Take Scoping Away And The Kids Still Kick A**
All the talk, over the last few years, has been that the young guys on tour couldn't catch bass without FFS. Well, well, well it looks like the top 50 cut a the Sabine is going littered with those "SCOPERS" in a tournament where FFS is not a factor at all. I've been saying all along that these kids would still be at the top without scope and it turns out, that is in fact the case and let me tell you why!
In the old days, a guy would find a good bit of success at the local level and then make a run at the Opens but still stay in his region. If he was good enough, in his region, he might get a shot at the top level. Once he was there, as a rookie on tour, it would take him a few years to learn how to catch bass outside of his region. He had to learn, herring fisheries, tidal fisheries, ledge fisheries, river run fisheries, northern smallmouth fisheries, shallow grass fisheries, Deep clear mountain fisheries, etc.. If he was fortunate enough to figure all this things out, well enough to be competitive, before he ran out of money, then he might make it as a tour level "PRO". He was going to struggle for a few years until he had "paid his dues".
In todays world, these kids have been fishing on a highly competitive level since they were in junior high school. They fish 100+ boat tournaments starting in middle school. They move on to high school where they mostly fish locally but do move on to fish large scale high school events in a regional and national level. Then the best of those move on to fish in college where they are traveling all over the country fishing in 250+ boat events in every one of the types of fisheries mentioned above. The best of those move on to fish the opens where they are MUCH more prepared than the majority of their competitors. These kids show up at the opens with 4-5 years of national tour experience under their belt. And those 4-5 years of college fishing were spent going to class and fishing multiple days a week. Trust me when I say, these kids are VERY experienced and are really good at everything including FFS. Lets face it, everyone has FFS, so if FFS was such an easy thing to do, the entire field would be catching 30lb bags but that is simply not the case. These kids are really good with FFS because they had the time, on the water, to learn it, but trust me they learned a lot more than FFS with all those day on the water.
Love it or hate it, bass fishing has become just like any other professional sport, in that, the only real path to the top goes through high school, then college participation. It is the only path that allows someone to acquire that level of experience, at a young age, for very little expense. The days of the working man making it to top, with or without FSS, are going to become a very rare thing. The old saying "stay in school" now applies to bass fishing.
