Kent Andersen With Warriors Boats

Kent Andersen of Warriors boats gives us the background of Warrior Boats and his take on upcoming National Walleye Tour season. 

What is Reel Talk Fishing | With No Limits?

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 (00:01.23)
Hey everyone, thanks for listening again to another episode of Real Talk Fishing with No Limits. Today we're going to head over to Minnesota and talk boats, tournament fishing, and all things wildlife. We've got Mr. Ken Anderson of Warrior Boats coming on. He's going to tell us about where the market is, where it's heading, what's going on, what's new with Warrior Boats. We're going to talk some national wildlife tour because Ken's been on the tour for a long time and has some good insight. So stay tuned and let's go wait a line with Ken Anderson.

Brian Bashore (00:07.374)
All right. Hey folks, thanks for tuning into this episode of Real Talk Fish. It was No Limits. Today we're heading over to Wisconsin, Minnesota, whichever, wherever you can find Kent. That's where he's going to be during the day with Mr. Kent Anderson, National Wildlife Tour Pro, Warrior Boat, older CEO, CEO. I don't even know what your title is though, other president. It's whatever, what's happening, Kent.

Kent Andersen (00:31.097)
Not much, yeah, I'm national sales marketing manager for Warrior Boats and fish national walleye too. I've been doing it a long time. Been around the walleye fishing industry for many, many years following my dad's footsteps. He started fishing back in the mid 90s and kind of just went from there.

Brian Bashore (00:50.286)
It's a family business. It's a family affair. You, your brother, fished the National Wildlife Tour. You guys are involved with the AIM circuit as well, right? Big sponsors over there.

Kent Andersen (00:59.321)
Yep. Yeah. Warrior boats is one of the presenting sponsors along with the Omaha with, uh, aim, aim, pro fishing or aim weekend, Wally series and a lot of, a lot of good stuff going on there. They're running four, four divisions. Now they have the Minnesota, the Wisconsin divisions. Those are the staples and then they have the North Dakota division. And then they also added the river series here last year, which is, was a good start last year and hopefully some growth we see there this year. And.

Brian Bashore (01:25.474)
Mm -hmm.

Kent Andersen (01:28.281)
Growth in North Dakota and as a whole it's been fantastic. They already got some tournaments filled up for the year, so it's been good.

Brian Bashore (01:34.61)
Yeah, that's awesome. That river circuit is very appealing to me. I keep thinking, ah, I like to dip my toes in them. I'm a river rat. You like the rivers? You've had some good success on the rivers, just like your father. Especially the Missouri River, right? It's near and near to you.

Kent Andersen (01:46.145)
Now...

Kent Andersen (01:50.297)
Yeah, that's a love -hate relationship out there. You know, I haven't cashed many checks on the Missouri River, but the one I did cash was a good one, so.

Brian Bashore (01:52.558)
Hahaha

Brian Bashore (01:58.798)
It's a first and second, I think, you and your brother went on.

Kent Andersen (02:02.105)
Yeah, we went one and two, so that was pretty special. You know, just a whole lot of the whole lot of the the backstory on it was pretty awesome being so it was the last place where I fished along with my dad at the NWG championship in 16 and you know, days later he passed away and you know, God bless him. We miss him a lot and she is still here. So this.

Brian Bashore (02:23.886)
Yeah, and then you guys come back three, I don't even know what year that was, 2019, 2014 maybe? It was after, okay, 2021, but pretty much first time back probably in a little while. And double punch for it, one, two. I mean, it was, some things are just meant to be, right? We had that with JJ Vennardi last year, Spring Valley opening up, you know, and we definitely got people looking over us and making things happen. So.

Kent Andersen (02:27.609)
2021.

Kent Andersen (02:33.657)
Yeah, that was the first time NWT had been back there since then. So it was pretty cool.

Kent Andersen (02:44.119)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (02:48.309)
Absolutely.

Brian Bashore (02:52.718)
That's cool. It's a cool story. Yeah, that's just awesome. For people that don't know Kent, tell us a little bit. What's your background Kent? Where are you coming from? What you got going on? How'd you get into the warrior boat stuff?

Kent Andersen (03:04.441)
Oh, that's a long story, but I grew up in Alexandria, Minnesota, in a hard walleye country. I graduated from Amery, Wisconsin back in 1998. And after that, I worked with a family construction business, general contractors building custom homes. And I ended up going off to tech school up in Alexandria, Minnesota for marine and smelting mechanics. And from there, I got hired on to Warrior Boats and worked along with Troy Latour there. And.

Brian Bashore (03:05.55)
Thank you.

Kent Andersen (03:33.977)
Pete Harts got me in the door there and I worked there till 2004 and kind of there was a first little economic slow down there. And so at that time I went back and even when I was at Warrior, I was working on the weekends back home pounding nails. Just never really got it out of your blood and was back there doing that. And when it slowed down, I just kind of said, eh, time to go back and be a carpenter for a while. And in 2011, four owners or four guys, Chuck Barth,

my father David L. Leinen and Pat Brookshaw got together because Warrior Boats had shut down in 2009. It was tough times from 08, kind of a family feud and they just kind of closed it up and walked away like they were going home for the day and just never came back. Those four guys kind of put together a plan to bring it back to life and I sat down with them and they asked me if I was...

interested in the job and I said, yeah. And they kind of handed me a notebook and said, let's, uh, let's do this thing. A few days later, I was hopping in a truck and heading to place it down to Louisville, Kentucky for a, a event called IBEX, which is in an international boat builders convention where all your vendors, everything are at and was able to get back there, which is a good thing. Cause we've got a clean slate. People knew who we were and that we weren't the same, same company and they were all willing to help us. And.

You know, we rolled in, that was in July, they bought the company, then in October I was down at Ibex, and December, or in January, mid -January, rolled our first boat into the Minneapolis Boat Show, so that was in 2012, and it's been a whirlwind, but it's been an awesome experience, met a ton of great people, you know, we built the awesome warrior family, and it's just been fantastic.

Brian Bashore (05:06.766)
Thank you.

Brian Bashore (05:29.294)
And it's a hell of a boat. I, uh, it's a tiller guy. If people don't know it, you got run another tiller this year.

Kent Andersen (05:36.661)
I still, I got another tiller getting wrapped up at the plant and throw some electronics in it so we can head out to Lake Erie and catch a bunch of fish hopefully.

Brian Bashore (05:39.822)
You're nuts, man.

Brian Bashore (05:46.19)
Yeah, no doubt. Right. It's, uh, every time I see it, I'm like, that's it. It's a warrior guy. I know it's a warrior guy. Cause that your whole warrior group is tillers, but damn it. Those things cruise, you know, especially back when you had that Evan route on there. It was, it didn't matter how rough it was. I'm taking off out of Green Bay and I'm going 20. I'm just a sissy boy out here. Like I got to, I need my boat for work Monday. I'm not going to beat the hell out of it. It don't matter how rough it is. Ken's got that so much floor hammered down and it's just the boat's obviously a little heavier. Most of that water just, you're just plowing.

Kent Andersen (05:57.771)
Well...

Brian Bashore (06:15.98)
There's one speed. I mean...

Kent Andersen (06:19.833)
No, they run and ride pretty good, cut the water nice. And you know, the big thing is, yeah, tillers are definitely the staple for Warrior. But our flagship has definitely been our 238, that 23 footer rated for a 450. I mean, that thing's just taken the world by storm since we released it in 21. And that thing is an absolute beast. And I'd love to have one going to Lake Erie, but I just can't give up that tiller. So I guess I'll be.

Brian Bashore (06:26.574)
Thank you.

Brian Bashore (06:48.142)
You're a...

Kent Andersen (06:48.217)
I guess I'll put some good rain gear on if the wind blows.

Brian Bashore (06:50.894)
Yeah, it always cracks me up. And hey, who, you know, you're talking to your co's, who do you know? I got Kent or Adam. I'm like, oh, you got good rain suit? Like, wear it, you know, you're going to get wet. It's just bottom line, right? If it's rough, it's not rough out, you know.

Kent Andersen (07:03.203)
Yeah, if it's it's if it's ripping, you're going to get wet. I mean, other than that, I think last summer, you know, other than when it rained, there was many many there wasn't many days that I I wore my reindeer, which was kind of nice because the weather was good. The wind was winds weren't horrible. So it was a it was a good good summer.

Brian Bashore (07:16.332)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (07:21.518)
Yeah, well, we had a it's about time though, because we needed it because the previous two seasons was crap weather every tournament. Yeah, so it was good to have it last year.

Kent Andersen (07:26.123)
Yeah, we're pretty miserable. Yeah, of course. Of course, Spring Valley started out pretty cold last year. So at least at least we got a little smarter this year and at least pushed it back till middle of April. I'd be more for May. Yeah, yeah.

Brian Bashore (07:31.82)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (07:35.874)
Yeah, the tournament, tournament days were good at least. Yeah, it's pretty valuable. Yeah. Practice was no, no, that same with Detroit river deal. I was like, no, this, this isn't good. This is, it's just bad on equipment. It's hard on your stuff. And.

Kent Andersen (07:42.969)
No, no.

Kent Andersen (07:47.671)
Yeah.

It is and just everybody's everybody's running around with 100 plus thousand dollar boats and nice vehicles nothing else and most people the first tournament first place they're going to use that boat for the years that first tournament nothing like dragging them dragging them through snow storms and salt and slop you kick off the year and season the boat right.

Brian Bashore (07:56.526)
Hmm.

Brian Bashore (08:03.79)
Yeah.

Yep.

Brian Bashore (08:10.542)
Yeah, no doubt. My boat slid off the trailer in a parking lot because the trailer was icy and we got lucky and the skag hit a curb. So it kept it about that far coming all the way off and was able to three guys, four guys just pushed while I winched and it slid back on just as easy as it slid off. So that's I went out the night before late thinking, oh, we'll get it laid down a little bit. But of course you pull it out. I mean, everything freezes and shouldn't have had it.

Kent Andersen (08:20.345)
kept it from falling all the way off.

Kent Andersen (08:26.305)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kent Andersen (08:37.719)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (08:39.566)
buttoned anyway, but the boat ramp was really wasn't steep at all. And I mean, I know better now, but the guy with me and hooked it and it's not his fault. I should have been like, no, leave it hooked until it's in the water. You know, but he hit the brakes because he was going down the middle of the ramp, which ended up being the savior because the median was there and it stopped it. So, cause I mean, I'm just standing in a boat and talk about helpless when you're just standing there and you just feel it going and you're like, all that could do is trim down. And so I reached for it. And fortunately that, that.

Kent Andersen (08:49.687)
Well...

Kent Andersen (08:57.953)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (09:02.935)
Oh yeah.

Kent Andersen (09:06.777)
Ha ha ha ha.

Brian Bashore (09:08.846)
did it but I was like, huh, this is gonna suck. You just gotta dump your boat right on the ramp in the morning.

Kent Andersen (09:09.817)
out.

Kent Andersen (09:13.753)
Yeah, that's kind of like that feeling when you're backing down and the truck just starts sliding and the hopelessness and just hope when you hit the water and it always will, but when you hit the water that it stops, so.

Brian Bashore (09:17.902)
Well, you know. Yep, yeah, yeah, nothing like feeling completely helpless. You mentioned a 238. I pulled up after guiding the other day next to one. Actually, the guy fishing with this guy was a coangler at that tournament or one of those MoBridge tournaments. He's like, hey, remember me? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I do. And he was with his buddy and he had a 238.

EV20 next to him. I'm this thing is, this boat's freaking huge, man. This is a beast. I climbed up, looked at it. I'm like, yeah, he loved it. I don't know his name. If I did, you'd probably recognize it. Older guy, retired guy, but that's just what he wanted for his big and comfy. And I'm like, this is a big ass.

Kent Andersen (10:00.345)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (10:05.305)
Yeah, it's crazy. It's, you know, when we, we talked about doing that boat and I drew it up and pitched it at the owners and they kind of looked at me cross -eyed a little bit and I'm like, Hey, I think it's, I think it's an idea. Took us a few years. I mean, it was three years in the making before we finally, uh, went from paper to fiberglass. And it was, it took off as soon as we, as soon as we released it, it took off. I think we.

verbally released it at our dealer meeting in August and by the time the first one was built in October, I think we were sold out for a year already. So it was pretty fantastic with the hope of having doing 17 that first year and being able to max capacity and get that second mold built and keep things rolling. It was pretty awesome. And it's just, it's unreal. I mean, people ask me what the difference is. And I mean, our 208.

Brian Bashore (10:41.038)
Peace.

Hmm.

Kent Andersen (10:59.833)
Columns of Boat's probably one of the best out there when it comes to running rough water and keeping you dry. And people say, ask me, well, how much better is the 238? And I say, words can't even express it. I remember the first day I took it out and hit my lats and took a bunch of dealers out and I was calm. Next day, the wind was gonna blow and I called my wife and I'm like, I'm not coming home today. I gotta go drive this thing tomorrow. Went out and took it out in some threes. And I mean, it was just, I mean, you could have took it.

cup of coffee and drink a little lid on it. Three footers cruising at 45 is insane. So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's a wild boat. It's just been fantastic. We were at Sioux falls last weekend at the sportsman show down there and the amount of people that just walk up and off how big that boat is, is it's pretty impressive. And, you know, it's, it's big, but yet it fishes small and handles small. Like the first time I was going to go put it in, I was putting that Mille Lacs and using a smaller, uh,

launch as you going out of Fisher's Resort and it was like, how's this going to be putting in and out of here? And I was just like driving a 20 foot boat. So it wasn't that big of a deal, but you talk about big boats and I mean, it's no different than, you know, 20 years ago, how many people had F2 50s or three quarter ton pickups for grocery getters. Now you see it all the time. So it's like, like boats. I look back at when my dad started fishing, he was running the 18 foot.

Brian Bashore (12:01.07)
Alright.

Alright, I know.

Brian Bashore (12:13.166)
You know?

Brian Bashore (12:17.642)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (12:24.321)
Luntiller at the time and then they came out the 2090 and I was like man and there's like the 19 foot boats and I think Tracker had the Targa 20 foot Yerga and it was thousand that boat came out and it was like holy man that thing is huge everybody was running like 618 Rangers and 619s and stuff like that nobody really had a 20 foot boat yet and when those 20 footers came out it was like the wall factor with 175s and 200s on them and then all of a sudden now we're tackling

Brian Bashore (12:51.374)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (12:53.401)
23 foot boats with 450s on them and it's just like it's just endless.

Brian Bashore (12:58.734)
It is. I mean, things don't get smaller. Prices don't come down. I don't care if they want to say inflation is coming down or not. It doesn't happen that way. Once they go up and maybe a little bit of margin there, but very little. We're not going to go from $150 ,000 boats to $125 ,000 by all means. Maybe come down a couple bucks. But I mean, obviously a lot of components that go into that, the motors, the trailers.

Kent Andersen (13:01.945)
No. No, no, they never do.

No.

Kent Andersen (13:17.015)
No, absolutely not.

Brian Bashore (13:24.136)
Britt King was on here talking about that with us, you know, he art -crafted baskets and was like, I control the sparkly stuff or the glitter, he says. Right? And say for you, I don't.

Kent Andersen (13:30.905)
Right? Right? That's about where it boils down to. And you look at that, I mean, I look at the accessory list that from 10 years ago to today, and it's, you know, doubled and maybe tripled on average on boats and the amount of screens going into them and now with the forward facing sonar and just, it's almost insanity of what people are doing to go catch a fish and what you really need to go catch a fish, you know.

Brian Bashore (13:35.886)
Beep.

Brian Bashore (13:48.428)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (13:58.35)
Right. Cause you and I both know there's, there's no money in fishing and catching fish at all. But yeah, right. It's a hell of a lot of fun and we're passionate about it and we're competitive and driven and you know, it's a good time, but it's a, yeah, it's not cheap. And now you're putting a hundred plus thousand dollars into gadgets to help, you know, but if you don't have them, you're not competing very well.

Kent Andersen (14:01.625)
No, no, no, but it's a lot of fun.

Kent Andersen (14:18.469)
No, you absolutely got to keep up with the times. I mean, it's no different than anything with tackle, electronics, everything. When site imaging came out, look at the, in time, I mean, I think the site imaging thing took a lot more time to progress than what the Ford's facing sonar has. Just going back on the first site imaging units to what we have now and.

Brian Bashore (14:29.1)
Mm -hmm.

Kent Andersen (14:46.169)
how far they've progressed. I can't even imagine where Ford Facing's owner is going to be in 10 years from now.

Brian Bashore (14:52.046)
Yeah, it'll be a thermal imaging. It's gonna, I mean, whatever. You just better figure out what it is and embrace it. And yeah, I mean, it's not super expensive. And when you, you know, relatively, when you compare it to other things, especially if, you know, I'm a hummingbird guy, I already have hummingbird graphs for a thousand dollars.

Kent Andersen (14:59.237)
Dynamite.

Kent Andersen (15:07.819)
Yo.

Kent Andersen (15:11.787)
They'll... They'll...

Brian Bashore (15:13.74)
Now if you're switching Lowrance to Garmin or you're switching a whole new brand and whatever, then you gotta buy, you know, your end it for three or $4 ,000 just to get you going on one unit. But like any electronic, you can obviously buy the head unit, control head units only, it'll just add transducers separately. When you break it apart, it's not as bad, but it's...

Kent Andersen (15:19.673)
them.

Kent Andersen (15:34.393)
No, that's one thing with Hummingbird on the MegaLive is it is a much easier install, much easier addition to put it on. And I think with side imaging, I still say Hummingbird still is the king there. And I just feel that they have the technology and I think in time they'll be up there with everybody else on the full imaging stuff.

Brian Bashore (15:38.478)
Hmm.

Brian Bashore (15:52.62)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (16:00.654)
Yeah, they just did an update and I updated it early March and it's considerably better than it was. I don't use it to track my lures or see the fish chase, but more just to find the fish, identify them and realize that it's swimming away, it's not a rock. But now I can see my jig out there 30, 40, 50 feet, which before I had a hard time, but I'm not running lithium and well, kind of the power source to these units is...

Kent Andersen (16:07.289)
Hell, no.

Kent Andersen (16:13.911)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (16:18.041)
Oh.

Brian Bashore (16:27.95)
is crucial, but that's the next boat component, right? We're adding three, six, $9 ,000 worth of batteries versus our, what used to be a $150 31 series, you know, a trolling motor battery is kind of, I mean, I'm still running lead, I'm going to the classic this week. I do have some meetings with some lithium guys to have this discussion, but yeah, I mean, my biggest problem is all the electronics. I got the live 360.

Kent Andersen (16:39.957)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (16:57.87)
four graphs. That's a lot of juice once you hit that live wall.

Kent Andersen (17:00.855)
And you talk about the electronics as a whole. I sit there and I think about that and I think about, you know, 20 years ago where, when like seven inch color screens came out or just seven inch screens in general came out and I was like, man, those are pretty awesome. Then color came out and everybody, oh, you have two sevens or you have three sevens in color. And it's like, holy, if you told the NWT guys now and said, hey, you gotta run a couple of seven inch graphs.

Brian Bashore (17:20.78)
Whoa!

Kent Andersen (17:30.233)
until you go pack sand because there's just not enough space for everything that we're running nowadays. And, you know, before you had a couple of graphs at the console, one up front or this or that on our wheel boat. Now you're running two at the dash, two, three up in the bow, one in the back. And yeah, we're going to have to strap Honda generators on the back pretty soon because there's not going to be enough room or we're going to have to get rid of some of our tackle because there's not going to be enough room in these boats to put all the batteries we need to run everything.

Brian Bashore (17:51.276)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (17:59.744)
Yep, yep, and they're heavy. Obviously, another reason to switch over to the lithium stuff because it's so, so light. You know, but we do, and I think the lithium is coming a long ways. There's more companies doing it. That is, now the market's more competitive. So the pricing is kind of leveled out a little bit on some of that I've noticed.

Kent Andersen (18:03.605)
Help.

Kent Andersen (18:17.017)
It has, I mean, there's, and I personally still feel there's a place for lithium and a place for your AGM lead acid stuff. You know, I'm a, I've been ran Odyssey AGMs for a long time, still do. And firm believer, and you'd, I'd have a hard time going to a lithium starting battery at this point, just because the whole point is they show voltage until they're dead and there ain't nothing worse than go to, go to crank that engine over and be just like when you got that last screw to put in and.

Brian Bashore (18:24.076)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (18:36.302)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (18:41.838)
Right.

Kent Andersen (18:47.609)
You know, you got a winning sack of fish in your live well and go to crank that key and it's dead. And there's no jumping lithium or anything else. So it's a gamble time then. So.

Brian Bashore (18:48.648)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (18:56.654)
No, it's done. I have the PowerPole charger thing in a boat. So that's pretty slick where it's got a burn she start and stuff and it'll charge lithiums, acid or AGM. So that was a good.

Kent Andersen (19:05.825)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (19:10.649)
But you gotta get your big engine running to start to charge it.

Brian Bashore (19:12.782)
But yeah, exactly. And it charges fast on the go. But yeah, I think, and then I don't know if Mercury has changed. I know for a while you couldn't use a lithium on the big motors, right?

Kent Andersen (19:22.297)
Yeah, there's a few that you can. A few that you can use on Mercury. They have like specs that you gotta follow or whatever. I like Norsk, Dakota lithium, I think they're falling in their specs. I'm there's a bunch of other ones out there. I know we personally at the factory still lean towards, you know, AGM starting batteries.

I think the lithium has a really good place for your electronics, especially with the forward imaging. You know, it just keeps you that higher, longer, higher, steadier voltage to give you a better cleaner picture on that. If you're in a boat that you need to save weight, yeah, I'm trolling boat motor batteries. You can do it. I personally, I'm going to still run AGMs. I don't run out of battery power. So to me, as I just look at it, it's like, okay.

If I'm not running out of battery power now, why would I change something? You know, they've always worked for me.

Brian Bashore (20:21.902)
Why would I, that's why I haven't, because mine have always worked. It's been fine. My acids are, I have 31 series, but they're on their third year. So that's usually about it. And the good thing with the lithium is most of them are like 10 years. So if you do the cost analysis over time, you know, you're probably breaking even, or you could even take them out and put them in a new boat. But with that Power Pole Charger, it works good. But I know last year in our Cedar Shores tournament, which we have in a couple of weeks, early spring.

Kent Andersen (20:34.295)
EW.

Kent Andersen (20:38.081)
Yup.

Brian Bashore (20:50.726)
Dewey was fishing next to me. We had super high winds and he just Fishing was kind of tough and it was blowing 30 40 out of the northwest We went out high spot lock and didn't move the entire day But by 1 o 'clock on the first day, I had my kicker motor down Troll master on like 40 something in gear to hold me on spot lock and Then I had to turn the big motor on to keep the trolling motor charged

And by day, and cause it didn't really pick up till afternoon. So that was like one o 'clock and do is next to me at his boat or his buddy, but they had lithium and he didn't have to turn the kicker on, but he was, he was fine with his trolling motor. And I had to stay in the front dropping away down just to keep the motor in the water. So I would have had a longer shaft would have been great. Day two by nine or 10 in the morning. I'm already doing that. And then I'm looking down the line. So some other guys fishing the same and everybody started dropping the kicker. I'm like, we got every kicker in gear cranked up that.

high of throttle just to hold you in a spot. Fortunately, we were done at noon and waited. I'm like, God, this is not getting any nicer out. That might have been a day to have lithiums, but once again, it worked. I turned that big motor on and that charger charged that thing and it was fine. It could have sat there all day long probably, but the big motor wasn't scaring fish. I think it kept them away from the boat, which is perfect because they're pitching for the shoreline.

Kent Andersen (22:13.337)
I think keeping them enough, driving them to where you can catch them.

Brian Bashore (22:17.902)
Yeah, so there's a little thought behind it and a method to the madness sometimes. So that's awesome. Warriors, you guys still building them one at a time?

Kent Andersen (22:27.577)
We still build them one at a time. We're doing, you know, three, four boats a week. Say we got a good group of guys even through the slow times and COVID, we kept our guys around. We make sure we take care of them, Chuck up at the plant. He does a heck of a job keeping everything rolling and keeping everybody happy. And, you know, our crew, I'd put that crew that built our boats up against anybody's because...

They're passionate about what they do and they really take pride in what they're building. And yeah, we're building one at a time. And you can just see it when something goes wrong that they actually truly do care and are passionate about what they're building.

Brian Bashore (23:07.886)
I can see it on the trail. I used to say this with, you know, I'm a Mercury guy forever that, you know, we used to have the service trailers there and the Evan Rood trailer and Mercury trailer. And I always like, well, there's, I know you're an Evan Rood guy, but I'm like, there's a line of boats at that Evan Rood trailer. Fortunately, Evan Rood did a great job of carrying lower units. And I mean, you could have swapped the motor out. The Mercury trailer, not so much, but there wasn't as many, you know, boats lined up over there. But.

Kent Andersen (23:23.129)
They did. Hell.

Brian Bashore (23:33.134)
Now, you know, a lot of the boats are coming from one particular manufacturer, but there's a lot, there's new stuff out there. We have Caymus and the Yart. I mean, there's, you know, competition is good, but you always kind of hear people bitching about that or this, and most of it's just quality control things. It's just people not, they're building them fast, you know, driving screws where they shouldn't be. I got holes in my boat that I don't have any idea why they're there. You know, they just don't have a lot of pride in the work, but I've never heard.

Kent Andersen (23:40.409)
down.

Kent Andersen (23:48.695)
Yeah, it's just...

Brian Bashore (24:04.078)
said that.

Kent Andersen (24:04.153)
No one is a good thing, you know, being a small company, we gotta watch that warranty come back stuff. So it's a great thing that we have great guys in the shop, took care of everything because if they had a bad attitude, they'd make a mess and make my job a nightmare. But being so they do such a fantastic job, makes my job for the most part pretty easy.

Brian Bashore (24:23.63)
Yeah, there's nothing worse I used to hear people say, oh, well, you got your boat must have been built on a Friday. I'm like, it shouldn't matter for a hundred and some thousand dollars what day it's built on. You know, it's Monday in the same category. It's like, yeah, they're just, but there's, they weigh out the benefits. All right. We can produce a ton of them and have a few issues and whatever, because they're not all like that. You just, with anything, you're going to get a bad egg here, there, a malfunction in a mold or whatever it is. But.

Kent Andersen (24:33.337)
Right?

Kent Andersen (24:39.997)
Absolutely.

Kent Andersen (24:48.953)
Oh, absolutely. No matter what. And a lot of stuff that we run into isn't even our stuff. Whether it's a seat pedestal or a wire harness or whatever, so it doesn't get caught before it goes out. But it's just in the general scheme of things is just try to do the best you can at everything you do in life and you'll be pretty successful. So that's what our guys seem like they do is try to do the best they can do and build the baddest boats on the water.

Brian Bashore (25:19.662)
It's paying off, still in business, still getting it done, still putting the boats out there, you're putting the 238 beast out there. And like I said, I'm not, you know, there's not hearing anything bad. I didn't get a chance till you had a guy at the Omaha sports show and I was there and I, oh, I was talking, he was one of the NWT guys on your team. I can't remember what his name was.

Kent Andersen (25:25.195)
Yep.

Kent Andersen (25:36.193)
Oh, I bet you it was Jake Cahey who was down there. Yup.

Brian Bashore (25:39.054)
Okay. Yep. That's who it was. He's the one I can't talk to, but I just can't even remember his damn name. I could pick him out of a crowd. But then I just, I never got out of my booth and had a chance to go in and chat with him. But it sounded like a couple of guys stopped at my booth, said they were over there looking at boats and he was talking to them. And they were like, they were digging him.

Kent Andersen (25:44.281)
Ha ha ha ha.

Kent Andersen (25:53.849)
You know, yeah, shows, shows have been fantastic this year. You know, we're coming pretty much wrapping them up now. I mean, I think I have one, one show left out in New York the week before Lake Erie. So I got to fly out to Buffalo and go talk boats and come home and hook up and head out to Lake Erie. And then I got some, uh, open house at the end of April down in Missouri. Otherwise all the boat shows up in the Midwest here are pretty much wrapped up and time to start, uh,

digging these things out and going fishing.

Brian Bashore (26:25.262)
Yes, time to get them loaded up and get them wet. So that's what they're for. So we could have, here we got, we're getting ready, man. We're, I don't know, four or five weeks away from maybe four. It's, what is today? I mean, it's, yeah, I'm leaving in a month. Yeah, I think we're leaving like on the 18th or whatever that Friday is. Whew, that's coming quick. You ready? I'm all, yeah.

Kent Andersen (26:34.903)
I don't even know if we're that far, are we? That's like the 18th of the day. Yeah, no. Three weeks, four weeks, no.

I'm always ready to go fishing. In my mind anyways, my equipment and my stuff aren't ready, but we'll get that squared away. My wife will probably be about sick of me before I leave, so it'll be a good time to leave, because I'll be out in the shop a lot, getting everything fine -tuned and ready to roll.

Brian Bashore (27:07.022)
I get that. My wife's like, oh, I'm guiding and I live in a camper a lot during the summer. Obviously we're on the road four or five weeks out of the year and then all the other things outside of the tournament that come up. So we're on the go. You don't get to spend a ton of time at home and make sacrifices with the kids and events and things. But my wife's always like, oh, you're leaving. And she's the wall I widow. I'm like, you're tired of me by now, are you? I mean, I've been...

Kent Andersen (27:19.417)
you

Brian Bashore (27:33.442)
home every day for the last several months just driving you nuts you know and yeah she acts like she's sad.

Inside she's like, go ahead, hurry up, you know, and but it's nice. I go get the camper set up and she works out, you know, and then she'd come down Friday night and get ready to go. I'm out on the water guiding and doors open, you know, bring the dogs and, and it's on. So Lake Erie, is it going to be a troll bite or a forward facing seminar? We got to get it figured out.

Kent Andersen (27:45.017)
Hell.

Kent Andersen (27:50.679)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (28:03.161)
I wouldn't be surprised if it's one forward facing sonar. I'm gonna go shoot from the hip and I'm gonna say seven, eight of the top 10 are gonna be trolling.

Brian Bashore (28:13.87)
That's probably a pretty fair guess.

Kent Andersen (28:15.929)
And I think there'll be some guys in the top 10 that are going to catch them forward facing sooner, but a lot of that's going to dictate to what we see for conditions and all that good stuff. If it gets muddy, I think that the Imogene will come into huge play. Um, but other than that, I mean, those big masses schools of fish and they move a lot and you know, he said, you can get on them and at the end of the day only need five, you know, so, so you can play, you can pull.

Brian Bashore (28:21.71)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (28:39.032)
I do.

Brian Bashore (28:43.278)
Yeah, exactly. And I can have four rods out at one time, right?

Kent Andersen (28:46.377)
Absolutely, absolutely. I've had many times of having triples and doubles, but you know, casting, you can get them back out and get them out a lot quicker too. So, you know, I'm a wood lean, probably more so a traditional angler where I've been using forward and facing sonar since it came out. It's a little different than most people I run mine. I mean, I got it on both spots bowing in the back, but I've always ran one on my.

Brian Bashore (28:54.508)
Yeah, he moved pretty quick.

Kent Andersen (29:15.361)
Rear trolling motor on my men code advantage. And, you know, I've, I go back to like 2020. I mean, think that want to say that came out 19 was the first year of the actual live scope in 19, but just watching what those fish do when you're trolling. I mean, 2020 championship. I won't depend on the top 10 if it wasn't for that. Cause you could just, you get in that clean water on Erie and you could see those fish.

way up in the column and you were moving, you could adjust your baits and you weren't marking much on on your 2D. So you could make those adjustments and find out where those fish were at, you know, fishing ghost fish, but you're catching them, you know, and even even bait like one of the craziest things I still remember is on Green Bay going along and the fish will move, you know, when they're about 10 feet in front of the boat, 20 feet in front of the boats when they move almost every time. And like schools of Alwibe on Green Bay, you'd be going along.

And when I get to that 10 feet in front of the boat, that school would be seven feet down from the top. They dropped to the bottom, boat would go by them. Once the boat passed from 10 feet, they come right back up to where they were. And it's just, you know, just, I always said when it first came out, I mean, just learning and the reactions to fish and how they react to boats was, was huge, but it's, they've got, it's gotten so much better. And, you know, now it's, now it's, you know, pinpointing individual fish and figuring out.

Brian Bashore (30:31.414)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (30:41.593)
It's good enough now and if you spend enough time with it you can pick out what fish and cast a fish that you don't want to catch too.

Brian Bashore (30:46.614)
Yeah, that's where they'll get the upper hand on areas if you can get out of the four or five pounders, which are still great fish and go, there's, you know, I want, I want to eat that one, that one, that one, you know, and target them and get them to bite if you can get that figured out. We're all going to try it. I mean, it's, you know.

Kent Andersen (30:54.807)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (30:58.361)
So.

Kent Andersen (31:02.041)
Well, absolutely. I think you'll see the Lake Erie. I'll see the most people standing at the bowels this year that you've ever seen. So yeah. And I was out there for some shows and just just talking with people out there and how much, you know, you talk to these Lake Erie anglers and they're just like, I just hate trolling now. And it's like you talk to them four years ago. They had told you how stupid you were for fishing one rod, you know. So, you know, it's kind of like always the talk to always people complain about going to.

Brian Bashore (31:07.054)
Right.

Brian Bashore (31:25.836)
Right, nope.

Kent Andersen (31:31.179)
Minnesota all the years back with all the tournaments whether it's PWT FLW nobody wanted to go to Minnesota because you can only use one rod. Why would you go there? You only use one rod. Well, not anybody that's all they're using is one rod. So.

Brian Bashore (31:41.314)
That's all you use anywhere now.

Yep. I've had that same conversation. I'm like, we don't go to Minnesota often and like get it, but hey, you can call in Minnesota now. So that's huge. Right. So, and now you're just, that's the way you're fishing anyway. So I'm fine. Let's hit some of these Minnesota lakes up there. They have good fishing and especially where a championship or it's 40 vote field.

Kent Andersen (31:50.231)
Yeah.

Yup. Yup.

Kent Andersen (32:03.097)
Yes, I think I, if you know, my input on our championship location for this year is, uh, not very well thought out. If you ask me, I mean, we, we did it at, at Dunkirk and we got, we got blessed with three nice days and everybody got out there and got a fish. But I mean, I remember fishing in 2017, whatever it was that green day. And it was down, you know, we got two, two canceled days and now with the, the way the rules written this year.

Brian Bashore (32:24.91)
Yeah, it wasn't Saginaw Bay.

Oh yeah.

Kent Andersen (32:32.697)
It's really kind of crappy because there is no makeup days for our championships and even our regular season events, the way the rules are written is there's no guaranteed makeup days. So we can go to the Great Lakes and we got three of our tournaments. What I'd say on Great Lakes this year, we could potentially have one day shootouts on those because it's tournament directors discretion whether we have a makeup day or not. So.

Brian Bashore (32:37.876)
Nope.

Brian Bashore (32:51.66)
What?

Brian Bashore (32:58.286)
Yeah, the schedule is definitely different. We're going to places that typically get pretty good numbers. Green Bay actually hasn't gotten nine, about 113 in the last several trips out there. Erie has always been the record breaker, 150 plus, bros. Bag <|tr|> <|translate|>

Kent Andersen (33:10.137)
Now, Eerie's good and Winnebago, those two places just get a lot of anglers, you know, and Green Bay, I don't know what their numbers are gonna do there with that three -fifths deal. You know, you can look at it both ways. I look at it as plays good into the forward imaging guys, but also it's gonna affect them too because...

Brian Bashore (33:23.292)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Bashore (33:36.782)
pressure.

Kent Andersen (33:36.889)
The anglers that went to catch those three to five pound fish that could compete with five fish Those anglers can't compete with three of those fish for the casting fish So I think it's gonna put a lot of pressure on the casting fish as a whole so

Brian Bashore (33:52.59)
Yeah, that's the last time we were there. We got one out two times ago and we got turned into a one day tournament because of blow days. That's strictly the reason I didn't go up north was that there's not enough fish to go around. And maybe there is, but when you start putting pressure on those fish and 20 foot water clarity, I don't know. It's going to be, you know, we're up there.

Kent Andersen (33:59.031)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (34:13.465)
Yeah, that one's gonna be some pretty good boat runs too, because it's, you know, that's, you talk about some of the stuff that the anglers as a whole, I would say, would have liked to see in change were, you know, some boundaries and stuff like that. And, you know, you take that, or we'll start at Lake Erie, wide open where you wanna go. We're gonna, we're having an early year, those fish might be 50 miles east already. So we get a run there and then.

Brian Bashore (34:20.526)
Yeah, we're.

Brian Bashore (34:36.62)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (34:43.179)
We go to green bands.

Brian Bashore (34:44.366)
No Canada though, we eliminated Canada. All right. Nope.

Kent Andersen (34:46.583)
And that's fine. I mean, I'm good with that. It's kind of like, kind of like at Green Bay, you know, it's gonna be a lot of running there going out of McConnell. This would be one of those ones that you're, where we probably should have been going out of Marinette on, you know? So.

Brian Bashore (35:00.526)
Yeah. Yeah. We are. I realized that their day when we were getting a passbook, I'm like, Oh yeah. O 'Connell's that far south. That's that that's damn near that Brown County line where you can't go any further south. Anyway. I'm like, we, but we all want to go this way. So we could have stayed up here or even, I mean, I'm fine. We're on that side of the lake, but I mean, it just, it is what it is. It's set and we'll make do with it. And then who knows? Maybe there's a hell of a bike going on down there with the early spring and.

Kent Andersen (35:08.843)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. North. Well.

Yeah.

Kent Andersen (35:30.233)
Yeah, you never know what's going to happen. Green Bay is a different place and we'll, we'll. Here's what the car dealt and at the end of the day, somebody is going to win that event. So.

Brian Bashore (35:30.254)
stuff that's happening.

Brian Bashore (35:39.214)
Yeah, I mean a lot of those fish come up as well. They're not, I mean, obviously we know the ones up north are just behemoths, but like we said, they're little challenging to catch sometimes. But three fish, you might be in at nine o 'clock. You know?

Kent Andersen (35:42.241)
Yo.

Kent Andersen (35:46.489)
Well... Yeah, well...

Maybe that might be a lot of two fish two fish bags, too

Brian Bashore (35:56.27)
Yeah, that's, I was talking to someone earlier and it's just, it's not, I mean, obviously there's skill involved and there's a little bit of luck obviously in fishing, but this is the season of, did you make the right decision? Period. It's just, did I keep the right fish?

Kent Andersen (36:09.823)
Absolutely. It's, it's. Yeah, and it's in wonder if we're going to still weigh in ounces or if we're going to go to 100 so we can have less ties to so. But I'm guessing that's not going to change because there's going to be a lot of a lot of a lot of tight weights. I mean, we had tight tournaments last year, but this one's going to be even tighter. You know, every place we go, there's just not going to have that separation like you'd normally have. So, you know, that that one mistake could cost you a lot of.

Brian Bashore (36:21.986)
Yeah, because that's...

Brian Bashore (36:30.478)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (36:35.872)
Yep.

Kent Andersen (36:38.905)
A lot of spots and a lot of points.

Brian Bashore (36:40.876)
And these, you know, especially the river tournaments like, you know, Spring Valley last year, or as we had Francis Case this year, we got Red Wing and it's Coquia. I mean, like tournaments like Red Wing, these things are, I mean, a half a pound could be 20 spots.

Kent Andersen (36:56.885)
Absolutely. Now back, back before, I mean, even if you could have had two overs, would have changed that and five fish that change it. But when we're going down to four fish and one over that changes a lot. But I would, I would stay, I'd take four fish with one over and get a fish the whole system. Then being limited to a five fish and two overs and get a call and only fish Minnesota water there just because they're just.

Brian Bashore (37:04.684)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (37:21.836)
Minnesota.

Kent Andersen (37:24.757)
Minnesota waters on pools three and four just there's not enough there for everybody spread out on not to imagine what.

Brian Bashore (37:31.49)
Yeah, that's I've never fished it and it's not that far from there. I keep wanting to run over there like now. It's like four hour drive. It's just as close to go there or go up to MoRage for me. But that's what I heard is they're like, oh, the Minnesota side is not near as good as the Wisconsin side. So.

Kent Andersen (37:35.435)
Yo.

Kent Andersen (37:41.241)
Deal.

Kent Andersen (37:45.331)
No, it would have been like going down to Prairie du Chien and being only being able to fish the Iowa waters, you know, and, you know, yep, the Iowa waters were out where on the area on Prairie du Chien, the Wisconsin side had all that backwater. I mean, it was 90 % of the pool. So it's no different when you get up top except the three and four are very small pools in relation to the whole thing. So.

Brian Bashore (37:52.748)
Oh yeah, which we never do because they're always, because you can't.

Ahem.

Brian Bashore (38:03.34)
No.

Hmm.

Brian Bashore (38:14.126)
And we're going out of pool three now versus pool four.

Kent Andersen (38:18.337)
Yeah, which is, which is kind of an interesting, interesting thing in its own. I mean, there's been a fair amount of tournaments out of treasure Island casino, but that time of year, I mean, it would have, would have played good into the cards of the anglers. If we could have went out of somewhere like Lake city or, you even yeah, Redmond, Covil park, you know, Bay point park.

Brian Bashore (38:36.406)
Redwing, right? Which is the host town. Yeah, I'm sure they changed it. They, you know, obviously the new administrative company has a relationship with them and MWC is out of there. And you want to, you know, go where you're welcome and play out and who knows? I mean, these are just what they are. We all, I always tell our people, if you don't like the rules, don't fish it. It's a choice we all, we all have, but we love it. We're competitive and we're junkies and.

Kent Andersen (38:46.713)
Yep. Yep.

Brian Bashore (39:05.998)
We just will bitch about things and we'll just go continue on and then there's changes ever then there is and if they're ain't, we just adjust fire. But I think these guys are kind of learning as they go too.

Kent Andersen (39:17.241)
Yeah, we hope they hope they can change things, make things better. Hopefully we don't have another year like last year.

Brian Bashore (39:23.758)
We're, the NWT guys are just a little different breed than some of the other circuits out there. So, but you're to get that with any pro -AM level you're at. I mean, period. You see it in the bass world and bass circuits as the guys move up from the opens to the elites or MLFs or whatever it may be. But the learning curve for so many people nowadays is so much faster with technology and everything that's available out there that we didn't have to screw it up. You used to read the...

Kent Andersen (39:29.529)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (39:33.817)
Oh absolutely.

Brian Bashore (39:52.366)
You look forward to the In Fisherman magazine coming out, or Saturday morning fishing shows. And now it's like, ah, let's go to YouTube. I can watch this. This is live stream. I mean, it's great, but it's a little tougher for the older guys, I would say. I the bass guys are feeling that as well. But the massive wealth of knowledge, but can I keep up with all of these people that are going to maximize my electronics? Not even Ford, Fies and Sonar, just in general. You know, this...

Kent Andersen (39:55.065)
Absolutely.

Kent Andersen (40:19.161)
It's just, yeah, it's just technology. Everything's instant gratification now. I mean, it's gotta be now, it's gotta be fast. And if you can't get it, you know, they just jump to the next thing. So I think that's a lot of it. There's just so much, there's so much information when you go somewhere new. I mean, years ago, you had to go somewhere new and pick it apart. Now you can find the past history and guarantee any place we go, there's.

Brian Bashore (40:31.464)
Yep.

Kent Andersen (40:48.505)
for the YouTubers that are doing videos on it. So you can go, we'll see how to catch them before you get there, at least get a baseline on how to catch them.

Brian Bashore (40:51.948)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (40:57.326)
Yeah, and which is great for guys who's never been to those bodies of water. I mean, I do it. You know, everybody watches everything they can and be like, okay, this is what they're using this time of year. That's working. You know, some of these videos obviously suck and they're just Joe Blow out there doing whatever, but it's still like, yeah, that's a community spot. I have absolutely no problem. And I'll do it a lot of term, especially in a new body of water is running straight to a community spot. I just, I just want to catch a couple of fish just to get some confidence in the system and be like, okay, I got this to fall back on.

Kent Andersen (41:00.825)
Alright.

Kent Andersen (41:11.671)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (41:22.105)
just go catch some fish.

Brian Bashore (41:27.118)
Now, probably and hopefully don't ever have to fish there. There's plenty of tournaments where there's a reason everybody's fishing there and half the field goes there. It goes because there's fish here and these are good fish. So we're going to, we're going to work it, but it's, it's confidence is key. And I'm sure that, you know, you certainly know that if your time in the tournament trail, it's the most important aspect, probably for a tournament angler is having confidence.

Kent Andersen (41:50.147)
You gotta have confidence in what you're doing and that's with anything. Anything, any sport out there, if you're not confident in what you're doing, you're not gonna do very well at it.

Brian Bashore (42:00.364)
I mean, you, it sounds arrogant, and I've said this in seminars for years, like if you go into that tournament and you have any other thought other than I'm going to win, thanks for donating your money. Because you're not, you're not going to win. If you should be 100%, I get it, they two or three roll around and you're out of it or whatever. Now it's a different mindset of I'm just trying to stay in the game or I need to cash a check or get some points, you know, but they want it. You should be, I'm the best out here. I'm in it to win it. I'm going to go.

this now at the of the day it may be a completely different story but if you don't have the right exactly but you know I guarantee when you get first and second you and your brother were like after day one are like we got this we got this we just got to do this shit one more day and we got this.

Kent Andersen (42:34.457)
more days than not, but.

Kent Andersen (42:46.489)
We had a pretty good program.

Brian Bashore (42:48.418)
You know, you did, didn't Dean, that's trolling trees. I think, is that what you guys are doing out there?

Kent Andersen (42:54.521)
Yeah, just drilling lead core over treetop.

Brian Bashore (42:56.686)
You know, it's not a secret, but it's still an art, you know? You know, gotta get the right bait, you gotta get it, the speed, the depth, I mean, everything. It's just, you know?

Kent Andersen (43:00.921)
Help, help.

Kent Andersen (43:06.969)
Yeah, there's a lot, there's one thing about trolling is a lot of people say, ah, trolling's so boring and I don't like to troll, but there's a lot of math and a lot of stuff that goes into trolling to make it all successful. So.

Brian Bashore (43:13.23)
You ain't doing it right then.

Brian Bashore (43:21.006)
Yeah, I always tell them I pull a ton of lead and love pulling lead probably more than anything. And, oh, this is, it's, that's so easy. And I'm like, you're not, you're not doing it right. If you're, if you're not up on your feet or constantly moving or doing something, you're just not doing it right. You know, I mean, granted, sure. There's easy times. Now going to Erie is great because it's such a clean fishery. You're not, you know, right. Your boat's clean. That's why I said, what I only think I really like about it. I love watching my boards go back and it's big boy Bob.

Kent Andersen (43:33.877)
Ew.

Kent Andersen (43:41.625)
It is, especially this time of year.

Kent Andersen (43:51.001)
Right.

Brian Bashore (43:51.95)
At the end of the day, unlike going to Red Wing where you're going to be in your boat going through 20 different rods, 20 different setups, you throw in all this crankbaits and hair jigs and three ways and all this different stuff, you got here, you're swapping off crankbaits. That's it. Everything's clean. There's no crawler crap in here. Maybe a bunch of crawlers, but you just don't have all this junk in your boat and it stays clean. I'm kind of anal about that. I like my stuff clean.

Kent Andersen (44:07.403)
Yup.

Brian Bashore (44:17.976)
Not everybody's like that. I've fished out of and with plenty of other guys boats or just seen them in the gas station. I'm like, how do you how do you do this? How do you get through the day with all that stuff scattered all over your boat? But you know, each is their own. So what we got some kakawea on the schedule. That's an awesome fishery. That'll be good. You know, yeah, we'll catch them and it really isn't a.

Kent Andersen (44:38.425)
That'll be fun out there, you know, good time of the year. Again, they stuck us on one end of the world, but hey, we're gonna go home and catch them.

Brian Bashore (44:47.726)
isn't a bad time out there. So, um, and now you've gone out there, no warrior. You guys do some events out there, I think, don't you? They're Lake of the woods, Lake of the woods. That's great. That's huge.

Kent Andersen (44:49.793)
No, there's not.

Kent Andersen (44:56.513)
We don't do anything there. We have our big owners tournament every year up at Lake of the Woods. Yeah, that's a good time. Yeah, that event's huge. We've been pushing 150 the last two years and I think we're gonna break 150 this year. My goal is to get that break 155 so it can be the biggest tournament in Minnesota. So right now Leech Lake has that at 155. So if we can...

Brian Bashore (45:07.15)
You're getting, I mean, there's a couple.

Brian Bashore (45:15.104)
Thank you.

What the?

Kent Andersen (45:24.441)
We get 156 warrior owners listening to this come fish in August on August 17th so we can break that record in Minnesota and put 150, 60 warriors on Lakeland woods that day.

Brian Bashore (45:36.27)
And that's a hell of a time to be on Lake of the Woods. That's some talk about lead core in a basin bite.

Kent Andersen (45:38.297)
It is, it is fantastic. Oh absolutely. Them forward -facing sonar guys are sniping them now too up there but it's a good time.

Brian Bashore (45:46.894)
Yeah, yeah, they are. But that, I remember we had their championship three years ago, which is the first time I'd ever been there. And I think it was my first day of practice by 10 a .m. And my other, you know, my teammate people weren't even there yet. And I texted them, I said, pick some of these up and we're done. Practice is over. I'm like, this is so easy. I couldn't even, I could drop it. 220 feet or whatever it was. Click, count to 10. Boom. Rod, go down. 25 to, you know, 28, 29 inch wall -wise.

Kent Andersen (46:03.417)
Hehehehe.

Kent Andersen (46:16.697)
Oh. Yep.

Brian Bashore (46:16.782)
We only have one and I didn't catch one though the first day and second day. I think I got three and just kept calling them out. But then it was a little time trying to find those 19 and half. I think the slot is there.

Kent Andersen (46:22.521)
Hell.

Kent Andersen (46:26.571)
Yeah, yeah, 19 you got to be under 19 and a half. That's why you know what everybody should just do. Go to catch record release and we just go catch the biggest fish every day. Don't have to worry about calling and all that good stuff.

Brian Bashore (46:29.902)
Alright, you guys.

Brian Bashore (46:36.502)
Yep. Yep. That's.

That solves a lot of problems in a lot of places. I get it.

Kent Andersen (46:42.937)
It absolutely does. It makes tournament fishing a lot more fun. I know that. Not to mention, you'd be lifting your libel up and seeing if your kids are alive or not.

Brian Bashore (46:48.78)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (46:52.174)
Yeah, it's the challenge. I know a lot of people like to see us go that way. There's always the, I mean, it's hard to beat the way in, in the crowd. And I don't know, maybe Red Crest was yesterday. You know, a lot of people said, didn't even know it was on. You know, Amethyst kind of backed off maybe on their exposure a little bit. And then we have the classic this week, but you know, it's just all I see is in here is it just doesn't compare, it doesn't compare to, you know, the classic Bregan notes.

Kent Andersen (47:17.633)
I think with the right minds that I really think you could get there. Rather than if the tournament circuit gets sponsored by Nikon or Canon or whatever, everybody gets a good camera that shoots video, good pictures. Rather than having our way and start when we check in, we come in, we hand our cards in and we go get our stuff ready for the next day. And.

Brian Bashore (47:24.012)
Oh yeah.

Brian Bashore (47:34.926)
Yep.

Kent Andersen (47:44.121)
come back, go across stage at six o 'clock or whatever it is, just like a regular weigh -in. And with the technology of today, we could have a stage set up with big screens behind it. That could be streaming live to the people that can't make it there. So you'd have a good, good show that's at side of it. And I think you could put a heck of a stage show on for everybody to see if you, if somebody wanted to put the effort into it.

Brian Bashore (48:08.11)
name does it, right? Yeah, you gotta take a little effort and obviously you do it later in the afternoon or you know, people are off work now. We get pretty good crowds. We had a huge crowd at Pigstown last year. But that's a community there that kind of that's why you're there. It's what you're there to do is fish and a lot of summer homes or whatever. So guys are on vacation or made it that made sure that that was their their week of it. But there was people that came from all over.

Kent Andersen (48:14.521)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, that was impressive.

Kent Andersen (48:24.569)
There's a fishing fishing community. Yes, yep.

Kent Andersen (48:31.289)
Yo.

Brian Bashore (48:35.404)
That community isn't that big. So those people came from other places. Oh yeah.

Kent Andersen (48:35.415)
Oh, absolutely.

No, no, it's a pretty small town. You know, you can, you close your eyes. I got a dealer there in Pickstone, Donlin Marine and I mean, you drive through there, you close your eyes, you're through it. So like where'd it go? Yeah.

Brian Bashore (48:47.342)
That's it. It's a one blink village, that's for sure. It's a cool little place, but we get pretty good attendance at the weigh -ins and there's something to be said about that, but it's not like we're pulling the fish out of the bags and holding them up. You know, it's...

Kent Andersen (48:59.769)
No, and that's just it, is we're not seeing that. And I think if you had video clips or good images and stuff when you're going across the stage on big, I mean, screens are cheap now. They had big screens behind the stage and that was just your stage backdrop. I mean, I really think with a little bit of effort and a little brainstorming, I think you wouldn't need many more people than they already have. And you would be able to put a hell of a show on.

Brian Bashore (49:10.798)
Brett.

Brian Bashore (49:26.286)
Yeah, you know, head to head or pro walleye series kind of tried that for a year, head to head, still doing it and doing it more of a local level. There's it. And I was talking to someone again earlier about this, that there's a huge production cost when you're trying to live stream, you know, like that when you're trying to get everybody or the top 10 or whatever. I mean, it's you see Bass or MLF do this and that those are million, multimillion dollar production companies doing this stuff. So there's, you know, there's a lot to it. Now we can live stream our own.

Kent Andersen (49:40.601)
Oh, absolutely.

Kent Andersen (49:50.105)
Now...

Brian Bashore (49:53.326)
You know, from your GoPro, from your cell phone or whatever on day two or tournaments. But personally, you don't want to mess with that stuff. You just want to fish. And also once you lost drop signal, which you're going to drop signal because it's just the way it is. Yeah. You're you can't log back on and you're done. So you can go through all the work and spend the money to get it set up. And you know, you take off and you're not even a spot A and you've already dropped signal. So you're done. I don't know. I mean, I've dabbed in it. I know guys tried it a little bit.

Kent Andersen (49:54.999)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (49:59.797)
Right?

Kent Andersen (50:05.687)
We're on fashion.

Brian Bashore (50:22.83)
year a couple and I don't think anybody really ever got it to go through or stick. You'll probably see more people doing it this year. It'll be kind of cool if you can. But then again, it's, you know, what people probably don't realize is some days there's not a whole lot of fishing or how much downtime there is, you know, because you're only looking for those five right bites. I don't care if I get five bites today, long as they're the five right ones. It's not fun fishing, just like practice with your co anglers or your buddies come out and pre fish with you. You're like, you know, they want to pound on me. Like I got, I got one or two. That's it.

Kent Andersen (50:52.185)
Alright, let's go.

Brian Bashore (50:53.016)
Yeah, pack it up, remove it. They're like, what? I always tell them, I'm like, this isn't fun guys. This is a lot of work. It's obviously sufficient. It's fun. But you know, if it's an area, that's something different. You want to troll and just, you want to take some home to eat. Let's.

Kent Andersen (51:06.681)
That's what's nice about going to Lake Erie, you actually get to catch them, you know, even at practice. You don't feel guilty if you put 30 fish in a boat, you know.

Brian Bashore (51:09.806)
Right, yeah, you can just keep.

Right. There's 300 million of them here. I think we're okay. It's good to go. But we definitely, yeah, you just don't want to beat up your fish. These bass guys don't even run hooks at their practice, you know, where they're bending them down and they're just like, okay, that's a catch, you know, because they saw it or they felt it. But they're like, okay, good. They're pulling it away. And I'm like, all right, we're not quite to that level. I need to see some of these suckers. I can't tell you that was a seven, eight pounder, but I get it. You know, you beat them up, you go back there day one and...

Kent Andersen (51:24.857)
No, exactly.

Kent Andersen (51:28.897)
Ew.

Kent Andersen (51:40.567)
Ew.

Brian Bashore (51:44.142)
They're all gone. So, fish are getting smart.

Kent Andersen (51:46.201)
Yeah, that's the thing about them fish, they like to use those fins. It can be very frustrating. For someone with the brain of a pea, they can outsmart a guy pretty easy.

Brian Bashore (51:51.214)
Yeah, it's amazing.

Brian Bashore (51:58.382)
Yeah, that's always part of the confidence key. I tell people, I'm like, this, you know, the brain is the size of a pea. It's small. The minute you let that fish win and out, and outsmart you, I said, pack it up and go home. You're done. I said, you gotta, gotta believe.

Kent Andersen (52:10.105)
And all they really after is two things in life, spawning and eating. Kind of like a big buck. They want to breed and eat. You know? Yeah, something like that. You know?

Brian Bashore (52:14.606)
Yep. Yep.

It's just like us guys a little bit sometimes, I suppose. So that's where it all comes from. We have other priorities here and there, but it's just a male thing. So when I can't get them to commit to the bite, I'm always like, that's a male. Clench, hey, you know, like it won't commit. It won't bite. It's gotta be a male. Let me get a kick out of that. Well, it's gotta be a good season, I think. We got some things we gotta...

Kent Andersen (52:30.201)
Well...

Brian Bashore (52:44.974)
deal with or challenges or work through, but it just makes it kind of a chess match in a sense and it's efficient. So either way, it's competitive and I mean, obviously we all like a challenge.

Kent Andersen (52:56.281)
Yeah, absolutely. It's always looking forward to getting the season started. It never comes fast enough, but yet comes too fast at times. So ready to get out there and hang out with the crew. Adam's taking the year off this year chasing. His boy is going to be a senior next year and he wrestles all year long. So he got pretty hectic running around the tournaments with him last summer. And he's going to focus on that this year. So it'll be Justin.

Brian Bashore (53:04.878)
Yeah, the...

Kent Andersen (53:25.689)
and I and then we're teaming up with Mike Diffenbaugh this year so it should be good time to get out on the road.

Brian Bashore (53:29.934)
Okay, yeah, Mike's a great guy. Yeah, those kids, man, they get wrestling clubs and stuff. That's what...

Kent Andersen (53:37.177)
I got a 10 year old and it's enough at his age, it's every weekend in the winter and half the summer. So, yeah.

Brian Bashore (53:44.334)
It gets better. I got one in college, so, um, but they're my step kids. We have them every other week. So, but we got the girl comes home tonight and choir singing show. She's a performer and dance three nights a week. And it's, uh, it's go, go, go. But mom's all over that stuff and you miss enough of it. So when you do get a, you know, attended and watch it, it's makes when you're, when you're home, make sure you, you make it. And it's awesome. I love it. She's. I'm biased, but she pretty damn good.

Kent Andersen (53:56.151)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (54:06.711)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (54:11.545)
Absolutely.

Brian Bashore (54:13.55)
That's what I mean, we lost Brent Henderson from traveling with Randy and I years ago, St. Dill's kids are wrestling clubs and just busy and I think now they're bigger and hopefully they're, think they want to fish. So hopefully he can jump back in, but the guy's also a surgeon and doctor and he's got a lot, he's got kind of busy. So he's got a lot going on.

Kent Andersen (54:30.617)
Life gets in the way of it too often.

Brian Bashore (54:35.758)
Yeah, I've given away this fun fishing stuff where you're not making a lot of money, right? These priorities, I got to go to work type stuff, but we'll keep chasing it as long as we can. And, uh, you know, that's just, that is what it is. And tournament circuits come and go and changes are made. And like I said, that the aim circuits out there doing great stuff. We have the casino cup. Uh, I think in the T we're just going through some adjustments, really, you know, anytime you have anybody new move in, you're just going to have.

Kent Andersen (54:40.289)
Help, right?

Yep.

Kent Andersen (55:01.657)
hopefully yep

Brian Bashore (55:05.358)
make some adjustments in there. You know, give them a little grace and allow some learning curve and we'll see where everything goes from there. But as long as we're signing up and fishing, these things will be around.

Kent Andersen (55:15.929)
Yeah, absolutely. So hopefully we can have good numbers again this year and carry it through, which I think we should. We're going, like you said, good locations. So, yeah.

Brian Bashore (55:25.358)
We need those good numbers because we need the championship fully funded because that's where the money's at.

Kent Andersen (55:28.473)
Absolutely. Even though the catch on all that is only $250 from each entry fee is going to that championship. But I'm guessing you'd see some different numbers if they're short 10 or 20 boats more than the 250.

Brian Bashore (55:36.494)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (55:43.712)
Yep.

Yeah, and we just, you know, we don't know. Obviously the Koh -Ingler numbers are anticipated or appear to be very high. So hopefully the pro numbers are, we'll maintain it. We'll find out real soon. We have a few weeks and I probably need to get my entry turned in here pretty soon. So.

Kent Andersen (55:52.259)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (55:57.183)
Yep, yeah, hopefully.

I just did mine the other day, so that's the only thing is hopefully our coin, their numbers don't diminish with the advancements of forward -facing sonar, and with fishing for one person's limit and all that we're doing. So hopefully in long -term, it doesn't affect us.

Brian Bashore (56:03.214)
Did ya?

Brian Bashore (56:13.228)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (56:20.91)
Yeah, I've got to keep them engaged and that's good. I think that's the biggest challenge with these limits this year. And it's exactly that is the coangler. You're fishing for a one person limit and how involved and especially if you're, you know, a locked on forward facing guy and I get it. I don't want that guy throwing it to fish. You're looking at a lot of guys. I've seen it and you know, they're adding this throwing their ice unit in the back or add another unit to give that guy at least a little or gal.

Kent Andersen (56:28.727)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (56:38.169)
Yep.

Kent Andersen (56:48.889)
Something to look at. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (56:49.836)
something to look at whether they know how to use it or not. But I mean, I've also heard some say the best thing you could do is sit there and if they got a link to their dash is sit in that chair and just watch, learn, you know, just sit back, put the rod up and just sit back and learn something here today. Cause we got all sorts of different levels of it, you know, skill set on the co -anchor side. You know, you can draw a hammer and you can draw a knot and you're like.

Kent Andersen (56:59.161)
Watch.

Kent Andersen (57:03.897)
No.

Kent Andersen (57:08.471)
Oh absolutely you do.

Kent Andersen (57:13.419)
Which which which forward -facing sonar plays a whole new game in that too and get if you get a You get an absolute stud of a coangler to somebody that can't stand up and cast for ten minutes much less for eight hours It's a whole different world on that side of things, too

Brian Bashore (57:17.556)
See you.

Brian Bashore (57:27.982)
So I think, you know, we used to get a lot of guys that their wife bought them the birthday present and signed them up. You know, or back when you could guarantee the entry with the pro. You'd kind of get one -offs. I don't think you're going to get a lot of one -offs. I think with the demand of all these guys signing up for all four events, that they're all probably pretty, we're still going to have a few. But those guys that are just trying to jump in one or something, I don't think they're going to get in any. So it's the guys that signed up for all four, which are usually the ones that are pretty committed.

Kent Andersen (57:37.441)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (57:52.121)
I don't think they will either. Very, very few.

Brian Bashore (57:57.71)
a little bit more hardcore, not necessarily younger or older, they're just trying to get into it, but they're there to learn and take full advantage of it because it's a hell of a deal. It's a two day guided trip for 500 bucks.

Kent Andersen (58:03.449)
Hell. Yeah.

Absolutely, you can't buy anything anywhere else.

Brian Bashore (58:11.982)
No, I mean, I, somebody was bitching on, I think it was an MWD Facebook post yesterday about how it's crap and, and any other circuit would give the Coeinger $30 ,000. I'm like, you?

Kent Andersen (58:24.281)
Even if they didn't fish for anything. Yeah, that's a great deal.

Brian Bashore (58:27.118)
It's a good deal. I'm like, I don't, and you don't want them vested because ultimately the co -word amateur, it's just a program, the marshal, he's supposed to be the police in the boat. He's not supposed to be in it for having incentive. So.

Kent Andersen (58:36.985)
supposed to be the police.

Kent Andersen (58:42.519)
Yeah, Kimos, Tom Kimos had a great idea. He said we should just, they should just draw for the prize money on the coal side. I'm like, that'd be a great idea.

Brian Bashore (58:50.926)
Yeah, take it completely out of the equation and then they used to give them a boat, you know.

Kent Andersen (58:53.209)
Yeah, it's a luck of a draw. At the end of the day, it's almost a luck of the draw for them anyways, if they get the, you know, you get a pro that has a, you could have two awesome pros and those pros could have two huge weights in the tournament, but you could got them on the two bad days and be at the bottom of the barrel, you know, so.

Brian Bashore (59:11.5)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Trust me. I ended up, my Co's have experienced that a handful of times. I know we'll just throw it to Sue last year. I got Max's Co on day two and he's leading it. And that was the worst tournament I had to hold. I was, I was on nothing. I'm on a slip bobber bike trying to catch five 15, 16 inchers because I couldn't figure it out anywhere. I told them, I'm like, sorry, dude, sucks to be you, but this is, this is it. If I had something better, we'd go do it. So we caught some fish and then I went, well, we'll, we'll go try to where I had some.

Kent Andersen (59:14.905)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (59:26.305)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (59:29.857)
Yeah, yeah.

Kent Andersen (59:34.457)
That's what we're doing.

Brian Bashore (59:39.726)
You know, better fish, right? No, that better fish are getting caught. I'm just, I'm just not catching them. Gave it a little while. I went, this sucks. Let's just go catch some fish and maybe we'll stumble into 10 pounds. Well, and, uh, you know, I think that was when you, when you had that good cushion, I think you guys don't at least cast a check, but we've all been there. We're, we're, we're not on it, but you want to keep that guy in it, you know, the next day. Um, but a draw of a good co, if it's a jig bite can benefit the pro considerably as well.

Kent Andersen (59:40.727)
Hell.

Kent Andersen (59:49.335)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (01:00:01.719)
Oh absolutely.

Kent Andersen (01:00:09.081)
Oh, big time, big time.

Brian Bashore (01:00:11.47)
Yeah, exactly. Big time. I don't know that I've had any. I probably have. Maybe where the amateurs caught more fish. I mean, you did everything. You put it there. You're the guide in that sense on that day. But the guy knows how to fish. He knows what he's feeling. It does. It makes a big difference. So I know there's talks about it and going back to the old ways and doing this and that. But whatever they're doing is working because these guys are all signing up and the waiting list is getting long. So.

Kent Andersen (01:00:13.273)
big time.

Kent Andersen (01:00:22.359)
Yeah.

Kent Andersen (01:00:26.137)
makes a huge difference.

Brian Bashore (01:00:39.278)
We'll just continue to do our best to put them on fish and we'll see how the season goes and that's about all we can do. Just go fishing. And one last little thing, Kent, you got anything to leave these guys with? A little nugget, a little tip.

Kent Andersen (01:00:46.521)
go fishing.

Kent Andersen (01:00:55.871)
just say just get that time on the water if you're wanting to be a forward -facing sonar guy just get out there and play with it almost almost kind of like side imaging when you first start playing a side image and you almost had to just leave the rods on the shore and go go looking at it because if you're big into fishing you'll go around you'll be looking with your forward -facing sonar and you'll get bored with it and want to just go catch them you know and a lot of times

you're not just trying to fish for fish and catch fish, you're looking for individual fish when you're forward -facing sonar. So I'd say, you know, get some time, spend some time just out on the water playing with it. It's not hard at all. If you were to ask me, I mean, I'm pretty dumb when it comes to that stuff and, you know, just go out and go play with it. It's not hard at all. A lot of people wanna make it sound a lot harder than it is. And...

I'd say the biggest thing is clear your history. Go to your web browser and delete everything you've learned and just go out and drive around and look at that screen.

Brian Bashore (01:02:00.142)
Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, pay attention to what's going on underneath the water. You know, and if anybody's ever been scuba diving, you'll realize it's a whole nother world down there. So pay attention to the fish. They'll tell you what they want. They'll tell you where they're going and everything. It's a lot of electronic seminars that you just, you said exactly what I always tell them is leave the gear and truck, leave it on shore because you're going to get sucked in. You know, you want to learn side image or forward facing, go to where you know their structure, a bridge piling.

Kent Andersen (01:02:05.951)
now.

Kent Andersen (01:02:10.387)
Absolutely.

Kent Andersen (01:02:22.461)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:02:29.614)
something you can visibly see out of the water and look at it and drive by it and try to understand what is 30, 50 feet when you're talking casting is a flip. It's not very far. I mean, people are like whipping away out there. I don't see nothing. I'm like, that's because you just threw your bait 100 feet out of the boat. You know, it's.

Kent Andersen (01:02:31.719)
Yep.

Kent Andersen (01:02:38.815)
different.

Kent Andersen (01:02:47.007)
Yeah, well, that's kind of like just, I'd say that's probably with forward facing sonar, that's probably one of the biggest things is go into your yard and throw a bucket out there and cast at that bucket because your casting accuracy is probably more, have more to do with it than, you know, being able to read that graph.

Brian Bashore (01:03:08.206)
Right, you're what I think, 20 degree co -

Kent Andersen (01:03:09.681)
putting that lure in front of them. For the most part, those fish and with forward facing sonar, you're looking at fish that are suspended, because you're not seeing a lot of those fish that are stagnant on the bottom. You're looking at the fish that are up, and when they're up, they're up for a reason. They're up to eat. So more often than not, you put something in front of their face that they're going to eat it. So.

Brian Bashore (01:03:25.078)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:03:30.894)
which is seeing the bass guys are throwing our walleye baits around now everywhere. It's a three inch minnow and a jig and they're dropping it because they can see it and they just feather it back and smack. We're like, we've been doing this for years, man. But now they can see it because it's offshore, right? We've been fishing offshore in a sense, but yeah, it's the evolution of it, the evolution of electronics. It's all good. And it's the evolution of the game because it's what it is.

Kent Andersen (01:03:35.921)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (01:03:53.823)
Yeah, it's changing. You know, you watch, you go back and you look at just all the advancements and it's fast. It's changing faster than it ever has, I'd say right now. But is it for the bad? I don't know. I'd take it or leave it, but if you're gonna do it, you better learn how to use it. And especially if you wanna be competitive in competitive fishing nowadays, you better learn how to use forward facing sonar. You're gonna be...

sitting on the bank scratching your head, you know, as painful it is for me to say that, it's the fact of today, you know, the only thing I hope is these states figure something out with limits and whatnot before, sooner than later, because if anybody says they don't catch more fish with it, they're just straight up lying because you catch way more fish with it. You catch way more fish with it. And...

Brian Bashore (01:04:28.046)
truth.

Brian Bashore (01:04:45.262)
They're not using it right.

Kent Andersen (01:04:50.675)
you know, our fisheries probably can't sustain everybody learning how to do it. So, and we're humans and we're people and all the first thing people are gonna wanna do when they start catching fish that they weren't catching before is keep them to show their friends. So, yeah, we need regulation to stop us from that. So hopefully we can make some adjustments. I know...

Brian Bashore (01:05:07.178)
or a greedy nation period.

Brian Bashore (01:05:12.718)
Right.

Kent Andersen (01:05:15.871)
I think Wisconsin starting April 1st pretty much statewide is all going three fish per person. So where I live in Western Wisconsin has always been three fish per person. So not a big deal there, but I'd just like to see hopefully the DNRs catch it and panfish are probably the most vulnerable to it right now. So.

Brian Bashore (01:05:20.622)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:05:33.998)
All right. Well, it's so new. There isn't a ton of science and there's obviously a lot going on right now to determine that and watch it. And the bear trauma you've seen all winter on the studies, you know, and using this as a tool to figure that out. You know.

Kent Andersen (01:05:38.847)
And yep.

Oh yeah.

Kent Andersen (01:05:47.551)
Absolutely, I mean it's a very cool piece of technology that is out there for everybody to use now and you can get it fairly reasonable in a price and whatnot and you know all the top brands offer systems and they're all great and they all work in their own aspects so you know it's just taking the time to learn it.

Brian Bashore (01:06:12.366)
Yep. Well said. And not only are electronics changing fast, our world's changing fast. Faster, way faster than it needs to be really. Yeah, like the eighties were pretty cool. You know, most people are like, what, how old are these guys? But just Reagan era. It was good. It was good. Things were simple, you know, if we could just keep things simple, but it's not, it's where we're at. It's what we're doing. And those to be successful, just got to have to adapt and then enroll with it and move forward.

Kent Andersen (01:06:18.215)
You think? Yeah, we could go back a few years and be alright. Yeah.

Kent Andersen (01:06:31.291)
Yeah.

No.

Kent Andersen (01:06:42.113)
See you.

Brian Bashore (01:06:42.892)
Nonetheless, the outdoors are still there. They're great. Get your head up from the screen once in a while. Look around. Enjoy what you got out there.

Kent Andersen (01:06:48.095)
That's probably one of the biggest things too, you know, as, you know, I've said it before, like, forward -facing swan is really the death of fishing. And people look at me cross -eyed, I'm like, well, just think about it. You know, whether you're taking kids out and just chucking a bobber and gonna sit there and have a conversation until that bobber goes down, whether you're trolling with boards or you're trolling lead core or pulling a lindy rig or casting a jig.

There's conversation, you're looking around, you're watching exactly what you just said. What's around you, you look at the bald eagle fly by or swoop in to grab a fish, big buck on shore or flock of geese flying over your head. I tell you what, when you're dialing your screen and you gotta do it if you're forward -facing sonar, the world stops around you and all you see is what you're looking at and just like anything, kids with their phones, they are.

Brian Bashore (01:07:22.222)
Well...

Brian Bashore (01:07:26.738)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:07:42.09)
Yup.

Kent Andersen (01:07:44.095)
They sit there and talk to you and all they're doing is staring at that phone all the time and it's no different. So I mean, it all falls in. But yeah, it's changing times and everything else. I mean, pretty soon people probably won't communicate back and forth. They'll just tape it out to each other or whatever it is. But that's the tough thing that you see is you miss a lot of stuff around you. Just like looking around at scenery. How many kids nowadays never even look out the window when they're in a vehicle. So.

Brian Bashore (01:07:56.918)
Yep. Take a moment, folks, and look up.

Brian Bashore (01:08:07.702)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:08:13.516)
No, we used to, you know, count the deer or count the windmills or whatever it was, you know, and license plate games and, you know, no, enjoy it folks. Get your head up, look around, take it in, watch those Eagles. I got turkeys that been gobbling up on the shoreline lately. And I mean, I've had to stop my boat twice last summer for a deer to cross in front of me on the Missouri river. So that's, you don't see those things if you don't look up, you know.

Kent Andersen (01:08:17.151)
Yeah, what anything you know to kill time, you know, so

Kent Andersen (01:08:29.695)
Well... Well...

Kent Andersen (01:08:38.751)
No, exactly.

Brian Bashore (01:08:38.862)
Pay attention to why you're out here to begin with is because you love the outdoors. So it takes a little bit of time to just enjoy them. Catching fish is catching fish. We'll always catch them. Somewhere, someday. We'll always catch them. Some days, maybe not every day, but they're not going anywhere anytime soon, hopefully. Awesome. Good stuff, Kent. Thanks for your time today. We'll put some links down here below to send you guys over to check out the Warrior Boats. Not baits, Warrior Boats. It's actually that...

Kent Andersen (01:08:42.855)
Yep. Enjoy it. Suck it in.

Kent Andersen (01:08:50.047)
Some days we'll catch them.

Kent Andersen (01:08:56.383)
Well... Well...

Brian Bashore (01:09:07.566)
Behemoth 238, I'm telling you this thing is this thing is massive. It's a

Kent Andersen (01:09:11.071)
It's got an aircraft carrier for a front deck on it and it's just a machine.

Brian Bashore (01:09:16.526)
You're going to be going to a triple axle trailer before you know it probably with some of these.

Kent Andersen (01:09:21.809)
Yeah, who would ever think who would ever think they just keep stuff would just keep getting bigger bigger like it is

Brian Bashore (01:09:25.87)
Well, it sucks to be that guy when he has all the toll rules and on his way to Erie, he gets charged for axle, right? So, not trying to discourage anybody from buying one of them, but it's not. It's just tandem at this point. It's still tandem. Yep. So go check them out, order boats, and follow Kent along on his social pages and stay tuned to what he's got going on on the trail this year. So thanks, Kent, and thank all of you for tuning in. You're either watching this or...

Kent Andersen (01:09:30.111)
Right, right?

Kent Andersen (01:09:35.527)
Ah, there's still tandem axles, so they're just like everybody else.

Brian Bashore (01:09:50.958)
right here on the Walleye Guys YouTube page or the Walleye Guys Facebook page and you can find us out there on Google, Amazon, Spotify, Apple, I think that's all of them, on those podcast platforms when you're on these long road trips like we are, these are great things to listen to and get you fired up to go fishing. So stay tuned and we will see you guys on the water. Thank you. All right, let me hit stop. Yours looks like it's...

Kent Andersen (01:10:09.485)
Thanks a lot, Brian.