We Won! 

For example, the most recent place I listened to it, was in an episode of a podcast about kayak fishing in competition. There was a 'Kayak Bass Nation' podcast episode, number 201 from this calendar year. And around forty minutes into that episode, some of the anglers on the kayak fishing side who have been around for several years. They spoke about the prospect of the female competitive bass angler moving from platforms such as kayaks over to bass boat proper. And being able to fish at something like a Bassmaster Open level. Where they would regularly get top placings, finishes, get into the reward money end of the Open's field. And maybe some day even qualify to fish at a Bassmaster Elite level. When they were talking about it, someone used the expression that some young anglers are 'born with a flipping stick in their hands'. Meaning that some young anglers on the Bassmaster Opens side of the competitive angling sport, they grow up doing a lot of fishing and knowing a lot about it.

Something else about that KBN podcast episode made me curious. I was thinking to myself about where I last heard this spoken about, by sports people in general, across all of the competitive sports out there. And I remembered, that in professional tennis something did happen in that sport quite a while back. In which the older veteran and seasoned professionals in the tennis sport. Became aware of the reality that younger and younger competitors were coming through. Who it seemed were almost bred and reared in order to become professional tennis stars. And the older tennis pro's in that sport (it happen on the female tennis sport side first I think, or at least that is where the conversation started). The older female tennis stars who were household names, they were brutally honest. They explained, that it was sad to see that happening to the younger generations. Who they would argue, didn't have any life experience (in other words, their life was tennis).

There was a river I knew as a young angler myself, which ran alongside a famous golf course. Where several American Presidents had come to golf over the decades. Growing up in the west of Ireland where there was a sequence of saltwater adjacent 'sand dune' golf courses that were considered to be world class. There was a sort of professional training and feeder system for pro golfers (after they'd completed the apprenticeship for golfing, they'd re-locate to the United States where the money in competitive golfing was). And I'm going way back to the 1980's decade here. Our high school happened to be adjacent to the golf circuit. So there were always high school students that I was friends with, who were actually training to become golfers. They weren't just attending high school in the normal way (and it showed, because they were probably some of the lowest achieving academic students around). Despite being intelligent and bright, they had to be on the golf course at crazy small hours, twelve months of the year. Just practicising their trade as it were.

But here's the thing, talk about putting all of one's egg's into a single basket. This is four or five decades ago now. I was sitting alongside one of the golfing pro's one morning before school (he was probably copying my homework, because he never got to do his own). And in return for the favor, he decided to give me some golfing pro's advice. He said, he was trying to lean away from his best golfing shots. On the instruction of his trainer, who explained to him. He could probably improve those golf shots by another five or ten percent over time if he worked. His trainer said that his best 'return on investment', and chance to improve his all-around game. Was not to focus on doing better in the golf shots he was already good at. But by deliberately putting his golf ball in the locations he didn't like to play from. And working to achieve a larger percentage improvement on his worst golf shots, rather than his best.

Fast forward to the present day, and to another former FLW tour level competitor. Todd Castledine spoke yesterday about the Toyota MLF championship at Table Rock in 2023. He was looking for opportunities or days in which his normal methods of fishing for bass, and his bass lures did not operate as they were supposed to. In order that he said, he could improve something about those lures. That would provide Todd Castledine the angler with some competitive advantage going down the road. In the future. Listening to episode 201 of the Kayak Bass Nation, and reading between the lines of what was talked about in that episode about kayak platform, as opposed to bass boat competitions. It struck me, that what we're seeing in competitive fishing is the rise of the 'professional parent'. In my description of the professional under-age golfing competitor, what had to happen there was the parents as well as the young golfers had to re-locate. And in some cases, the parents bought companies or businesses that were alongside of the golf course. So they could be positioned somewhere, where their children could practice golf each morning. Before going to their high school.

Listening to episode 100 of Mill House, Andy Mill published the other day. Features a former fishing guide who was a competitive saltwater red fish angler. He spoke about Okeechobee, it's history and geography.

I care. I would rather hear about Thursday night championship than mlf drama.