Think about all of the veteran anglers on the Bassmaster Elite Series.
There’s Brandon Palaniuk, Greg Hackney, Seth Feider, Keith Combs, Chris Zaldain, Steve Kennedy, Mike Iaconelli, Gerald Swindle, Jason Christie and Jacob Powroznik — just to name a few. A little further up the age/experience ladder, there’s Rick Clunn, David Fritts, Mark Menendez and Bernie Schultz.
They have centuries of experience and millions of dollars in earnings between them — and when you see their names on the list of competitors for an event, you have to count them among the anglers with a serious chance to take home the $100,000 first-place prize and the heavily coveted Elite Series blue trophy.
So does it shock anyone that the winners of the first five events this year have been Tyler Rivet, Joey Cifuentes III, Drew Benton, Luke Palmer and Will Davis Jr.?
It surprises me a little a bit — and I really don’t know why.
Maybe it’s because four of those five winners hoisted the trophy for the first time. Only Benton had won before, and he was suffering through a five-year drought when he claimed his victory at Lake Murray in April.
First-time winners shouldn’t really come as a shock in professional bass fishing these days. When Clunn won at the St. Johns River in 2019, he said, “It’s hard to win today. Years ago, there were eight or 10 guys who could beat you. Now everyone can do it.”
Truth spoken by a wise man.
The learning curve that has always existed on the Elite Series is shaped a little differently than it used to be. Anglers once qualified for the Elites after having three good Opens — and while they were plenty good enough to be there, it took them a while to get used to the season-long grind of the Elite Series.
Now, many anglers entering the rigors of the Elites have prepared themselves by fishing competitively since they were in high school and college. Others have performed a dry Elite Series run by fishing tournaments back home that have become ultra-competitive due to contingency programs like Toyota Bonus Bucks and Yamaha Power Pay.
Anglers just go from fishing for a living one way to fishing for a living another way.
That means anglers are ready to compete the instant they arrive on tour — like Cifuentes and Davis were when they showed up this year.
The good news for the fans is that it makes for much more competitive tournaments. The bad news for the other anglers is that it’s only gonna get tougher as we move forward.
With the changes to the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens — and the addition of the Elite Qualifiers Division — anglers qualifying through the Opens will be better prepared to fish the Elites than ever before because they were forced to fish all nine Opens to earn their spot.
Think about how tough it is already. Palaniuk had one mishap with a dead-fish penalty at Lay Lake that cost him his seventh career win with B.A.S.S. Christie lost a 5-pounder at the boat in that same tournament that kept him from winning.
Two of the best to ever make a cast in the sport had absolutely zero margin of error and lost to a first-timer.
If I was them, I’d either learn to fish perfect or just get used to second place.
