The BP at Bass Fan.

Once again the BP was published in the BassFan feedback section. It's more like a "letter to the editor" than wide open comment section. I should have taken a little more time to craft my statement, but I figured they would edit it to be a little more clear where it wasn't. Unfortunatly, the only thing they edited was "The Bass Pundit" as part of my name.

Here's an excerpt (for full excerpt click the title of this post and scroll down).

Dave Maas of Lake Platte, MN writes:
My initial rections to the BASS co-angler changes were slightly negative, but nothing like the hysterics people seem to have at this point...

The topic of my "letter" was the controversial change B.A.S.S. has just made to it's Co-Angler rules. A Co-Angler is a person that fishes only from the back of the boat in a tournament and they compete against the other Co's; there is a separate tournament within the tournament. This type of tournament format is also sometimes called a Pro/Am.

The new Co-Angler rules at B.A.S.S. show a different direction in philosophy than FLW. The B.A.S.S.'s philosophy seems to view Co-Angler's as tourists with perks, while FLW cultivates Co-Anglers as a legitimate form of Bass fishing competition from it's lowest level, BFL (Walmart Bass Fishing League), to it's highest level, The FLW Pro Tour. In fact I think it was the FLW regime of tournaments that have changed the bass fishing nomenclature from "Am" to the now popularized term "Co."

The Bass Pundit doesn't think there is a right or a wrong answer as to which philosophy is better or more legitimate. Personally, I really want to try both at the highest level's of the "major league" trails. I think both sides are missing the boat in not giving the Pro credit in some way for fish that the Co-Angler catches. In FLW the weights are totally separate and BASS is now counting the Pro's weight with 3 fish for the Co, but the Pro's bass stand alone. I believe firmly the pro should get credit in some way for big fish the am catches because the pro chooses the fishing location and controls the boat. I will probably spell out how I think the Pro/Co formatt should be done at some later date.