Back to Work

I feel bad for the first fish that each professional angler hooks at next week’s professional events. Suckers gonna get their lips ripped off as a result of all of that pent-up frustration. Some pros may hit them so hard that they’ll launch a green fish into next year which, all things considered, might not be the worst thing in the world.

Yes, after months without pro angling, it’ll all come screaming back in just a few days. If there’s any doubt how long it has been you only need to look at my hair – I got a haircut a few days before leaving for the Classic on March 1st and have not had another one since. My hair likely has not been this long since “My Sharona” was on the charts and Rick Clunn had only won two Classics.

So what do we have to look forward to? The retooling of schedules means that only a minority of this year’s tournaments will involve spawning fish. I suppose that the Elites could run into a few at one of their three July tournaments, but they’ll likely be few, if any.

Does that indicate a likely reset of the overall leaderboard?

Will the addition of fall tournaments have a similar impact?

I kind of doubt it. A few anglers at the margins might do much better or much worse than expected, but that happens every season. The fact is that most pros are so good these days that there aren’t major holes in their games. I’ve watched VanDam flip and he’s better at it than you and me. I’ve watched plenty of others in situations when they were supposedly outside of their personal wheelhouses, and in most cases they’ve excelled. The days when you could just throw a spinnerbait or a worm or a crankbait and hope to consistently do well are over.

The workplace may change, and the tools may evolve, but the job stays the same.