, you're not doing nine tournaments, like a bass circuit. have four in a championship, but it may change it a few years ago where you have to qualify by points to the top four to go to the championship, which has no entry fee. Otherwise the entry fees are just a couple of thousand bucks, but it's still, it's a lot of money and time commitment where everybody has a full-time job. But now you probably have a half a dozen guys who just.
fish, you know, and do well enough to kind of get by, but it's usually there's, there's other things that help support that. Cause we're not, you don't, we don't pay 50 % of the field like bass. We got it back up to 25%, but even at 25, that bottom 10 or 15 out of that is usually a 25 to $3,500 check. So depending on how many boats.
Jake Latendresse (26:10.474)
Sure. So I got a question. Right. I got a question for you. Have you guys learned? So going back to the days when I was doing a lot more walleye fishing, you know, I remember we used to catch when we were trolling in open water in the thermocline and we would catch from time to time, we would catch a giant smallmouth here or there. And we're like, what the? We would always say, wow, you're lost. What are you doing out here? And now with LiveScope and the open water,
Brian Bashore (26:32.106)
yeah.
Jake Latendresse (26:40.432)
offshore minnow techniques that a lot of these young guys have truly refined. You know, we've learned that, I mean, they've been there all along. People just, the bass world didn't know it because everyone thought you had to go up in the dirt and throw in shallow water or around structure off points and whatever. Have you guys in the walleye world learned as much about walleyes thinking
you know more now or what you used to think wasn't necessarily true based on information that you've discovered with with LiveScope because that is absolutely true in the bass world.
Brian Bashore (27:21.037)
Yeah. mean, open water things always been there, right? In the walleye world, you would troll for them. And then, you know, this year we got three great lakes on it. I've always been a shallow water guy. think LiveScope has open eyes to some people that go shallower more than they would, you know, not. hear it from the bass guys and like, you know, the fish in Mississippi River going, I'm catching all these walleyes in three foot of water, know, throwing lizards up in the weeds. Um, but the open water thing, it's, but just watching how they, you know, their attitude and
Jake Latendresse (27:24.008)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jake Latendresse (27:35.754)
and handle.
Brian Bashore (27:50.473)
in demeanor with stuff. I think a lot of times maybe they're a lot higher in those water columns and anticipated. we started off our season this year, Lake Erie. And I mean, I've got them there four feet below the surface and 20 foot of water, know, is there kind of sunbathing in that, in that warm stuff. yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's changed it pretty drastically. And I would say everybody that's using it and getting pretty good with it is definitely learning, but I don't, it kind of seems like the walleye it's in it in the bath. I'm sure it's the same every
fishery or body water you go to is different as far as, okay, well, they did this over here. Well, now I go to this lake and now they're doing the complete opposite, but we fish a lot of, we mix in usually like two rivers and two Great Lakes. And so you have current and Great Lakes, but you really have two completely different kind of beasts. So those fish will, you know, some places are, they're going to, going to be tight to the bottom most time, depending on where you're at. Then you go another system. You're like, there's not even close to the bottom. Right. So it's just, yeah, it's very.
Jake Latendresse (28:28.495)
yeah, absolutely different. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (28:49.537)
which is good. We like it that way. It's diverse.
Jake Latendresse (28:52.202)
Yeah, and I wonder too, you know, with smallmouth, sometimes smallmouth, they'll dig in and I mean, they'll catch them with mud on their bellies, especially places like St. Clair up in Michigan, where they've learned they can't see the fish, the smallmouth that are super tight to bottom, they can't see them on live scope, but then they'll just know in, let's say, an area that they, you know, a habitat that's perfect for them.
they'll throw a big bait, either a swim bait or a jig or lots of jerk baits, whatever, over the top of it. And it'll reveal the fish that are on the bottom because they'll come up after it. And then they see them, then they'll target them with a different kind of bait after that. And so, you know, I wonder if the walleye guys have learned...
Brian Bashore (29:42.657)
Yeah.
Jake Latendresse (29:48.372)
Do you guys watch, do y'all watch Bassmaster? Do you watch Bass live? Yeah.
Brian Bashore (29:52.085)
yeah, I watch it. mean, religiously up until tournament season kicks off and guidance season, which is just a few days away. got a guide trip next week. And then it's, know, but it's still on the, you know, I'll have it playing in the truck if I'm driving somewhere. It's on, always, I'm watching it. I know most of them are as well, or at they have it, you know, if they're at work, it's playing, they're checking on it. They're going back through there. They're in tune with it. I mean, I love the bass fish. I think most of the guys, a lot of them do do some of the, Sturgeon Bay bass opens. I mean, we're.
little bit more small mouth country up here, but, we have, you know, Jason Kirk, right? His dad, Jason fishes with us. So it's, we're all, and we're all watching Jay and you know, I'm a sick Croix. So I'm watching Trey and, you know, and some of these other guys, we're all paying great attention to, but same thing. think LiveScope has showed, cause walleyes will dig down in that mud and dig up those Mayfly larva early in the year. And sometimes you can, we get really good at it because we do a lot of ice fishing. And so you're used to staring at that bottom.
Jake Latendresse (30:23.498)
All Yeah, yeah.
Brian Bashore (30:49.133)
And basically he'll just be like, the bottom's moving. So, you know, they're super tight belly. So we, our eyes were kind of trained to see that, but now you can throw that bait through there be like, okay, yep, there they are. And then they showed themselves and then like said, you may switch up baits or do whatever. So yeah, the LifeScope, it's whole new game. It's fun. I like it. People hate on it, but whatever that ain't going anywhere in the walleye world.
Jake Latendresse (30:52.872)
Right, something's there.
Jake Latendresse (31:08.458)
Yeah, do y'all have the drama? Do y'all have the drama over there that we do in the bass world?
Brian Bashore (31:15.925)
It's not as bad. we have some and there hasn't been any changes or any regular, you know, restrictions on anything yet. not to say that that may come down the road reduced, you know, the one transducer to whatever there's guys that have four or five on their boat and whatever, but our game is more of a pay to play. So, you know, but there's, we, if we fish the Mississippi river, like was it last year, think. Yeah. And it really didn't come into play.
You know, there are certain places we go where it's you have it, but it's not really coming into play this year. It's going to be on play on every tournament. So we have a Green Bay Lake area Lake Hawaii. So.
Jake Latendresse (31:53.842)
interesting. I've always wondered, yeah I've wondered a lot about that crossover between you know the angling worlds and walleye and bass fishing. So it's interesting to think about.
Brian Bashore (32:06.615)
There's.
There's been a couple circuits, I think the Minnesota tournament trail, a couple of them have created different divisions. I think the North Dakota GovCup could be a, there's a few out there that have opened up like two or three divisions. So you can compete in one or the other, or you can just be in the open, which is competing against everybody. Just because some of those are just, there's large generational gaps and then, and they're just local.
Jake Latendresse (32:16.074)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (32:34.285)
tournaments, right? They're the weekend angler type guys. Some of them aren't going to go invest the thousands of dollars in all the screens. They're like, well, I'm not even going to fish anymore because it's not, can't compete with the guys that can't. And so they don't want to exclude them, right? They want them still there to be part of it. let's, know, they give them a different division. think they just call it traditional division versus scoping division. So you guys are finding creative ways to make sure everybody can keep fishing.
Jake Latendresse (32:44.454)
Sure. You
Jake Latendresse (33:01.372)
Right. Well, I'm glad to see that it's still going because there was a time, you know, way back when during the PWT days, we know when that circuit dissolved that, you know, I was concerned that the walleye world wouldn't have the monetary foundation to continue on thinking, you know, someone's going to come across it. I mean, there's so much money in the fishing industry compared to hunting that certainly someone like
you know, who know, I didn't know at the time, but someone like Bass Pro or Cabela's was probably more geared towards the walleye world before Bass Pro bought it. And, you know, I'd often wondered if it would continue to go and I'm really glad to see that it's still, it's still a viable circuit and tournament series with the NWT and all that stuff.
Brian Bashore (33:55.307)
Yeah, the, the payouts that people will say they're not great. But if you look back over the years, they're really about the same. difference is the cost, cost of boats is doubled, right? I mean, just the cost of it, the cost of everything has gone up and the payouts have been kind of about the same. But the contingency money is where a lot of it is. If you do, you know, run this nitro Ranger, try it, you can win an extra $7,000 or whatever it may be. And they have that for all sorts of different levels, you know, and if you run a Garmin's or if you're running.
Jake Latendresse (34:17.002)
Sure.
Brian Bashore (34:26.101)
whatever electronics type stuff. There's all sorts of contingency money to make those, those purses a little, a little better, but I just did a previous podcast on was kind of breaking down the cost to travel for a year. And it was like a little over 20,000 bucks, you know, give or take a few, depending on how you do it. And if you travel with the team, uh, and stuff, and then, you know, in our payouts are based on how many anglers are in the tournament. You know, the more people, the more money and there's not really a cap, you know, the last year it was down this year's looking really good.
Jake Latendresse (34:42.25)
you
Brian Bashore (34:54.925)
Um, due to some changes I was telling you about before they made some changes where you got to fish all four this year to qualify for the 2027 series. They're going to take the top 55 ish anglers from that. So that's kind of got everybody locked in because the market was getting fragmented. There was a lot of different circuits out there. People can kind of pick and choose is a good thing. And then competition amongst them is good too. But anyway, we've seen one already had to step aside just cause they, they still, think plan on launching theirs in the future. They just weren't quite ready. And another one just.
Was all gun a hoe and had a really cool format. Um, but I just don't think they got enough people to sign up once NWT came out and released what they're doing, which kind of required people to jump in this year. And so the other ones have all backed out. So now they kind of own that market, but like I said, it was because of Cabela's took it a lot of that over years ago and Bass Pro owns 80, 90 % of it now. And, yet, and you gotta have a Johnny Morris type person in there. Cause it takes a while.
Jake Latendresse (35:52.722)
It costs a lot of money.
Brian Bashore (35:54.552)
costs a lot of money and it takes a while for these things to get profitable as well. You got to have a big investment upfront because it's, mean, bass has been around for a long time.
Jake Latendresse (36:04.106)
But I mean it costs a lot of money just to have a tournament. I mean go ask, you know the NPFL or MLF or bass or or that that that scandal the dual threat, you know, I mean just ask those guys how much it cost them and And so yeah people don't understand how much it costs and how much goes into it to organize it and
Brian Bashore (36:20.878)
dual threats
Brian Bashore (36:26.583)
Yeah, I mean you get to
Jake Latendresse (36:33.406)
to hook up with a city. With Bassmaster, our brand and shield is so big, for 50, I think it's 54 years now that it's been in existence and it was a Ray Scott vision. And he used Bob Cobb and Helen Sevier and Bill Dance and Jimmy Houston and Roland Martin, all those guys and their personalities to get it going. And it's still the same business model.
where Bassmaster, let's just take the Major League Fishing when they flipped, when all those guys left, we lost 80, it was 2000, at the end of 2018, going into 19, we lost 85 anglers from the 105 or 110 that were fishing at the time. And all the big names, KVD, all of them, know, Skeet Reese, all those guys literally.
grabbed their bags and walked out the door. We were up at St. Clair at the last event of the year when they announced it. They grabbed their checks from the last tournament and said bye. And I was left standing there going, okay, now what do we do? And what I learned from Bass and their business model was really an extension of what Ray Scott did in the very beginning. And that was, okay, don't worry about those guys. Bass helped them
become superstars through the production values and the marketing values that Bassmaster has behind it and under it. And so instead of worrying about what they were doing, we literally were told by the organization and JM Outdoors, which is the production company behind Bassmaster, to just put our heads down, continue doing what we're doing. We're going to recruit a whole new field of anglers.
into the Bassmaster Shield and we're going to turn them into superstars. And it took us two years to get from most people not knowing anyone. We had some leftovers that decided to stay loyal to the brand like Rick Clunn, Jay Yellis, Seth Fider, he stayed over, Keith Combs. There were still some big names in the Bass world that stayed with Bass through loyalty.
Jake Latendresse (38:55.306)
and they really helped us. use them as our superstars and left, you know, I say leftovers. I don't mean to diminish anyone by any means using that word. That's the only word I can come up with, but we use them to really pilot the program back into stardom. And then as people won tournaments like Brandon Cobb, who no one heard of at the time, he came from the FLW circuit. He won two back to back events. He won $200,000 and
Brian Bashore (39:03.093)
Right?
Jake Latendresse (39:24.392)
You know, that's when things really started rolling again. And by the time the third year occurred after the MLF flip, we were, we were, you know, we were killing it and still are. And so, you know, we still have the drama and we still have, you know, the complaints, the, the marketing strategies, the brand, the corporate brand versus the individual anglers, you know, it's up to them, as you know, as a, as a
walleye guy, it's up to you to produce content to satisfy sponsorships to create dollars and all the value that you can. It's not, it's really if you think you're going to go into any kind of professional fishing world and make money winning, you better rethink it really hard because especially in today's world, I don't know, what is it? What is a full rigged professional walleye boat cost now?
100. Yeah, same, same.
Brian Bashore (40:24.577)
120. It could be 100, 150, but yeah, 120.
Jake Latendresse (40:29.93)
I would say, you know, between 110 to 130,000 is probably the average cost of a fully rigged Bassmaster Elite boat. And so, you know, it's not cheap. mean, like you said, it costs you guys 20 to $25,000 to fish a five event circuit in the walleye world. And that average is out to be about the same. It costs these guys 80 to $90,000 to fish the Bassmaster Elite tour.
Not now because of the entry fees have gone away, but when there were $5,000 entry fees, was almost $100,000 just to fish the circuit. So to get the return on their investment, had to produce like, you know, KVD was good at it. They all took that business model from the same guys we've been talking about, Bill Dance, Roland Martin, Jimmy Houston, Hank Parker. They took that business model and instead of doing a TV show,
because of the YouTube platform and the digital capabilities of different social media outlets. Brandon Polanick really started the YouTube series with his show. That became really popular. He signed, you know, he signed bigger sponsorship contracts that taught other people. He had like two years of doing that where he was dominating the market. And then all of a sudden now everybody or lots more people started doing it.
Brian Bashore (41:36.877)
Mm-hmm.
Jake Latendresse (41:57.426)
And now it's not that they want to do it to make money. They have to do it because the sponsorships know what kind of revenue they can generate off of those personal platforms. And now there's people that have way more followers than the professional anglers in the bass world that don't even tournament fish that do fishing tutorials and just, you know, live streaming from their lakes and they,
showcase different brands with rods and reels and boats and blah blah blah and they're making more money than pro anglers are now so you know it's a whole new world as you know it's hard to adjust to when you're your old school coming into the new school it's a lot easier for the the young guys because they've been doing it they started they start that's where they started from so it's a it's a very challenging world now as you know
Brian Bashore (42:53.229)
Yeah. And it's, you're exactly right. The sponsors look at it, go, the tools are there for everyone. Everyone needed to do it. Now, some of you may have to hire somebody to do it, which you know, a lot of people do. And then some of you were like me, you're a hundred percent doing it on your own. I, and then I like to, but it is a challenge and that's a lot of the, I know we have Tom Bowley. was just on here in the wall. I world YouTube sensation who start out doing it on their own. Maybe they get, start to make a few bucks off it and they can hire somebody to help edit or have a.
videographer come along with them or whatever. But nonetheless, it's all work. And, like you said, now it's you have to do it. This isn't. All right. Yeah, it's not.
Jake Latendresse (43:31.198)
that's not a choice anymore. If you don't do it, you're just not gonna sign up. You're gonna have a plain boat with no decals on it because there's no sponsor dollars there.
Brian Bashore (43:41.806)
Yep. You're going to be paying your own way. in the walleye world, most everybody's going to be paying their own way. Anywhere our sponsor dollars are a little different than the bass is because we're not a billion dollar industry, even though there's, are, we're definitely lure junkies. Um, and most walleye boats will have 10 times as many lures and stuff, any bass boat. But that was from the trolling days and all the crankbaits and stuff, which are still plenty of, and we kick our ear off at Lake Erie and I guarantee you, you know, two thirds of the boats are got to be loaded with those crankbaits.
Jake Latendresse (43:51.7)
Right.
Brian Bashore (44:09.079)
You know, to, be trolling, whether they're going to be scoping or trolling or not is, you know, up to them, but it is just where it is now, whether it's in the live stream stuff. So yeah, it's, mean, you guys have moved over to the, to the live. had some pro anglers doing it on their own. Now that's all under this, you know, the bass is umbrella. And that's what, right. Apparently that's what everybody wants to see. That's the noise out there that everybody wanted to see the live footage.
Jake Latendresse (44:17.214)
Black it or not.
Jake Latendresse (44:35.466)
I think, you know, point of view started it with GoPros, you know, so, Bass requires a GoPro on every boat, especially because with the 105 anglers that we have in the circuit now, you can't get a Marshall for every boat. So everyone's on the honor code. Everyone's required to have, you know, long battery extenders or solar or some kind of, some kind of battery life that powers the camera.
for the entire duration of the day. They're required to have that in case there's something in question that, you know, they need to go back and review the video footage to see if someone's lying or cheating or stealing or whatever. And I think that in itself turned into, okay, well, I'm going to run this GoPro all day anyway. If I catch a non-pounder, I'm going to clip that out and put it on my social media because I own that property, I own the property rights to that anyway. So,
that became, you know, that evolved into, I'm gonna get two GoPros now. I mean, people like Taku Ito, man, he's got like, like I have to be careful when I go to the bathroom off the back of his boat, cause he's got so many GoPros. You gotta look around and see where, if you're not, you know, unzipping your zipper in front of a GoPro. But.
You know that and that has turned that turned into live streaming with chris zaldane logan parks was doing a really good job with it And then they started to build their following on youtube or whatever platform they were streaming on And bass caught on to that and I think that was taking some viewership from bass live to these these you know private platforms of the anglers
Brian Bashore (46:24.535)
Yeah.
Jake Latendresse (46:29.949)
And so they integrated it all and they just, made it a rule. You can't do that unless you go through us because we have all the video and you you guys signed a contract at the beginning of each year and that media contract includes any live streaming that you guys do. So instead of just completely denying them, you know, the ability to continue live streaming, they said, let's do it this way.
Brian Bashore (46:42.338)
Yep.
Jake Latendresse (46:58.748)
If you want to do that, you can do it. We'll integrate you into our live stream so that people, there'll be a link. People can go to Bassmaster.com, click on Logan Parks, Chris Zaldane, whoever's doing it. There's like probably 10 guys that are live streaming with Starlink now. You just click on their link, go through the Bassmaster platform and you can go watch that angler if you want to watch him, you know, do their thing during the day. So.
Brian Bashore (47:13.229)
Yep.
Jake Latendresse (47:25.362)
It's all an evolution. Everything's moving so fast with technology. We can't even keep up with it. I mean, I remember just a few years ago, you know, when we started live streaming Bassmaster events, we were using Verizon, USB Verizon phone cards that would plug into the broadcast cameras they were using. And the problem was they were so weak and signaling that we had blackouts all the time.
And it was just an issue, technology grew so quickly that we were able to go from having those challenging blackout days of early live streaming of Bassmaster events to now, we rarely have. We rarely have blackouts. We might get some glitches or some freezing up from time to time. But even now with drones being able to live stream, if the angler on boat camera
glitches out or freezes up, they just switch it right to the drone camera. If they're on that same boat or we have 10 cameras on the water, so they switch to another angler and it's just a, you know, it's very autonomous and it all flows and streams well enough now to where it's a legitimate program.
Brian Bashore (48:40.909)
Yeah, it, uh, the Starlink has made this all so much better and we're going to be up. don't say it to me, T the wall. guys, we don't have contracts with the organization. There is nothing. So we have a, they've made some changes in the last couple of years with third party media. have, uh, some, there's a called tour level tour level gold sponsored by, um, some other companies, but they feature four or five anglers.
Jake Latendresse (48:45.722)
So much better.
Brian Bashore (49:06.438)
it's great. do awesome productions, good deals, behind the scenes features these guys. and those guys are hammers show is pretty popular. Of course that's, know, but ours are recorded. So we have government in the boat, but there's no live. So you don't see it till months later, right? And everybody wants to know tomorrow or five minutes ago yesterday, pretty much what happened. they have, and which bash bro and Kyrgyz TV does their production and that comes out and everybody watches it. And those numbers are pretty good. they say so.
Jake Latendresse (49:20.01)
Yesterday. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (49:35.341)
That's great. We've got a few people try live, but we're not to the point where, you know, they're owning our name and likeness. We don't have those, those contracts with them yet. Uh, and some guys have tried the live, like said, it's, know, using your cell phone or whatever. Tom Wynn has done some last year. Like it just, it only works with the Starlink really. Um, but you're not going to see many of them with production back home. So what I was, people complained about it so much. We've had some other circuits try it.
Jake Latendresse (49:45.706)
.
Brian Bashore (50:03.297)
And they're just like, why can't you do this like Bass or MLF? All these big, why can't you do it? Why can't you do it? And I keep trying to just tell them, yeah, these things have been around 54 years. know, there's, it's a ton, a ton of money. Bass is like a 13 years, $16 billion industry or something like that. And while our world's a few, a few hundred million, the difference between a million and a billion is light years. It's a lot. If you were to count.
Jake Latendresse (50:07.402)
Hahaha.
Jake Latendresse (50:22.6)
ridiculous yeah
Jake Latendresse (50:29.076)
and then.
Brian Bashore (50:31.022)
It's going to take you like 35 years or something by sec. It's, a, there's a huge difference. It's not just a couple more, you know, a few more zeros. So best to your knowledge, what is, do you think the cost is? And I'm trying to clear this up for the wall. Like people listening to watch it who are complaining all the time where we're the ball is kind of doing the best they can. And David T. Vastro has made some investments moving forward. We'll see what all that he, you know, evolves into in the 2027 season. But I keep telling them this.
You can't compare these two.
Jake Latendresse (51:02.642)
I think I'll give you two opinions because I've never seen a P &L from Bass. I don't know what the costs are. I know how much it costs to send me to an event and there's 10 of us, me's, and then there's just so much into it. You you've got Mercer on stage. He gets paid to do that. He gets paid to be a talent.
as a color commentator on the show. You've got special guests that come in from, you know, KVD and Greg Hackney and guys that don't make the cut. They come in for two days on day three and day four to color for color commentary. And then you've got Tommy Sanders and we used to have Zona, Ronnie Moore, know, Davey Hite.
And there's just so much cause they have a huge studio back in Little Rock, Arkansas, where everything is produced from. there's a media truck that has a director, a co-director, editors, a sound guy. You know, this is like, it's like an ESPN production. In fact, we're basically a small ESPN that does college football or
Fox that does NFL or whatever we do we operate the same exact way it's less costly than something like that because that's such a huge production but we do everything the same way we've got a headset on when we're on the water all the camera guys do we call into a conference line we're listening to a director communicate to every single person that's involved in each production
And of course now it's live, it's not post-production, so it's much different now. And you know, I would say, God, I don't even know where to take a stab at what it would cost just to operate one event. But I would say hundreds of thousands of dollars to run one event. Like Gunnersville was our first tournament and it's not the classic, it's nothing like that. And what they do,
Jake Latendresse (53:21.77)
what Bassmaster negotiates. They don't just go on a map and go, well, let's just go here. We'll have an event here. They contact the Chamber of Commerce. They sign contracts with hotel companies. The Chamber of Commerce typically is the liaison between the city and the event. The organizers, Eric Lopez is the organizer for Bassmaster.
Brian Bashore (53:30.957)
All
Jake Latendresse (53:49.992)
He's in touch with the Chamber of Commerce. They sign a contract for X amount of dollars. They give us, I say us, they give Bass a check for coming there because we generate, I forget what the number is, but I think it's like, I think each event generates like eight or $9 million when we come to a city. So they get a return on their investment. They invest into Bassmaster to bring them back, which is why we.
you know, constantly go to a lot of the same locations year after year because these cities are queued into what their return is on their investment. So they continuously write, bring us back. They might sign a one or two or three year contract with Bass so that, you know, we, we, we continually come back to these towns to generate that revenue and small towns like, you know, Gunnersville or
Guntersville, Alabama or Ufala or even a place like La Crosse, Wisconsin, which is a fairly substantial city for Wisconsin. You know, when we show up there, it's like the freaking, you know, Barnum and Bailey circuses in town. And it's a small version of NASCAR, right? So there's a lot that goes into it. And the walleye guys, this is what this is my opinion.
Brian Bashore (55:03.318)
All right.
Jake Latendresse (55:13.566)
This is just what I've seen evolve and develop in the bass fishing world. My suggestion would be that the stop complaining or wondering why you can't produce the kinds of television shows that Bassmaster can because right now it's not gonna happen. We've just been around too long. The brand is so much larger. There are so many more bass fishermen in the world than walleye guys. It's just a bigger conglomerate.
I love walleye fish. In fact, I mean, who wouldn't rather eat a walleye than a bass, right? But at the end of the day, you know, it's up to the anglers. Invest yourselves. It doesn't take a lot. Invest yourselves in some small equipment that produces high quality streaming. Learn how to live stream it like you're doing and get out there and do that because if you do that,
Brian Bashore (55:46.209)
Right.
Jake Latendresse (56:08.098)
then your circuits are going to see what kind of platforms or what kind of traffic that you generate. And when you generate traffic, you generate eyes on the ball. When you have eyes on the ball, sponsorship dollars show up because at the end of the day, they could care less how many tournaments you win. As long as you've got eyeballs on your platform, go ask Ben Milliken how much he's produced before he came into the bass fishing world or the professional bass fishing world.
Go ask him how well he's done, you know, and why he really went back to his private platform from trying to chase down, you know, the elite series and go back through the opens to re-qualify or whatever. It's much more lucrative and way less stress to do it on your own than it is to rely on a big badge to make your living for you.
Brian Bashore (57:04.366)
Yeah, definitely. A hundred percent. And you're right. It's the, in our case, the Wallet World is going to benefit from the guys live streaming, which was exactly, was Tom Wynn and myself reached out to him in this off season. I'm sure maybe some others didn't said we want to live stream both days, not just the second day. We're not concerned about people watching and then going to your spot or seeing what it is you did. I'm like, that's up, that's between them and God and whoever else they want to choose to do that kind of stuff. We want to do it so we can.
Help grow the circuit, grow the sport, and then promote our products and our own personal brand. And then that came out with the new rules this year. They said, right on, do it, go ahead. And why exactly? said the only person that should be complaining is the person doing it. If they don't want to show what they're doing in that case, don't turn, don't just don't do it. We were both like, we don't care. You know, it's it, you know, bring it on. So.
Jake Latendresse (57:45.416)
Why wouldn't they? They would be ridiculously stupid not to, right?
Jake Latendresse (57:57.459)
Right.
Brian Bashore (58:02.445)
They said, go for it. And we had the problem where if we dropped reception, you couldn't turn it back on. And we're like, well, that doesn't, you know, because you can't be on your phone type rule. Well, now they put a media closet in there and says, if you do drop, you can access these things on your phone. know, reconnect your media. And now we're running a registration and there's some other things through an app. They're like, we want you to use this app. We want you to do this. Otherwise your phone's just for emergencies. We don't want you texting other anglers, getting information as
Jake Latendresse (58:02.77)
And I've seen this.
Jake Latendresse (58:14.154)
that.
Brian Bashore (58:32.331)
why we couldn't use it.
Jake Latendresse (58:34.474)
Do you all have like a bass track type system where you log in weights or where people can track the leaderboard?
Brian Bashore (58:40.427)
We
So we don't, but I feel as if that is coming because the app, which I think is, where'd it go? Is it Fishing Chaos? I can't remember who it is.
Jake Latendresse (58:50.058)
you
think that helps bring people in because people can follow at least a virtual leaderboard and somewhat close. People sandbag, bass track so bad, but you still get to see that you have this virtual leaderboard and you get to see who's doing well and who's not. And I really encourage all the guys that are chasing the walleye trails to do that. Do what you're doing.
Brian Bashore (59:05.446)
yeah.
Jake Latendresse (59:22.792)
It makes it more competitive and you know, wanna have that market to yourself and you will for a while, but if everyone jumps on board, it builds the industry as a whole, which is what your goal is, you might actually benefit from it. When you figure it out, you do it live yourself, you've probably got a couple of years before people start copying what you're doing because you're doing well, you've created a business model for yourself.
and it works, it absolutely works. But at the end of the day, if you guys wanna continue with your circuits and raise it to a higher level and bring more dollars into it, it's really y'all's responsibility to be able to do that. And it's sitting there, it's waiting for you to be had, I'm telling you, you know that.
Brian Bashore (01:00:13.449)
Yep. A hundred percent. Yeah. It's, it's art. Everything's it's, if you don't like the circus, you don't fish them and then they don't exist because the anglers aren't there to fund it. But if you want to make it bigger or better, fish it. And I've told us to all the wall anglers who, aren't really great at it. And I think they're getting better. might be just with the new generation coming in is promote it, promote it. Let's stop the negative noise, which I've been plenty guilty of that of myself over the years, but it's, that's, that doesn't, that doesn't help it any at all.
Jake Latendresse (01:00:20.596)
Right.
Jake Latendresse (01:00:33.556)
Yep.
Brian Bashore (01:00:41.239)
We do kids events. bring in all these kids at the end of every tournament and hand out fishing rods and t-shirts, you know, and that brings a lot of people to the weigh-in. We still have decent size, you know, turnouts for weigh-ins, but so we have to use a, it's the fishing chaos app where they, everything's running through that and registration goes through there. believe we can build a profile, but it does have a live leaderboard aspect to it, but none of the rules or nothing have said that we have to use it, but I'm assuming.
Jake Latendresse (01:01:05.61)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (01:01:09.624)
Kind of guessing that that's what we're moving to in 2027 and probably this year that if you want to, because it's one of the things in the media listing and the new rules, it says you can access this because the information will be transferred through here. Like rules or changes or conditions or, know, safety feature, whatever it may be. But since we still always have a coangular in a boat, can be like, Hey, this is open. Enter that three, four, five, eight, 10 pounder in there if you want. Now it may, maybe next year it might be, you have to do that.
But I have a feeling this year is going to be, you want to enter it in there, can is, you know, is that visible to just the people, you know, the headquarters to the term, a director, or is that going to be visible to all anglers and other anglers going to look at it? And you know, all of a you're going to have five boats on your tail because you're doing good. I don't know, but we're getting there. Right. That's all.
Jake Latendresse (01:01:57.896)
That's a whole nother. That's a whole, you know, if they can, if it's accessible, if it's visibly accessible to everyone, which BassTrack is not in Bassmaster or even the Opens or the Elites, they can't go look at BassTrack. They have, they literally cannot gain any information. And that, that rule has become even more microscopically contingent on any, as you know, you see these guys get de-cued.
and they get mad and quit or whatever it is. But, you know, rules are rules and actually, you know, the Bassmaster organization allows through the, the, professional, you know, their, their, governing body that, that, represents the professional anglers there at Bassmaster, they vote on it. They have all the anglers in the circuit before the season starts, they vote on the new rules for the next season. And they're the ones that,
create those rules and then you know when they get when they get violated or the details are violated and someone gets mad and gets DQ'd from a tournament all of a sudden that angler's angry but at the end of the day they voted on it. They're responsible for their own rules which makes the anglers happier because then you don't have the organization telling everyone what they can and can't do. Okay these are the parameters
Brian Bashore (01:03:12.397)
Mm-hmm.
Jake Latendresse (01:03:24.67)
vote A, B or C. Which one do you guys want? The majority rules, they go with option B and that's what the rules are for the next year. And it might change the next year, but that year from start to finish, that's how it is. And so, and I would say this too, all you guys that are established in the wall, I'm not talking to you Brian, cause you get it, but you know, you guys that don't understand the technology now and, or you don't,
Want to fiddle with it because it's it's a challenge for you either technologically or just time constraints or Stress or whatever it is. It's worth learning how to do now because The young guys I'm telling you the young guys right now and I'm sure you see it Brian The young guys that are up and coming into your world
are gonna take over and they're bringing the technology with them because they understand it. They know social media. They're constantly creating content for themselves. They want to take your jobs and if you don't do it, they're going to take it. We've seen it. It's happening right now at Bassmaster on the elite level. We've got this number of young guys under 25 years old are dominating the Bassmaster circuit.
Brian Bashore (01:04:30.22)
Yeah.
Jake Latendresse (01:04:46.83)
and a lot of people don't like it because they like old school and they say that's not how fishing, bass fishing is supposed to be. Well guess what? It doesn't matter what they think anymore because this is the way everything's trending and transitioning and you can complain and bitch all you want but you can't stop a snowball once it builds to a certain size and it's rolling downhill. It's just the way it is.
Brian Bashore (01:05:01.709)
That's how it is.
Brian Bashore (01:05:13.385)
Yeah. And it's, it's where we're going. And eyeballs mean money and money is what it takes to grow all these organizations to be what everybody wants it to be. You can bitch about all they want, but if there's no money to get it there, it'll never, you're just going to be complaining forever. So yeah, it's just, you just got to make it happen. And definitely a trend in the bass world. And I think everybody's going to be surprised and see a lot of young guns coming into the wall. I just know of a couple of three in that 19 to 20.
Jake Latendresse (01:05:27.952)
Zero. Zero.
Brian Bashore (01:05:41.931)
you know, one year age that are good and are proven good, but now they're going to take that next step and competing at some of the best, which they'd done on a smaller tournaments where some of those top dogs have been there and they've either been right with them or beat them, whatever the case is. So there's no doubt in my mind that these young guys coming up can compete by all means, but the walleye world is always a little bit behind trending wise with bass. just, think fishing as far as social media stuff goes, was already 10 years behind.
Jake Latendresse (01:05:56.926)
maintenance.
Jake Latendresse (01:06:04.348)
huh.
Brian Bashore (01:06:10.891)
lot of the other industries when it came out, but you and I, our feeds are full of it, but.
Jake Latendresse (01:06:14.376)
I mean, well, we, you know, we had, we had Ray Scott and at the time years ago, you know, you had the Lindner brothers and in fishermen. And I feel like they were, they were the Ray Scott's probably before Ray Scott. And they're the ones, you know, you could go back and look at the Ron Lindner and Al Lindner videos from years and years ago when they were probably even before color television came out and.
Jerry McInnis, who is what JM Outdoors stands for, or JM Associates now is Jerry McInnis. Jerry McInnis had the longest running television show in the history of television, regardless of what network you talk about. He ran his show called The Fishing Hole for 54 years. And then when he bought
when he bought, when he started Jam Associates and he got plugged into, he went up to, he was the one, he was the guy that went up to Connecticut and was in a hotel room, literally just sitting on his bed, flipping through the five channels that they had on television at the time. And he came across this local TV station.
that was all sports. There's nothing but sports. It was broadcasting and you couldn't get it anywhere else other than that local region in Connecticut. And it was called ESPN. And so he tried to figure out where ESPN was because he was laying on his bed watching this network. And he goes, I've got to go there because I think this is something we could get the fishing hole on. We could start a fishing block. You know, we could put tournaments on there and all that stuff.
And that's how the television network or the television aspect of Bassmaster really started after Ray Scott's vision of building that tournament circuit up and then creating the Bassmaster Classic, which we're about to go into here in the next couple of weeks in Knoxville. But once he built the Bassmaster Classic up after those first few and started drawing those huge crowds,
Jake Latendresse (01:08:39.176)
That's when the television really started to step in and create this monster, you know, industry that the bass fishing world has created.
Brian Bashore (01:08:49.853)
God for Jerry. It's all in everything. Everything started with one person, one vision, right? mean, that's how it all started. Ray had a vision. Al and Ron did. I mean, it's just, I don't know if we see so much of that nowadays with people. don't, people are afraid to take a risk or what it is, but.
Jake Latendresse (01:08:51.785)
Yeah.
Jake Latendresse (01:08:55.114)
Exactly.
Jake Latendresse (01:09:03.018)
I'll see you tomorrow.
Jake Latendresse (01:09:07.496)
That's what it is. You guys need someone with big money that loves the outdoors or loves walleye fishing to come in and spend money because it takes money to do that. Like this guy that's, you know, the world bass enterprises, he's a guy that sold, as I understand it, he sold some big electrical engineering company or something for hundreds of millions, if not a billion dollars.
Brian Bashore (01:09:23.915)
Yeah, yep.
Brian Bashore (01:09:37.357)
Brian Bird, I think.
Jake Latendresse (01:09:38.25)
And that's his name, Brian Byrd. And you know, he's willing to, he has an accessible amount of money and he's willing to come in and dump several million dollars into this World Bass Enterprises project. And you know, I think we're going to get involved. They're bringing in Major League Fishing anglers from one side, the top 25 in AOI there, the top 25 from Bassmaster.
Brian Bashore (01:09:41.025)
Yep. Yep.
Jake Latendresse (01:10:06.79)
A few other pre-qualifiers like Takahiro Omori just won that major league fishing event and he that qualifies him for this big, big deal that's going on in at Old Hickory Lake in Tennessee in October. I think it's at the October 28th. Yeah, October 28th through November 1st or so. For the winner, there's $3 million payout. Is it, I think it's $3 million payout overall.
Brian Bashore (01:10:23.597)
Yep. The 1.25 million to the winner and like 13 million overall or 3 million.
Jake Latendresse (01:10:36.438)
so, you know, it takes money to make money and who knows? mean, that's going to, you know, that once they figure out, if they figure out how to broadcast that on television or some sort of live streaming platform, if it draws a huge crowd and gets a lot of eyes on it, then all of a sudden you've got sponsors that are going to take a lateral step over there and say, what can we do to be a part of this? Some big company like Mercury or Ranger or whoever is going to step into that.
and they're gonna jump all over it because they see it working. And all of a sudden, you know, the seed was planted and the tree was born and all you gotta do is water it from there and it'll grow.
Brian Bashore (01:11:19.873)
Yeah, that's going to be huge. And, that guy's just doing it because he's, can, and he wants to see it. And sometimes that's kind of what it, and like you said, if it takes off and all of sudden everybody wants to jump on board and be like, well now this doesn't cost me 3 million out of my pocket. Plus we got to hope, you know, maybe it's half that or it's all covered, or maybe it's even profitable. The guy's obviously good at business and say, yeah, let's, let's do that again next year. Let's just, let's keep it rolling. And that's going to. All right. And don't tell me that's not going to.
Jake Latendresse (01:11:35.624)
Right.
Jake Latendresse (01:11:44.35)
Right. Let's see if we can get a return on it eventually. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (01:11:49.675)
drive the funnel up to more people wanting to get in to go chase these million dollar payouts. Now we're, we're talking pro level golf stuff. You know, we're the last guy on the circuit still made a million dollars, you know.
Jake Latendresse (01:11:53.65)
Alright.
Exactly.
Right, exactly. Yeah, well, it's, you know, it's an exciting time. A lot of people complain, there's so much drama, but in my opinion, and I say this on, you know, I have a little segment on Mercer's podcast, and we often talk about this, especially now, we have been for two years or two or three years now. We talk about this a lot and how, you know, you can look down on it and you can get bummed because
Brian Bashore (01:12:06.4)
It is.
Jake Latendresse (01:12:30.13)
It's not just throwing, you know, crank baits or chatter baits or flipping jigs and moss or mats or whatever now. It's changing and it's transitioning into a completely, not a completely different game, but the technology's advanced. And in my opinion, it's a really exciting time to be a part of this because this is probably the biggest.
spike in exponential growth that we've had in a really long time. So I'm grateful for it. I'm all for it. I like that Bass has done a 50-50, 50 non-forefacing sonar, 50 traditional, 50 % traditional half and half, because I think Mercer and I talked about this yesterday where the traditional guys are going to have to learn forefacing sonar better. The younger guys who know how to
fish traditionally, maybe not at a pro level, but they use that beginning knowledge to help them understand life scope better. So they mastered life scope before everyone else did. And now there's this crossover and they're learning from each other. Rick Clunn and Cody Huff are completely different generations. One's 25 or 26, Rick Clunn's 77 years old or however old he is now.
but they share information with each other. And it's fascinating to watch that dynamics. And I think that's what you're going to see in the pro bass world now is that in a 50-50 format, whoever wins AOI, which is what we all know is the most coveted trophy in the bass fishing world, aside from the classic trophy itself, is someone that learns how to do both at a very high level. And those are the guys that are going to start winning AOI two or three years from now. Those are the guys that are going to start making
big money.
Brian Bashore (01:14:26.808)
Yep. For sure. We're, we're, getting there. Our national wallet tour just made some big changes moving forward. And I think it's, it's all good. It's all positive. It's, know, the life's go stuff. We'll see where all that goes, but making it more elite. I think some of those, know, are they going to, we have this live leaderboard thing. Is it going to be visible? I imagine they'll keep it invisible to the anglers. there's just a whole bunch of unknowns, it now's the time you're right. You're exactly right. We're moving in the right direction. I think there's a lot.
more positivity going on. so much noise and negativity out there because everybody has a platform like this to, just express it and do it, which it didn't have 20 years ago. it's just whether if you want to choose and participate or listen to it. So that's really up to everybody out there.
Jake Latendresse (01:15:08.778)
Are y'all are y'all adapting it are y'all adapting into the new Japanese Bass baits into walleye right now. The reason I say this is because I'll just say this real quick. I see these guys Yeah, yeah well that you know Like a place is like the st. Lawrence River lacrosse Places where there are lots of walleyes, you know up north where we fish st. Claire
Brian Bashore (01:15:20.237)
Uhhh
Brian Bashore (01:15:24.013)
Well you spent a lot of time attacking his boat.
Jake Latendresse (01:15:38.974)
They catch walleyes, big walleyes. mean, I saw Steve Kennedy, I was in his boat on the St. Lawrence River, one tournament where we didn't actually have, it wasn't open to go out on Lake Ontario. During COVID, we couldn't go past the Canadian border. So was very limited as to where we could fish. And he caught like a nine pound walleye behind a bridge pillar in
Brian Bashore (01:16:05.476)
yeah.
Jake Latendresse (01:16:07.226)
on the St. Lawrence River with like a marabou. I mean, obviously marabou jigs have been around for a long time, but it just, and it was like five or six feet of water. You could actually see the walleye in that clear water right behind that pillar in that eddy. And he thought it was a bass at first and he cast it to it and caught it. It was a giant walleye. So I say these things thinking, you know, the application for these wild baits.
to get away from the traditions. I don't know. You guys might already be using it. Hell, y'all might've used it first. I have no idea. I'm just wondering if you've adapted some of these new wild baits into the walleye world and if they're productive.
Brian Bashore (01:16:51.649)
Yeah. I mean, we've been throwing the minnows and shaking those for eons. Most likely adapted that way first. And I'm a big Z-Man jerk shad type of guy. As far as the Japanese stuff, don't know where all these things come from. I am a big Seaguar PEX8, which is a Japanese line of, know, braid because things are so much high pressured over there. it's, so it's super thin diameter. there's just, there's a reason that those baits and
Jake Latendresse (01:16:56.424)
Yeah, yeah.
Jake Latendresse (01:17:15.188)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (01:17:19.758)
products from there work so well here because they have to fish differently over there. And now I think if you're some of these guys are, are, are having them like Tokito that people don't, don't have them because they're making such subtle changes to them, guess, that it's something new for these fish over here to see. Cause they're seeing a lot of the base, but Berkeley's come out with a plethora of Ford facing sonar base that we're using the finishers or rip fish, the also, I mean, the cradge crank baits that swim upside down and
Jake Latendresse (01:17:24.417)
Right, yep, the pressure is insane.
Jake Latendresse (01:17:45.784)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (01:17:49.559)
pause and I mean, just to get down to those walleyes that are a little deeper, right. Then a, then a small mouth or something like that may be, and they're all working, crawler rollers. mean, a jig and a crawler has been dominating, you know, the walleye Ford facing sonar circuit for quite some time. but we have early season when that may not be as prevalent in April. the plastics probably will, will shine a little bit more, but it, we walleyes anglers have a lot of baits and a lot of options. What's that?
Jake Latendresse (01:17:54.804)
Mm-hmm.
Jake Latendresse (01:18:06.758)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (01:18:18.913)
horrible tackled yonkeys.
Jake Latendresse (01:18:21.01)
Right. Yeah, I remember that about the walleye circuit. Are you guys still allowed to use live bait? You are? Yes, it's an interesting. I mean, you know, I wish I'm maybe I'll just start keeping up with it again, because I've always been fascinated with the walleye world. And, you know, when I was fishing in the PWT, I got to be really good friends with Darrell Christiansen. I still keep we still talk quite a bit. In fact, I actually wrote his
Brian Bashore (01:18:27.243)
Yep. Yep.
Jake Latendresse (01:18:49.502)
forget what you would call it. He asked me to write a small article entry into his freshwater Hall of Fame induction. And so, you know, I've kept up with Darrell. We're still really good friends. But when I was fishing, that was in the Keith Kavayas, Gary Parsons, know, Tommy Scarless days and even guy, what was his name? Ron Sealhoff. He was
He was from, he was a Lake McConaughey local and that's where he fished a lot. And so I got to know him. used to own a bait shop on Lake McConaughey and I was, I was way more into the walleye world at that time. So, you know, I, I wish you guys well, I hope I would love to see the walleye world blow up. And I do feel like this might be one of the biggest opportunities for you guys to jump on that marketing platform with
Brian Bashore (01:19:18.913)
Hold wrong, yep.
Jake Latendresse (01:19:47.956)
with live streaming and digital platforming, if everyone will jump on board, think the sky's the limit for y'all right now.
Brian Bashore (01:19:56.43)
Yeah, I think it's, it's, you're right. The door's open and it's where we're going. And I think there's going to, we're to have guys with their own camera boats falling around this year. could become kind of a problem almost with a bunch of people kind of in your way. Uh, but that'll lead the, okay. We don't have a unified spokesperson group at this point, but now when we get this field down to the 60 elites or whatever you want to call it. Then, I mean, they're taking our input. We're doing surveys and what have you, and they've made changes and it's all good. It's all moving forward.
Jake Latendresse (01:20:06.442)
Right.
Brian Bashore (01:20:26.295)
But that'll become a lot more prevalent in the growth of it. then it's then this media stuff may come into more play and there might be individual contracts with those 65 anglers on guidelines and how things can happen. So, and I hope so.
Jake Latendresse (01:20:40.638)
I think that's a good number to get y'all have to establish an elite group instead of it just being an open, a qualifying round with elite anglers. That's what Ray Scott did. He was like, and if he were alive today, Bob Cobb told me this. goes, if he were alive today, he would cut the Bassmaster Elite circuit down to 50 anglers because it puts a higher price tag on the anglers because
they're considered to be more elite and that elevates the value of that circuit more because those become the established cream of the crop in your world. And so I think, you know, 50 is a good number, 60 or 65, it's a really good number too.
Brian Bashore (01:21:26.157)
Yeah. I mean, it's helps sponsorship dollars aren't so spread thin. And like you said, this is the, this is the goal. This is what I'm trying to shoot for and achieve. want to be here and you can say I've made it, you know, once you're in that group or whatever. And that's very right. We've got to start with a smaller number, see where it goes. And if the demand, you know, the, and Bass has done that in 80, 90 and 105 and kind of maybe move that with the market. So, all right. Well, I totally take up an hour of your time. I'm well over that. It's just so much good stuff.
Jake Latendresse (01:21:30.43)
Right.
Jake Latendresse (01:21:34.927)
Exactly.
Jake Latendresse (01:21:53.13)
Well, thanks.
Brian Bashore (01:21:55.915)
So yeah, he wouldn't leave anything. And I would say I always have a guy leaving with a nugget or a pointer, but you left him with a, an absolute ton of them. So unless you can think of.
Jake Latendresse (01:22:03.74)
Do your stuff, man. You guys get to get with it and and just get on the social media wagon in the in the you know and use LiveScope as your as your ally right now because that's what's happening in the bass world. It's working. It's not going anywhere. There's way too much money invested in it. And if you guys help build the your your market, then you know, everyone is going to benefit from that. So get with it.
Brian Bashore (01:22:33.848)
Right on. Get with it. There you go. That's all you need to know folks. So, all right. Thank you, Todd and Jake for joining us and have fun at the classic as I know you will. And I'm sure whoever wins it, I'm not, if I had to get on the, whatever betting sites and say, I'm to bet Jake's the cameraman, you know, whether it's Christie, whoever's in it.
Jake Latendresse (01:22:50.122)
We'll see. We'll see. It all depends on how the top 10 fluctuate on day two and day three. We'll see.
Brian Bashore (01:23:00.819)
I mean, you've been in that, that, that seat several times and that's, there's no better place to be. can't imagine. So not.
Jake Latendresse (01:23:08.938)
It's yeah, it's I mean being a camera guy on the winning boat in the classic as far as our world goes in the fishing world, it's the pinnacle of what we do just from an experience standpoint. We don't get paid anymore to do that. We don't get any benefits from it other than the fact that we shared that moment. I was on Jason Christie's boat, you know, when he lost in 2018, a six pound lead going in the last day and then
Brian Bashore (01:23:30.071)
Yeah
Jake Latendresse (01:23:37.806)
I was with him when he won at Hartwell a few years ago. And we share that experience forever. So it's just a great feeling.
Brian Bashore (01:23:48.525)
And that's pretty cool. Very cool for sure. Alrighty. Well, thank you for listening everybody out there or watching. thanks to Jake for sharing all of this in-depth knowledge. And I hope you all take some of that back home and just do it like Nike said, right? When it comes down to it, you just, just do it folks get out there and build the content, get the live streams, get the videos. there's a lot of resources out there for people who don't know how YouTube read a book, reach out to people like you.
I'm sure everybody out there willing to help and share some knowledge. So we'll wrap it up and thank you all for tuning in. Keep those lines tight and we'll see you on the water.
Jake Latendresse (01:24:29.418)
See ya.