The 2012 FLW season has arrived! Every year, I study the schedule and plan how I am going to attack it. I work hard during the off-season developing and practicing new techniques and am faced with the same decision each year. I ask myself if it is a technique I can successfully employ to do my job and win tournaments. Some techniques I have become very proficient with but still choose not to add them to my arsenal. Others I have adopted. They have become a part of me and my fishing style and help me to achieve my goals as an angler. That is what makes this sport great and what distinguishes all the top anglers from one another.
This season is going to be much different than the past. This year I have to make the decision whether or not to fish the Alabama Rig. I am not going to sit here and claim to be an expert on it because I can assure you I am not. No one is. No one can tell us the effect it will have on our tournaments or fishing in general. Is it innovative and pushing the envelope? Yes, no one can question that or what the results are when it is used it a tournament setting. Everyone knows what happened at Guntersville and then the following week at Kentucky Lake.
What they may not know is how dominate it has been at the local level. To my knowledge, every local tournament on the Tennessee, Coosa, and Warrior river systems since Guntersville has been dominated by it as well. Fishing this time of year, the weights are generally low and fishing is tough, just like I felt Guntersville was. Now with the rig, I have seen weights that I never thought were possible under the given conditions. The most ironic thing is that everyone has been catching them regardless of their experience or skill level.
Are more people fishing right now because of the rig? Without a doubt. Are a lot of people making money because of it? You better believe it. Will it dominate every event? Of course not. Will it dominate some events enough to make other techniques and styles obsolete? It already has. These are questions that are easy to answer.
Now for the hard ones. Does this lure belong in professional bass tournaments? Is it ethical or even legal? You are going to get different answers and varying opinions on these. Right now there are two major tournament trails that provide the top anglers an avenue to make a living fishing. It is legal on one and not on the other. Some states it’s legal and others it’s not.
For me the answer is clear. If there is any question about whether or not it is ethical or legal, it should be banned from competition. Five lures are better than one; ten will be better than five. Where does it end? Where do we draw the line? I don’t want it to be legal in Kentucky but not legal in Tennessee. It will have an adverse effect on the bass population all over the country. How could it not?
This rig compromises everything I feel professional fishing should be about. Clark Wendlandt will not be throwing a square-bill crankbait and Andy Morgan will not be flipping. Jason Christie will not be spinner-baiting and Larry Nixon can throw away his worms. These are things that we have based our careers on. They are things that we are the best at. They are things we use to make a living with all year in any conditions. That is what makes this sport great and what makes us all different. That is why I fish and why I have chosen this path to start with. The challenge and the competition will never be the same.
As far as adding the rig to my arsenal, I feel for the first time in my career that I don’t have a choice. If it remains legal on the FLW Tour and I am going to continue to fish for a living, I will have to fish it at certain events to survive out there. I am all for innovation and taking this sport to the next level, but I feel the use of this rig is a big step in the wrong direction. It goes against the core values of what I feel this sport was founded on. It’s not about catching giant stringers. We could do that with live bait. It is supposed to be about the competition. I am grateful to BASS on their decision and to those states that have restrictions on the use of such rigs. I am sure they are doing the best thing for the sport in the long run.
Now, when those tournaments come along, and they will be here soon, 160 guys are going to be lobbing 2 pounds of wire and lead out there and some will catch five bass at a time, some possibly more. We will break all the records set before us, records that were set by truly talented anglers with one rod, one reel, and one lure.
