Fishin' Addiction

There's a popular country song about a fisherman who's ready to go out the door one morning when his frustrated wife gives him the ultimatum: It's either her or the fish.

And the chorus goes:
"Well, I'm gonna miss her when I get home,
But right now I'm on this lakeshore, sittin' in the sun.
I'm sure it'll hit me when I walk though that door tonight,
That I'm gonna miss her, oh, lookie there, I gotta bite."
The song is meant as a joke, but when I recite the lyrics to some of the anglers competing in this weekend's Bassmaster Classic in Kissimmee, they don't always laugh.
Sometimes, it makes them want to cry.
"I'm going through the Big D(ivorce) right now because of fishing," says Rick Morris, a 14-year pro who is in fifth place at the Classic. "Too much stress on the family. Bass fishing has caused many divorces and many bankruptcies."
These are the topics you won't see this weekend on ESPN, which bought the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society five years ago and is devoting 16 hours' worth of weekend coverage to the Classic. What you'll mostly see on TV are stories about the behemoth bass and the monster payday awaiting one fortunate fisherman. But delve down into the dark water beneath the bright lights, fast boats and big fish, and you'll find an undercurrent of broken homes and busted bank accounts. Many of these elite fishermen say they, too, futilely are flopping around like those hooked bass in the bottom of their boats.
"A lot of great anglers have already bailed out," Morris says. "I predict by the end of the year, a third of the field will be gone. But it won't matter; there's always some rich kid ready to take our place."
There's no question ESPN's takeover of BASS has made the sport bigger in almost every way. Prestige and prize money have increased, and the sport is more visible than ever. Unfortunately, visibility doesn't always pay the bills. As the sport has ballooned, so, too, have the expenses. Many anglers will tell you that only about a dozen of them make a decent living while the other 90 are struggling to get by.
"More than half the guys out here this weekend are going broke," claims Gene Ellison, executive director of the Professional Anglers Association.
If ever there were any doubt about bass fishing's growth, Ellison is it. His organization, for lack of a better word, is a fledgling labor union fighting to get bass fishermen a decent and steady wage.
They have some legitimate points. If ESPN is selling these guys as the "elite" athletes in their sport, then isn't it time the network start treating them like it? In what other professional sport does much of the prize money come from the entry fee of the participants? Most networks pay the athletes and leagues a fee to televise them, but ESPN actually makes the athletes pay it the fees. Brilliant.
Here's how it works: There are 11 "regular-season" tournaments on BASS's elite circuit, and the anglers have to pay a $5,000 entry fee to enter each one. That's $55,000 per year for each of the 100 "elite" anglers, which comes out to $5.5 million BASS/ESPN puts into the tournament kitty.
Besides the $55,000 anglers spend in entry fees, it cost another $50,000 per year in travel expenses. That means it takes a bare minimum of $100,000 a year to compete. Last year, only 15 of the top 100 anglers made more than $100,000. Although many of the fishermen have sponsors who pay a portion of their expenses, many times it's not nearly enough.
"It's a tough road if you're trying to get by on your own money," BASS General Manager Don Rucks admits. "You must have sponsorship dollars. The guys who want to work for sponsorship dollars can make it. If you don't have the desire to go get sponsors, you probably won't make it."
Of course, none of this is anything new. Pro fishermen have been going broke for years. Rick Clunn, one of the sport's veteran superstars, had his house repossessed early in his career. Randy Howell, another popular angler, maxed out five credit cards and was $30,000 in debt before he finally got over the hump.
"Me and my wife (Robin) spent many a night eating bologna sandwiches and sleeping in the back of a pickup," Howell says.
But they made it through.
Somehow.

"We both had the passion for the sport and for each other," Robin Howell says, "but I've seen a lot of fishing couples who didn't make it."

"I'm sure it'll hit me when I walk though that door tonight,

``That I'm gonna miss her, oh, lookie there, I gotta bite."

Rick Morris, the fishing man who's about to lose his woman, shakes his head and laughs instead of crying.
"Fishing is a disease," he says. "Once you got it, you can't get rid of it."