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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 (00:02.894)
Hey folks, thanks for tuning into another episode of Real Talk Fishing with No Limits brought to by Seaguar High Performance Braids. Seven Reels created by St. Croix and Rufflin Kennels, the clear cut cleaning station. It is almost fall and you all need to have one these cutting boards in the back of your truck. When the boat, the fish cleaning stations are closed for the winter, which usually happens October 1st up here in the South Dakota, maybe sooner in other places. You got to have one of these.
Clean those fish on your tailgate, have a bucket slick, very, very smooth. Check them out. Rufflinkendles.com. All right. Breaking down the 2026 national walleye tour schedule. A lot of opinions. You know what they all say about opinions. We all have one. What have you? I'll give you mine. lot of controversy or a lot of chatter, not necessarily controversy on the, the 2026 NWT schedule.
We'll break it down, but let's start at the beginning. I've, taken a few of the comments off some of the Facebook posts that people had out there. lot of good conversations, a lot of far out. Some people just, they don't understand. They don't understand how this goes. Who owns what who's in charge, who makes a schedule, how's the schedule get made? What goes into it? a little background on that. And we have a previous podcast with.
The tournament director from the wildlife federation, Mr. Jeff Kelm, who was also the tournament director in the MC for the national walleye tour. and Jeff kind of talks about some of that schedule making that, you know, they have to do and things that have to go into play. while they are the company that runs the tournaments and they also run a lot of tournaments. So you gotta go around their schedule. I don't know what the priority is or how that all works. That's above my pay grade. which would be any bit of pay. So.
But let's start at the beginning and educate everybody a little bit. Aren't facts. These are my opinions, the best of my knowledge. I talked to some of these people in these higher places and this is what they say. Doesn't necessarily mean that is all true, but we'll break it down the best I can give you a little bit of an idea on how this all comes about. So we'll go back to the beginning and WT is owned by Bass Pro Shops. Let's say I don't know the percentage 80 20 there hands down.
Brian Bashore (02:25.538)
Bass Pro, Cabela's, whatever we call it. Johnny Morris is the largest majority owner of the national wildlife tour. it's traded kind of some hands and stuff, think over the years, but more or less right now, we're at Johnny owns this thing. small portion, let's just call it 80 20 careco TV. Wade Middleton, Kevin and actually Kevin's last name is you've seen him around. Great dude. one of the camera man in our boats most of the time, doing this stuff.
He's a good dude. believe him and Wade are partners. A part of this Careco TV, which produces the national light tour television show that you watch either on TV or on YouTube. did just happen to notice all the older NWT, um, YouTubes are back on their back. They're back. They're loaded back up. I don't know what that means, what happened or where they disappeared. And, um, and only the last few years was on there and now they're all back on there. So that's good. So y'all want to watch those and, uh, see some of the fish and it took place some of their lakes.
They're there, they're available. So Bass Pro is the owners of it. They make the rules. They set the payouts. They set the schedule. Okay. Who at Bass Pro at this point does this stuff? I have no idea. Um, a lot of people kind of come and go through there since I talked to people there, one of those head guys has moved on. It's helpers has moved on. I think there's some new people coming in, obviously.
You know, and they're just kind of shaking the things up there to keep this trend growing. The reality is if it's not for them, there is no circuit. So you can complain and gripe and bitch about it all you want. There is no national all I do or unless Bastro and J more step up and do this stuff and make it happen. So appreciate that. make a lot of things in a tournament world and the outdoor world happen. So, you know, you don't talk about the Cabela's purchase years ago. There wouldn't be a Cabela store around.
If those guys didn't, if Johnny Morris didn't purchase them, they would all been sold off separately broken, you know, whatever they could have turned into Lord knows what, but there wouldn't be any more about us. so be glad for it because they're also still in business and making money, which means there's a lot of people going there. period. So that's kind of, that's where they're at with that. Okay. I'm told they make, they make the payouts. They're the ones. Right. And you know, the checks come from the federation, but they're, they're, they make, they're in charge until they make the rules.
Brian Bashore (04:48.704)
And they say they set the schedule. the tournament director and MC is Jeff Kelman. That is what he is. He is the MC and works for the walleye federation who is hired to manage the national wall ice tours tournaments. And that is owned by Robert college. Robert college has given Jeff the reins to be the tournament director and the MC. That's it. That's Jeff's job. Do what he's told on the director side by the rules of Bass Pro puts in place. And then by the direction of his boss.
gives him from the wallet federation and then be the MC doesn't make the schedule. He doesn't make the rules. None of that. It's tournament director job to enforce those rules to the level they can't enforce it, depending on how long at least they have. Ultimately, all of that comes back to mass pro. well, the walleye federation has been around for quite a while. I remember meeting with them, back in my Nebraska walleye association days years ago, they actually flew into Cabela's when it was just Cabela's. is five, maybe let's say,
Laura Herplersheimer from Cabela's Chris Spangler, and then Robert Carlojo flew in there, drove in from Carnegie medicine, Omaha broke down what the wallet federation was, how it was going to happen. Um, the wallet federation then created the NTC out of it. NTC may have been around prior to that, but that's when it, I don't know, they, kind of took it over and made it a big deal. Um, and then the whole qualifying through the federation to get into the NTC and all that stuff, um, was a good deal. You can pay 600 bucks for a club at the time.
You know, he's had like 12 members and you got into their umbrella insurance. Um, and it saved the organization's a lot of money. dug into the insurance. was pretty legit. It was a pretty good policy that has changed since then, by the way, if you're looking to join the federation. Um, but the wallet federation was fairly new at that time or was new, the bass federation, which had been around for a long time. So, so you're here, TWF, TBF, same company, Robert Carla Jones and both Robert Carlos also.
Purchased the Masters Walleye circuit from Cabela's and owns that that's free. So the water Federation management crew owns the Masters Walleye circuit That's not a bass Pro. Well Cabela's thing. They're a sponsor and TC They're a big sponsor big contributor big supporter owned by Robert Carlton and his company Outdoor team works. I think maybe is what they call that Yeah, so that's that so
Brian Bashore (07:13.036)
They have bass tournament schedules. have the walleye schedules. I believe they used to run, the mercury one. believe aim guys do that now. Maybe I can't remember. There's a handful of other tournaments, along with high school bass fishing, regional bass fishing, the walleye stuff, you know, just a handful of other things. So how did that come about with the whole scheduling? How so. Right. So they got to find communities.
They have a dollar amount set in mind. Used to be around 10 grand. I don't know what it is now. I have no idea. It could be way more. It could be less. It could be whatever they offer, uh, to be the host community. That's what you'd pay the national wildlife tour. They'd bring tour there a little bit more to it than just that. Obviously need some motel rooms, need this, need that. When you bring in a hundred plus anglers for a week, those communities are bringing in a half a million dollars plus. Devils Lake has done some surveys on just championships when it was not top 40. It was like 80 usually.
Um, and they were coming around with 400,000. Well, that's a smaller group. So I'm going to say you're, know, in the four to 600,000 for a community. Great deal to bring a tournament to a community. And a lot of these are smaller communities. Um, sometimes the locals don't like it because it's kind of hectic there for a week and the boat ramps are packed and catching a lot of fish, hopefully. Um, but if you own a business in those communities, you love it. Um, and we love coming there. So.
Bass pro would have a marketing sales type person in charge of that stuff. Sponsorship out there trying to find sponsorship for the NWT circuit, trying to find these communities, working with these communities, doing all this stuff, trying to put things together. Okay. You're like, well, why don't you go to this place? Why don't you go to that place? Well, sometimes they don't want you to come. Now that may not matter. You can go anyway. You can fish these waters, but it's really nice to have the support of that community. You want it. They want the money.
Obviously as a sponsor, but you want to feel welcome. want to be supported by that community. So sometimes, you know, and then the community may have a big festival going on or a big something else going on that time of year. It's not a good time to come. So please don't come in May or June, whatever we have this and this going on. You know, there's not going to be a lodging cause there's this other giant four day music festival and there's, you know, we're going to, have tons of people coming to town. It's packed.
Brian Bashore (09:35.156)
so all that kind of goes into play working with these communities, chambers, department of economic development, whatever it may be. And this should be Bass Pro setting this schedule stuff, but you also have to figure the Walleye Federation has to run these tournaments and they run all these other tournaments. Okay. So who schedule gets made first Bass Federation, all this. I have no idea, but they got to say, we have all these dates set. We have all these dates set. We have to plug and play. We got to fit in here somewhere. And then we got to find a community or a fishery.
We can go to we have May 12th through 18th available and we're already gonna be in Michigan You know to make life easier on them Is there someplace in this region that we can go do so we can go from an MWC event? A bass event and then just roll right in because I'm pretty sure once summer kind of rolls in these guys are just on the road the whole time I'm sure there's a day or two down day here that they get to go home Not our problem
Worth the wall anglers. We don't really care what your schedule is the bad stuff and we don't really care if you don't want to travel far. Not our concern. Our concern is where are we going and when we go in there. But I get it. You got to work around your schedule. It makes it possible for you to get to these things. You're not driving from, you know, Dunkirk, New York to Sakaka we had the next week then back to green Bay. Okay. It doesn't make a lot of sense for the ownership or management. should say, excuse me to do that kind of traveling there. I'll see.
Spending, you know, a lot of money and expenditures and time and it's pretty exhausting to spend an amount of time on the road. but as anglers, not our problem. we got to go there and there and there regardless. So we just don't have to do some of those things in between, except get back and go to work or whatever the case may be. So that's kind of how that works. And, know, you see them, they bring on some new sponsors.
What does that mean to the anglers? You know, we saw that last year, they brought in Wally nations. brought in Rapala. Great. Great for the circuit. Nothing to the anglers. Anglers don't didn't see any of that. We don't see any product, any lures, any money. that's going to go back to whoever brought them in. I'm sure that helps them on their backend on their operating keep, and therefore they can keep the payouts where they have it. Maybe they roll that into the championship payout this year. Cause the numbers were so bad.
Brian Bashore (11:59.023)
not charging the pros for entry fees, but we haven't seen the payout schedule for the championship because I'm. Hopefully it's the same. doubt it. need 125 boat average with those numbers are based on, and I think they averaged like 80, um, let me low eighties. So those numbers are to come down considerably. Unless Johnny steps up and, and makes up the difference, which he's had to do the last couple of years. It was pretty minor this year, not so minor. It's a pretty, pretty big deficit. Um, but we'll see.
I don't know. That's, that's their, that's their businesses, their money, it's their pocketbook. We'll let them figure it out. The anglers are qualified still for entry. They're going to go fish it. Um, I'm sure the top couple, three places are still the same within the payout shrink, you know, pretty drastically. Like you saw this year. know some guys that got like a 10th or 12th place and it was like a $3,200 check. Um, that's, that's not good, but the payout schedule set on 125 boats. We don't get 125 boats. You get a lot smaller payout. doesn't go as deep.
That kind of snowballs, you started getting smaller payouts. You get less people to attend. get less people to attend payouts. Can they get smaller and smaller and you're paying less field? I personally would love to have 152, 200 boats, more competition, more payout, a deeper field of payout at 25 % the one in four, which they made that change a year ago. So that was great. Um, but that's that. So you got the federation is in charge of receiving the entries, making sure all that's coming in and then running the tournament.
and then enforcing the rules that are written in place as is. And if there's anything that comes up, they're pretty much having to communicate with Bass Pro and see how they want to proceed.
That's what I've been told. And that's what we had seen happen over the years when anything had ever kind of risen in a sense. people that don't understand it, that's what kind of goes into it. It's pretty complex. There's a lot of stuff, not a very thankful job being a tournament director. You're the guy that's, you know, loved or hated or whatever the case is, cause you're the enforcer of things. Jeff does fine.
Brian Bashore (14:04.748)
I personally wish he had a little longer leash to do make some harder decisions himself right on the spot. not my job. That's his, so does, does what he can with it. So that's, that's it. Mass Pro owns it majority stake in the circuit, make the rules, make the payouts, determine the schedule. I believe that a very, very big influence on the schedule is the wallet federation. Obviously because they only have so many available dates with the other.
commitments they have with their other tournaments and things that they own and they're going to do. that's, I'm sure that's their priority since they're hired to run this.
They give them the dates say we got to fill in here. We would like to go to these places. They have a lot of relationships with these communities through the MWC stuffs and then NTC. I've been doing those, you know, tournaments. been going to some of these places for years. why don't we go to, let me get to this here. My opinion on schedule. I don't hate it. Not at all. way better than this year's. It's just horrible. Only fish too. Not driving to Dunkirk, not driving to here.
Great as fisheries those are at least Dunkirk here on so so I want to have fun here on can be windy that Pros the anglers got really blessed with some nice weather this year, which is great Which then makes you go dang it wish I would have went you just you never know You just got to commit to the four you're gonna go do it. I knew it immediately when schedule came out I'm not participating in it. I did have done fishing tournament has just been bad Need to stay home need to work more. Looks like a good year to take a little time off reset and
make money working instead of traveling and just as long drives. It's a lot. mean, I think it was like 90 hours on the road. you figure out the whole season and that's, know, it's a couple of weeks, you know, behind the wheel. Fortunately, gas prices haven't dropped a whole lot hotels and BRBOs Airbnb's prices haven't came down a lot. Food hasn't come down a lot. So nor probably will it ever. that's just kind of how those things work. so it's expensive to do it. thankfully I have a great team of sponsors and support staff. I'm able to do.
Brian Bashore (16:06.902)
What I can and still have one more tournament up here in Sakakuee at end of September. Issues with the schedule, more concerned or just kind of moments. Green Bay and Bay to Knock, back to back. I'm cool with Bay to Knock, always wanted to go there, got a good reason, just drove by it in July. I'm like, man, I got to go there, place is known for some big fish. Not hating it. Not liking the fact that we go right down to Green Bay, which...
Theoretically is the same fishery in a sense, if you want to drive a long ways, like we did last time there. Back to back tournaments. that's kind of consensus amongst everybody. We don't know what the rules will be for that fishery. I would like to see it and I would imagine they would do so. And if I was a host community, I would require it so that people are staying in my community instead of 90 miles somewhere else where maybe the bites better. Cause the whole purpose of being a host community is I want you to be in my
town, my community and, and go to our local establishments and eat and groceries and gas and what have you. The Bay to not could just be Michigan waters and the green Bay tournament could just be Wisconsin waters. And they're kind of split like this. And therefore you have two completely different fisheries in a sense, same body of water somewhat doing a lot of the same stuff, but you can't go from one, you can't fish one or the other or fishing both in one tournament. It's one or the other.
So I don't know. I think a lot of guys were kind of speculating that hopefully, hopefully they do that. That would make some sense. and boundaries we've been asking for him for a while. So that would kind of help create a boundary and the green Bay one usually, I think so Connell usually does have one Brown County line, and then kind of up by Washington Island, whatever. So that's that. Mo bridge in May.
Honestly, been in South Dakota. You think I'd be pretty stoked about this MoBridge tournament and I am and I think it'll be fine. it's, excuse me, least favorite one on the schedule, honestly. any other time of year, probably MoBridge or May. There's a lot of variables in there. Could be beautiful out, could be clean, could be super muddy and miserable as well. We don't, we have no idea and there's no way of knowing. So.
Brian Bashore (18:24.59)
That's just kind of way some of these tournaments are. kind of left going to the Mississippi river earlier in May because we tried that two years in a row and it was the flood stages and it wasn't good to go. So they had to rerack last minute. Um, the river is usually not, that's not an issue. Um, a spring runoff. is, is just weather and sometimes dirty muddy water. Um, but I think we'll figure it out. It's a huge, huge body of water. So I think guys will be able to just figure it out and it's been great. Big fish, right? It's a.
slot tournament, two over twenties have got to be big over twenties. I'm talking like eight plus pounds. Um, I don't know about me. You just don't really hear a lot of it out. May those fish move up to Bismarck and spawn. Um, hopefully they're, you know, they're back down, but I'm sure there's plenty of resident and local fish. Uh, we had Chad out chilling on here a while ago and we talked about may much, but we'll probably have him again before that tournament and get a little breakdown of it. So, um, definitely pays to.
beach ad or boiling for that tournament. But nonetheless, it'll be fun just as long as the weather's fair. But you know, it's close to home for me, so I'm digging that. a four hour drive. Why don't we have Minnesota water tournaments ever? Some of the questions. Why don't we ever go to Minnesota? MWC goes to Minnesota. They'll be going to Cass Lake soon. I think they've done some leech. You know, we did.
think our last one in Minnesota, we did Otter Tail, we did the championship and that was September, I think late September. So Minnesota's got some tournament rules. yeah, I don't know. There's tournaments there all year long. So clearly you can have tournaments. Most of those are catcher and photo release type things. you know, aim goes there all time. the Minnesota tournament trail is obviously in Minnesota. we were there in Lake, the woods for the championship. And I think that was actually in August years back.
Uh, it's just, there's a lot of different variables and all the kind of, it's not the same throughout the whole state is the way I understand it. know come September, you can go back to catch and release tournaments. South Dakota has that here once after September 15th, we can go back to catch and release June 1st, September 15th, it's kill tournaments. Um, but Minnesota's got just a lot of variables that allow those lakes have a three fish limit, a two fish limit for they gots everyone's kind of different. It's a little bit of a challenge.
Brian Bashore (20:45.858)
I don't know. I mean, we did that a year ago or when they kept three fish in Green Bay. And fortunately that was three fish was hard to come by. it worked out, but yeah, I still think we can go to Minnesota. Otter Tail championship was great. Championship is a 40 boat field. We don't need a hundred mile stretch of Missouri river. We don't need a Lake Erie for 40 boat field. Otter Tail was the best championship we've had to date. Small Lake.
I didn't even see the two or three boats that won it, you know, that were up there McQuade and win and whoever else and heard were on. It's not that big eight miles, but it's big enough 40 boats. didn't see some of the people. So it was nice. You're you camped your hotels or whatever, right dang near on the water. The water was low, but it was manageable. know, Minnesota's got the one rod rule. So that kind of sucks, but it was fine. And nowadays with living on the live scope, one rod.
plenty anyway. something like that is good. The rumor was going, coming back to South Dakota this year at bitter for the championship. And I see bidders on the MDBC schedule, but not the NWT schedule. So NWT is going to Lake Skakowia favorite fishery. Love it. Looking forward to it. Unfortunately, you're missing out on an opportunity to get a hundred plus boats in a regular season event. So going there for the championship is a little ridiculous. Fishing will be good.
Looking forward to it either way. You can fish probably anywhere you want to be on that lake at that time, close to launch. I'm sure it's out of garrison probably, or you can run, you know, 50, 60 miles up river and a band hook and even further if need be, but just not. It's a miss opportunity. You could have had a hundred plus boat filled.
Mindset is thinking all right, we'll get North Dakota turns out pretty good Maybe we'll get these guys to sign up for all four events so they can make the championship back home I don't think it's gonna work that way I know a lot of those guys and they would love to and they'll say they're going to when I come to do it that they're not gonna Maybe they will maybe I'll pick up a couple But it's not you're not gonna lose any out of that core, know 60 or so I mean I'm all in for next year looking forward to it That are gonna fish all those four
Brian Bashore (23:04.322)
But you want to bring in some new ones every year, some somehow some ways, you know, in so reaching new market. But nonetheless, that's where the championship is going to be. It's going to be good. It's going to be good bags. It's going to be good fishing. it just kind of a missed opportunity to get a bigger field up there on a regular season event. even there in May would be phenomenal, even though could be a long ride. If you go out of Garrison, I mean, there is other places to go out of people. but that is one of the
bigger communities. Well, it's in is on the upper end. She'll be going out of there here in September. Pretty big community. Uh, Luke's Clark State Park boat ramp, big 10 showdown goes out of there. Sign up best tournament you ever get in. Um, that's coming up in September. Jeff still taking applications. Shameless plug here. Big 10 championship. Lake Skakui September 27, 28, something like that. Uh, check it out. Sign up. A thousand dollar entry fee, $30,000 first place prize. If it fills up a hundred boats. Um,
good tournament ran great smooth great people steak and potato you know pre rules meeting dinner you know that Thursday or Friday night whatever it may be so many door prizes everybody's leaving with something just punch great people good tournament running pretty smooth pretty fast pull up while you're fishing and and out you go Carol I think Jim Jim's not fishing he's MCing it does a good job so it's awesome so
Big water for a championship. Once again, a lot of people kind of been saying, Hey, where are at? Why we keep doing this stuff. Um, but it's, it's none of these are bad waters are good fishing. So we got a, they're a green Bay this year. It should be in the time they're going, should be really good fishing. It's a big body water. You don't need to go there for 40 boats. get it. Green Bay shows out does pretty good. I think it's at a Marinette. They're a really good host community. We've had championships here before and it was good. Um, you know,
You're going to a lot of these bodies waters to get big fish, right? Making good TV, catching big fish, big weights, big bags, crowds, everything, right? Bigger is better. I'm loving it, but somewhere new would be really, really nice too. Plus you would recruit some new anglers from some of these different bodies. Big deal this year was co anglers and the lack of never an issue. You have a waiting list. It always fills up real fast. It's a waiting list. It's a waiting list. They raised the price of six 54 co angler.
Brian Bashore (25:24.59)
The last couple of tournaments, they were searching for co anglers. Once the registration process is closed, they were still short, you know, six to 10 co anglers for each tournament. they, found the people that filled the slots. However, they did that. They got them in there. So every pro had a boaters. They didn't have to turn any pros away. You not want to do that. And I don't foresee them ever doing that. There's plenty of ways around it. Cause you don't want to have to give them their money back. Right. You want the money and everybody wants those people there so that the payouts are better.
A lot of reason, lot of speculation on why the Coes, you've heard this on several podcasts, aren't signing up. You know, it's LiveScope. I get it. It is lame. If you aren't the one in control on the boat, sharp shooting. You're standing in the back, kind of doing nothing.
Brian Bashore (00:02.402)
Alrighty, we're back. We lost connection there.
Wi-Fi, camper, it's not great. anyway, lack of co anglers.
If you're jo if you're getting in these events as a coangler, 650 bucks is two days of fishing. Okay. You can't take a guide trip for two days for 650 bucks. I know I'm a guide. It's going to cost you 1200 bucks. Um, you know, it's going to cause you a thousand and 1500 bucks for a two day fishing trip with an outfit or period. Uh, obviously you gotta buy your fishing license. You got a little travel, but not a two lodging tip. Okay. You're a guest in this guy's boat. You're the other angler.
Every pro is going to treat it a little different. So we're going to be very team like get up here on the bow with me and cast when I say, you know, whatever the case may be for an Atari rich environment, like Dunkirk, New York or like here on or something like that. sharp and Mississippi river fell a little different this year. Where the calling was very involved with, you know, and if the guy's trolling, then you're definitely involved. you know, or the willow cat rigging and all that kind of stuff that was happening upon the, in, lacrosse.
Quangler is very involved in, especially considering the, the no party fishing rule. The Quangler, you know, has to catch one of these bigger fish for you to compete. So very much a team thing. fishing is a very individual sport, but in these formats where you have an amateur in the boat, you miles and embrace it. And this is your, your team for that day, even though he's on. New team tomorrow with a new pro, you still want to maximize his skill level. but understanding.
Brian Bashore (01:40.098)
You know what that person's skill level is, but be prepared for the 2026 schedule. If you're signing up, there's a pretty good chance you're going to be live scoping. Now I would say darn near every one of the pros, including myself have a shuttle and a pole mount in the back of their boat. it's tricky. You can use it and you can catch fish, but when the guy on the bow is chasing them down and zigzagging and doing whatever you're.
You're not super effective back there. unless you're at a very target rich environment, like a Lake area or something. I just don't go to, Hey, let me know if you're on one basically means you have one track in your bait and it's about to bite. So I don't, you know, floor it and punch away and pull out. Otherwise the bro's just going to do what they got to do. Ideally. I'm not a big fan of that after doing it for awhile. I rather have you on the bow. and then showing you and just alternate kind of who's casting at what, cause you're going to miss some casts and it helps.
If a guy follows follows that up right away, so it does work pretty good But every pros gonna do different may have you in the back dragging a bottom bouncer or a jig or or who knows right? It may be windy out and the guy can't scope in the high winds and you end up cranking and it's all hands on deck with that Co So but just you got to have the mindset that you're paying this 650 bucks to go and learn I'm not going with anticipation of winning you miles to take your 650 bucks go to casino and put it on
black or red or whatever and let that roulette wheel spin and you have just a good chance of winning money doing that as you do signing up hoping on it it's complete random draw who you get paired with you know and then if that boat pro is on over now basically or getting it for you so uh it's 650 education and experience that's that's what it is absorb it ask some questions
You know, maybe in the morning for you to take off, feel free to hang out afterwards and talk to your pro. Maybe not as much on the water. Some guys are talking, you know, chatties and some aren't. yeah, I'm not. And I tell you that before we go that it's pretty much head down. It's, go time. There's not the pros job to teach you all day on the water. You can book a guide trip for that 1200 New York thousand, 1500 hours and be educated. but a tournament day isn't really that time to be, you know,
Brian Bashore (04:03.95)
giving you really in-depth hands-on teaching moment. However, it's still a teaching moment and it's more of a visual from you and feel free to ask some questions. Every pro is different. You'll get the vibe, you'll feel it out and be like, yeah, this is what I'm looking at. This is why I'm here. This is why I'm looking at it or what I see and why I'm using what I'm using. Perfectly good, but really kind of look at how they're doing their scope and how they're set up, how they position their boat, which is really what that comes down to big time is your boat position.
You know before they make a cast how close they get even you can observe all these things without saying a word But not to say you can't you know fill them out feel free to ask the pro we're just Anglers and dudes and like everybody else. So hey, is it cool if I ask you these things, you know, blah blah blah What have you good to go? Yeah, you bet. No problem You don't have to ask I'm gonna tell you I might be like let's get out the questions out of way now ask me things and
Some of us are gonna get some tunnel vision on the water, but not everybody's just like that. Everybody's a little different But just get to know them. They're all all good dudes all cool guys But be prepared for that and those should be your expectations You know, they always codes are complaining about we want to hire a pal. You got a higher pal We want the boat back when the pros say we don't want them to have anything because we don't want you Vested in at that level because if you have a pro that is bending the rules You're receiving that weight
And you're more likely not to report those violations because you benefited from it because you're chasing money. Um, that's kind of our take. Somebody take, I agree with it with a lot. Uh, that's not the whole point of the code. The amateur thing is called amateur because you're, it's a stepping stone up. Some people are using it as a stepping stone. Some aren't. Is it awesome to have a higher payout or a price for you guys for contributing to new stuff? You bet. You know, and do you deserve it? You bet. Does it need to be more?
I don't know some complain about the level while we, pay this and we don't get a very small percentage back. Yep. Met's house designed. So you fund the pros and the championship. That's why it's a no entry championship. And if how they've done that over the years and had made that change and it's a great change versus it was always being a pay to play thing. Now you really got to qualify for it, which changes the strategy and method that a lot of people fish throughout the season.
Brian Bashore (06:19.086)
Some will go conservative just to make the cut, you know, when it comes down to the wire and some will just go for it all because it doesn't matter. I'm in the championship regardless because I fished three events or four events and I just got to pay another inch fee and I'm in. So it's it's a great deal, but it is a pro circuit and pro AM circuit. So the amateurs are there part of the team. I don't think that conversations are ever going to go away. You asked a lot of pros. We'd, we'd like to not have the amateurs in the boat. Um, but that's not going to happen. Some say that, I want you to just get rid of them if you're having a number.
They won't. told me they won't because it's a safety issue. We fish big waters. Well, let's stop going to big waters. Maybe. don't know. we need to have those two people in the boat. I'm like, why? So two can drown versus one, you know, or they're, if they're supposed to be a Marshall, then put them in there as a Marshall, which basically means they're the eyes on to make sure there's no funny business going on. The way it's set up is it's not set up that way. The way it's set up is the coangler is a angler in the boat. So we are a team for the day.
And we're going to do our best to incorporate you and involve you and do what we can. But there is no promises and guarantees that all of that is going to happen and going to be what you want it to be. I think a lot of guys have had some bad experiences with that since obviously the live scoping, but trust me, they've had bad experiences before that. And then some have totally embraced it and said, this is great. This is more than I expected. I learned so much. I sponged it all in. It was awesome. But that, that, that guy that says that went in with the right mindset and that's how you need to approach it.
If you're going another way, you're going to be disappointed. I'll just, I'll tell you, you know, unless you get a couple of lucky draws and you win a bunch of money, even though you just sat in the back of the boat, you're probably still going to be happy. Um, that's it. That's my little take on the Co Engler stuff. We plenty of these podcasts where we kind of talk about Co Engler's just the last one. David Landsteiner talked about his journey from being a co to a pro. Um, things have just, you know, definitely changed over that, that timeframe. Uh, but the Co Engler stuff isn't going away anytime soon. It won't be.
If ever. So we covered that same locations each year. Yes, we would love to see some new bodies of water. There's always McConahey, there's Bull Shoals, there's Stable Rock. There's all these stuff down south. There's just a lot more bodies of water like the Minnesota waters. If we, if that means we can't go till September and championship, whatever the case is, you know, I think Mississippi river is pretty well liked by everybody. Everybody loves these South Dakota, North Dakota reservoirs and doubles. mean, these are some of the best fisheries love going there.
Brian Bashore (08:46.466)
You know, going to green Bay as often as we do gets a little old. It's good fishery. a challenging fishery in a sense, but it does have some big fish and can be fun. and that's. Yes. We would love to see that change period. And the anglers have expressed their opinion on that over and over again. My take on it is you involve new communities, you get new exposure. And if you go to new.
Places you get new people that sign up and get in tournaments. Like the guy that just won Dunkirk, his first time he jumped in. He'll probably jump into more now. He had a great experience. you go to McConaughey, you're going to bring in more Nebraska guys and a whole bunch from Colorado that are going to jump in that tournament. And they might, they're going to taste for it be like, I'm going to do this again. And if I do well, I'm going to roll that money and I'm going to go to the next one and the next one and the next one. it's how you grow things in sports. we're the national walleye tour.
It doesn't feel like it's a premier league. Part of that I can tell you is by having the same organization that runs the master's walleye circuit run the national walleye tour. It's not just false. Not their fault. It's just how that worked out. And so there's relationships on those different levels, but it seems when you see the same face and a lot of the same everything, it feels the same. So you feel like it's at that level and MWC and NWT, NWC is full of great.
Man, tons of great sticks and a lot of them fish both, both circuits, considerably smaller than you pay out everything. Um, not the time it's a team thing. You know, it's good if you're just starting out, go get your feet wet over there. Uh, and they have that set up. There's a lot of different tournaments and you got to fish so many to make, you know, qualify on points. You don't have to fish all nine or whatever it is. I think you take your best three or four or whatever. Um, and the top.
30 or 40 make the championship. teaching coast federation renew con. Yeah. Okay. We covered a lot of that stuff. a couple of quotes that I got questions or replies on some, hyzer had a post out there courts had a post out there and to be T had a post out there. Kind of gave their opinions pretty much kind of the same. let me read this one. I didn't put no names on any of these things. Maybe they need to survey the.
Brian Bashore (11:08.11)
You know, the past coanglers to get feedback from the source, you know, it's a critical piece of growing the business. So I've heard this several times. They should take the English should be surveyed, blah, blah. We are. We have been used to do surveys every year. Where would you like to see a championship? What about his water? And they sent us a big survey last year on you got any gripes, body's waters, where we want to go. We haven't been, what do you want to see? Just, you know, several, 20 questions.
However, the anglers kind of feel like nobody actually reads those surveys and doesn't seem to be taking any input because we do the same stuff over and over. Is that true? I don't know. I'm sure somebody reads them. sure they break it down and maybe it's nonetheless, it's got to be in the back of their mind, but a lot of things come down to dollar signs and sometimes those don't work out.
have an opinion on a lot of that stuff. I think there's a little more effort that needs to be put in. not everybody has the same work ethic as others. And it just kind of drives me nuts because there's a lot of money left on the table and a lot of things that can be done better. However, it takes money to make money. They had some money. I'm sure that clearly still do it. wouldn't still have a circuit. know, different bodies of water.
smaller bottles of water, get more anglers, get smaller boats. We do have a minimum size boat limit and I think there's a maximum but it's still pretty small 19 foot 90 horse or something like that. Opens up more doors to anglers. Yep. Yeah, pros payouts are 79 % of the fees just in cash not including the boat value. You know and the co's are whatever I anglers only get less than 52 % of theirs.
Because their money goes to fund the entry fee championship for the pros and the payouts So that's if you didn't know that now you do that's how that works Divisions maybe you should have an east and west division PWT did this and they had this discussion a couple years ago with some of these decision makers Thought hey, that's a great idea Not gonna work though. Don't have the manpower Unless you can find a different company to manage the tournaments because these guys have the best tournaments and we're
Brian Bashore (13:15.434)
Individuities getting squeezed in right whenever they have availability or now you add four or six more tournaments You got to find you got to find tournament directors, and then you need to have the numbers turn out It would be great to have an east and west division And then you can fish all of them if you want But if you don't want to drive to the east because you live over in Dakota's or vice versa pick the ones you want Fish your three qualifying or whatever it may be and then you take the top Whatever ten out of each one of those divisions or 20 and then you have
your championship, you know, and then you take, you know, the winners qualify to or what have you, but it was discussion. It's worked a lot of other circuits and things and regions kind of, kind of do that. I think it's a manpower thing and costs. And if you break that up, do you only get 60, 80 boats in a, in a field? So maybe you have those and it's cheaper because you can stay closer, but I would expect considerably lower payouts. You're not going to probably have a boat at all. Six of them for winning.
Yeah, you got it. There's just, there's a lot to it, but once again, you don't know until you put it down on paper. And I don't know the finances or where they're at with all that. Maybe it's completely feasible. Maybe it's not. would say the first hurdle is who's going to run those tournaments. The way it's set up now that I don't believe the Federation has the time to do that. Going into 2026, we don't know who's running the tournaments. Is the Federation running it? We don't know. We're not on the contract negotiation of that. And I'm sure it's a yearly thing that gets renewed or not renewed. could.
be in for a surprise or it could just be the same as it's been the last few years and we'd continue on and move forward. I think that's about it. Maybe have an east-west division.
Brian Bashore (15:00.108)
It says make payouts a hundred percent. You bet. Everybody wants to, and in the tournament organization, putting on the tournament wants to make it out a hundred percent payout, but you got to have a hundred percent to pay out, which means your expenses and everything else have to be covered. which requires sponsorship dollars. And if you all live in the same country, I do the economy and getting money out of people isn't the greatest thing. We're talking like it's the best economy ever.
It's not bad. mean, guy business is good. I'm at the camper here at the resort. It's pretty busy. I think life's good for that aspect of it. But when you start doing non-endemics and even some endemics in industry, there's a lot of things going on and obviously they got tariffs and all these other expenses and costs and turnovers and people are hiring. Some aren't. There's a lot of variables. A lot of them obviously can't predict the future, but they have to predict the future and plan accordingly. And when things look really bright.
Money frees up and those organizations, whether they're endemic or not endemic, are happy to get involved. There has to be a product to be purchased. Cardenas does, you know, what he can do on the social media side of things, but everything can be done a little better from the ownership side of things. We go to these communities, whether it's an NTC event.
Ran by the federation, not Bass Pro, a national walleye tour event. It's at the rules meeting that an email comes out or a bag of stuff is given to the anglers full of coupons and discounts. It's great. I've been here a whole week. I could have used all of these. Now I'm, I'm done. I'm here for one or two more nights and those days and nights are booked, right? It's fishing all day, gearing up, getting ready for the next day. I don't, none of this is going to happen. Those should come out way before the anglers even get there.
We have emails, we have the technology to get that in everybody's hand. And if I'm the host community, I would demand that that happened because that's. It seems to me like a no brainer. I'd put it in the contract. effort, everybody's got to put a little effort and communicate a little bit better on that side. I think you can run a lot better, bigger, more profitable thing. You can do a whole hell of a lot more marketing and media does cost money. does take manpower. So, but it's a good investment, right? We can.
Brian Bashore (17:21.336)
kind of turn the tide here and make people really want to be there and get more involved and be like, this is eight, let's make it the premier thing. We can make this be the big thing and be the national level. needs to be. Cardenas, like I said, does what he does and thank God he's keeping this thing alive by putting it, putting some stuff out there, but he can't do it alone. This isn't a one man or woman job. This is a team's effort to do a lot of things.
Everybody wants live stream stuff. You're to see more anglers providing their own and that's the only way you're going to get it. Unfortunately, NWT allows you to only do it on day two, which I get it. You know, on day one, everybody's going go back and watch it know where you're at and blah, blah, blah. You might have a crowd the next day. You know, put in the rules like Basta says you are not allowed to see or watch any of this stuff. And if you do, it'll be known and you won't pass a polygraph if you win and whatever the case or whoever randomly does it. You can't enforce a lot of those things, but you can enforce them when they have to take polygraphs.
And you fell so long as you enforce the failure. Um, but star links get a little cheaper. It's really the only way to do it. Right. Um, it'll be lose connection. You're not supposed to reconnect. It really should be more encouraging on this front because it's the anglers promoting what they're doing. Um, getting to watch them live, right? Whether you enjoy it or not. know plenty of guys would be like, I would sign in cause I had a bill to be put on my website and you can watch it all day. Charge you a dollar charge you nothing, whatever.
And if you're like, I'd pay whatever and just to be able to watch your live stream all day long while you're on the water. Could be boring. Could be exciting. Who knows? Um, you know, but we can't do that. We can put it on Facebook or YouTube and, and, and tag the NWT so they know it's happening. I guess maybe for whatever reason. And, and that's it. You can watch it there. I think a couple of guys, Tom Wayne's done them with his GoPro and a star link. Rickard tried to couple. I did what it iridescent for a little bit before we got blew off.
but that's, usually the problem is the wifi connection isn't very good, but with Starlink you're pretty well set. The anglers got to invest into that. And honestly, when you're doing it and you're in charge of it while you're fishing, it's really just another thing to have to deal with and worry about to do it right. Is to have someone back home who can start it, run it, you know, but then you're dealing with another person who's not at work that day and you got kind of a minor production company going on.
Brian Bashore (19:48.975)
which costs money, takes a lot of time. If you won't compare it to Bass or MLF or Bass, you know, elite series, we want to see this hundreds of multi millions of dollars go into that stuff. You're never going to see that in the wall. I will never. You're to see guys doing it themselves. Very garage level basement. You know, that's it. That's the production level we're to get because most of us have to do it ourselves and fish.
and be ready for the next day. So, you can see the cuts that some guys are doing and then getting the stuff produced later. They're paying for that out of their pocket. Maybe they can get some sponsorship money to do it. Two or level golds out there. That's, know, big production. They do a great job. Watch those. You're not going to see that live stream and you're not going to see that from any other anglers unless some companies pony up some dollars like, you know, Berkeley and the Dakota lithium, whoever else is sponsoring that tour level gold.
And that's great. That shows you a lot of behind the scenes, some of the best sticks out there and very high quality to do a great job of putting it together. You know, hard to beat that. So I'm a lot of talented videographers out there. So if you're listening and you want some work, you know, chime in. There is opportunities for you. But like I said, a of these angles are having to pay for all that out of their own pocket. It's not cheap.
And if you're not winning a lot of money or you know, you got to be really good at the sponsorship thing to try to find some way to plug it and then a good way to promote that and get it out there. It's like the NFT needs to have a really good product to sell to sponsors to get the sponsors in there. And I don't think they have a great product to sell as it is right now. Unfortunately, it's not bad, but it's a lot of the same stuff over and over the same places. It lives on Facebook. Now there's more on YouTube, which is smart bringing those shows back. Um, there can be more and I would ask for more if I was a sponsor of it. So.
2026 schedule, Michigan, somewhere basically Lake Erie in April, May, Moabridge, South Dakota, June, Bay to knock Escanaba, Michigan, July, Oconto, think, Green Bay or Marinette, one of those two, Wisconsin. then August, think late August, Skakuiah, North Dakota.
Brian Bashore (22:12.526)
Pretty good schedule, really good fisheries, a lot of real big fish. Um, Betanox, not all that. I mean, it's an eight, 10 hour drive or something like that for me, but you know, whatever. mean, it's, it's only fair that this Western guys go East a little bit and these guys have to go way West to Skakuiya. So, um, I've been that Dunkirk stuff and things like that. Just get a little, a little crazy considering nobody hardly lives out there. So.
When majority of the field is in Minnesota, Wisconsin, I would say is a very large percentage of the anglers and you know, there's a 10 % or probably South Dakota, North Dakota. So any who chime in below and we know what you think about the schedule. Hopefully that gives you a little background on how that is all put together. Um, and that's just, it's a bunch of words, kind of like I'm rambling on, but I read all the comments and see the stuff and I just, you don't know what you don't know. And that's, and that's fair enough. Um,
And I don't know what all these, some of this, this isn't facts. These are my opinion, the best of my knowledge. And between now and whenever this airs or next season starts, things will have changed. We may have new ownership. We may have new rules. We may have new management. Who knows? We may have new sponsors. We can only hope for more of those things to come. you know, we hope, we always hope payouts increase and entry fees decrease. but usually that doesn't go that way. Usually goes hand in hand. Payouts increase.
Entry fees increase. don't foresee any type of increases in anything coming up in the new near future. I was told once that it should never exceed 2000 for the pros. It may or may not. don't know. but that's just the cost of things nowadays in the world we live in. I don't anticipate that you're going to see expenses ever come down a whole lot at this point, but prices are probably where they're at. So it's an investment, invest in yourself. but.
Be glad we got the circuit to fish. There's a lot of other options out there. We got aim next coming up. We had the big 10 here in, in the September that happens every year of North Dakota. Great tournament casino cups. There are a lot of smaller, we're still a hundred boat tournaments, which are theoretically even bigger than WT this year. That have smaller payouts, but they're smaller entry fees. And most of them are teams. These are great tournaments. mean, a lot of the same guys are fishing these things. So, get in on those. They're fun.
Brian Bashore (24:29.954)
They can be a lot less stressful because there's not so much on the line and put so much pressure on yourself. yeah, you're not going to win a hundred thousand or win a new boat, but you got to be a realist sometimes and be like, well, I've never been to this place anyway. So my chances are kind of However, everybody's got a shot. but when you're going against, you know, Eric McQuade or someone, Isaac Lackett, Sean Green Bay, it's like, I know that I'm not competing against them in a sense. Cause I not good on that body of water, but.
Not to say you can't find it and get it. You should go in with the mindset you're going to win. But you also have to be a realist and be like, you know, after day one, you'll have a good idea where you're at, or even have practice to be like, I'm just not on it. Man, I'm going to shoot for this weight and hopefully that's good enough for a check. I mean, that happens to all of us get, get into that. Cause you just didn't get it figured out. So practice is important. So, all right folks, that is a wrap. Sorry, I'm rambling on. Just wanted to give you the insight on how this thing unfolds and it's put together.
Coming at you from the camper hope to be home here soon. So a more days of guiding down here on the mighty Missouri river and Lewis and Clark Lake at Lewis and Clark resort. Doing real talk fishing podcast brought to you by Seaguar high performance braids, seven reels and Rufflin's kennels, clean cut cutting stations. Stay safe folks. And we will see you on the water.