You're listening to The Edge, everything bass fishing. Coming to you worldwide from MegaWear CueGuard Studios. What is going on, Bass Edge Nation? Back for the November edition of the show. So, man, it was great to have Julius Mazzy back in October, the winner of the Wand Bass Lake Me Open. If you haven't checked that out, please do. Since then, it's been, we had the U.S. Open. I fished the U.S. Open out there at Lake Mojave. Man, what a new experience. I'd never been to Lake Mojave. I fished there like occasionally on a guest trip, you might say. I fished there with some tackle warehouse guys and a few work relationships there in the past. But man, first derby I ever fished out there. It was a rough one for Kurt. So it was a great learning experience. Man, they were catching fish way deeper than I was looking for them. And you didn't have to. There was a lot of fish caught in that fifteen to twenty five foot range. But man, fish coming out as deep as forty and fifty foot that time of year. Kind of more late summer than early fall. Man, I thought I could get away with catching some fish up the river and kind of doing more fall oriented patterns. And I did the first day. I thought I could catch between, you know, twelve and fourteen pounds. And I had right at almost thirteen, but had a deceased fish. So a little less than that. But then once I came in after day one, I could see I was getting my tail whipped. So I had to try to change it up. And I did. I changed up in the middle of the tournament. Uh, the three day event that we had, but never found anything to go with what I had up the river. So, uh, man, I just struggled around, tried to catch him, but a big shout out to elite series angler, Brian Smith on the wind out there, man, uh, California guy, uh, NorCal, not SoCal. So I'm not sure how much time he spent down at Lake Mojave, but he scoped them up. That was absolutely the deal. Live scope was, was the winner. out there and also the top finisher seemed like everybody that was uh doing really well we're scoping up some big small mouth and it was a fun event to fish like I said learned a lot can't wait to get back again There's been some great events going on in the national tournament scene. Obviously, MLF has had a lot of team tournaments this fall. They've been fun to watch. We're going to break one of those down, the Patriot Cup, here in this episode. Bass Nation just finished up. Local angler from Muskogee, Oklahoma, took the crown. So we're going to kind of talk about how Grand Lake fished this fall. Also, just yesterday, the Toyota Series Championship wrapped up at Lake Wheeler, and there was all kinds of great stuff going on. Keith Poche had the big bag of the event, a twenty-seven pound bag on Wheeler in frickin' November. I would say that was just unbelievable, particularly because he called him shallow on a frog primarily, but winning the event, scoping. So a young angler, not sure if he's still in college or he just got out of college, but a young angler out of Auburn University won that event, and I know he was – Team tournament partners with Tucker Smith, who's been on the show that also qualified recently for the Elite Series through the Open Division. What a crew they've got coming into the Elite Series next year. Just tons of phenomenal anglers. Dakota Ebert, Cody Meyer, Easton Fothergill. uh if I let I'm leaving I'm leaving them out if I don't list all nine I'm leaving somebody out but man that's a that's a great crowd of uh anglers that's going to come in and make the elite series just that much more competitive so we also have some uh changes with the organizations as far as the bbt new lists come out of anglers it's going to be fishing that course the reduced field and um new process for the Bassmaster Opens. I think it's going to open up to a lot more listeners and then be able to get involved with the Bassmaster Opens next year instead of having to fish all nine. They kind of break it down into two divisions. We'll talk about that briefly in this episode. But man, let's get this thing started, man. I've got a crew for you here that is unprecedented. This is the first time I've ever done a big crew like this let's go ahead and start bringing them in uh here we go first we got mike grogan mike grogan what up mike mike how you doing man great to be here with you today man it's great to have you mike it's it's uh it's mike has been a long time friend of mine weekend angler lives down on the james river and uh mike and I talk on the phone a ton and he's always bringing great questions very intuitive um I pulled that from block it. Mike, you like that intuitive angling? Oh boy. Don't go there. We're not going to go there today, but a great to have you on the show. Let's bring in our next guest. Here we go. Gray buck. Hey, Greg, man. Doing awesome. Thank you so much for hanging with us on this episode of Bass Edge Radio. Unprecedented. We got a load of talent here. What have you been up to and how have you been? Oh, I've been great. I mean, just recently got my new Puma STS. My bass cat's in the garage right now. I'm sitting on it here. I'm working on rigging it all out. Very cool. Got it in pretty good shape. I got a couple more things I need to do to button it up, but I want to go break it in this week and get out there and start doing some fishing again. All right. Sounds good. Well, y'all know Gray Buck, BBT Angler. We're going to find out what he's going to be doing next year. But obviously just a longtime pro. Great to have you on the show, Gray. And here we go with another guest. We're going four times right here. Here he is, Brian Schmidt, Bassmaster Elite Series Pro. Brian, thanks for being on the show. Glad to be here, Kirk. You know, it's always a pleasure being on with you, man. I love our conversations. Can't wait to get after it. Absolutely. Well, man, I'm excited about this. I've never had a show this big and this dynamic. So we'll see how it all works out. Here we go. This is what we're going to start off with right here. Bass Edge always wanting to get the greatest information so that y'all can Skills information so y'all can go out on the water, catch more fish. We're going to break down some fall fishing patterns here real quick. We're going to start with Mike Rogan. Mike, tell us your favorite fall fishing pattern. How are you going to attack the lakes right now? Yeah, you know, I'm on a river, a tidal fishery here at the James River. So I'm always hearing people kind of complain about that tidal side of it. But right about this time, you know, we go from pounding the banks like we pound the banks all year long. Shallow water fishing mud fishing, you know, just current when you can things like that But the fish start to move out just a bit And I'm kind of looking for little drops right now You know if I'm if I can I want to be out there throwing a crankbait fishing You know, maybe three to five feet of water something like that That's a little bit deeper than I probably was fishing most of the summer even probably in the spring So if I can find anything like that if I can identify it, that's pretty good for me right now I like it you got specific crank baits you like to throw this time of year wide wobble tight wobble or what's your preference I mix it up with different square bills usually you know we've got so much trash in the water so many different types of brush piles you can fish and lay downs things like that that I'm I'm just usually mixing it up between a couple different types of square bills gotcha last question on this what do you think's pulling those fish out to those ledges why do you think they're moving from your typical like you like you mentioned you're fishing a lot of shallow water which it's all relative, right? Three to five foot. Some people would say, well, that's real shallow. But on a tidal fishery, you know, you get on drops in three to five. What's pulling them from that shallow water out to that little bit, you know, first ledge, that little bit deeper stuff? No, that's a great question. I mean, it's the current that does it. But at this time of year, it's that water temperature. And when it starts to fall and we get these cool nights, which we really haven't had yet, you know, we're talking in November here. And I don't think people have even got their warm clothes out yet here in Virginia. So, you know, it's just starting to hit. It's almost like pent up a little bit. Like you can see those fish starting to move, but they just haven't haven't gone all the way yet. Like I'm looking forward to it. I think I was telling you I'm trying to get out later today because we're just starting to see some of those cooler temperatures. And we had a cool night last night, which should help us, too. Very cool. All right. Good stuff like that. It's a great pattern. Gray Buck, what's your view, man? Fall patterns. What's your favorite go to this time of year? This time of year, I would spend a lot of time up in New York chasing some smallmouth, a largemouth. I love throwing a chatterbait. I really keyed in on this little mini max. We got that new chatter shad that Z-Man came out with that fits perfectly with it. And it lets me cover a lot of water. Again, kind of like Mike was talking about, I'm looking for little drops, but out in a little deeper water. I'm looking more of that ten to twenty foot range, a flat that kind of has a little I like it to be a steep drop. If it goes from, say, fifteen foot and it drops off into twenty real quick, those fish really seem to be setting up on that, so if I throw a half ounce one of these, I can get those active fish, because the water up there is still pretty warm. It's still upper fifties, at least last weekend when I was up there before this cold snap came through, and we really had them chasing it, but small baits like that mini max, little hammer trap, a three sixteen sounds one, little baits like that in that ten to fifteen foot range, and even out in that twenties where these fish are really setting up and I like throwing moving baits and getting those aggressive ones to bite this time of year. So you're mostly targeting smallmouth or largemouth right now up there? You know what? It's been a little bit of both. So Oneida, I've been catching a bunch of largemouth out of. And then up on the St. Lawrence in Ontario, we've been doing more of the smallmouth deal. And that's just the difference. So the Oneida or Cayuga, any of those largemouth fisheries, that's more of that. ten to fifteen and then the small amount of that fifteen to twenty gotcha gotcha makes perfect sense all right let's bring in Brian Schmidt Brian Schmidt what's your go-to fall pattern love getting all these different scenarios going on kind of covers a lot of country especially well in the northeast anyway I'm going to relate it to where I'm at as well. You know, Mike talked about the James River. I'm going to talk about the Potomac River. I've been fishing there a lot as of late. And it took a day or so to kind of get dialed into this. But for me right now, it's about finding the healthy grass, the grass that's still green. Okay. Yeah. We got five different kinds of grass. We got hydrilla, we got coontail, we got eelgrass, milfoil, and stargrass. And the milfoil will actually stay throughout the winter. It'll lay dormant. And the eelgrass is really starting to go away The stargrass is just about gone and the coontail is just about gone. But if you can find the milfoil that's still kind of green and maybe find some drilla that's still green, that's the deal. So, you know, how do you find it? You got to run around a lot. You know, you could snag it on different kind of baits. But a lot of times what I'm doing right now on lower tides, I'm visually looking for it. I'm kind of running around the key areas. and breaking it down I know this is like chickamucks in creeks a really good creek finding the last bit of green grass healthy grass seems to have the bait seems to have all the bad nearby and uh then you know figuring out what tide they want it on but that's the deal for me right now and really simple approach I want to cover water guys I want to keep it going so I'm throwing a high boost a little schmitty my signature series swim jig. I got three different colors on the boat. You know, I got my whites, I got my green pumpkins, you know, my river special. And I even have my June bug, the OG on there and just covering a ton of water, missile baits, chunky D on the back, get around the green grass. It seems to be a big deal right now. And another little key I'm looking at, I'm looking for birds, birds really key me into like, You know, the higher tides and stuff like that, you can't really see the grass, but the birds kind of been hanging around the life right now up shallow. So that's what I'm doing. It seems to be kind of a deal that's been good for many years out there, to be honest with you. As long as we've had the grass, you find the last bit of green grass, you find all the life. Right, right. All right. Well, that's a great way to look at everything. Man, three different perspectives right there from New York to Maryland to Virginia. I'm going to throw you guys a little bit of what's going on out here in Texas. And we're still late summer, to be honest with you. We're starting to see that cool down. I fished at a tournament last weekend here on Lake Amistad, and it was a scope fest. All we did was scope, and we ended up getting a check, which was great. But we just didn't catch a lot of big fish. So still trying to figure out how to catch those bigger fish. But the bait fish are pretty much rising up out of the creek channels. You can catch some fish in the backs of pockets, but still a majority of the fish that are together. So when I haven't had a lot of time to be out on the water, I'm looking for more groups of fish. And I'm finding those groups of fish on points out over deep water. you know, fifteen to thirty five, even fifty foot of water. And that's where I'm finding majority of fish. I do feel like there's a potential to get maybe a better bite on top water, but you just don't get very many bites. So as as me being a weekend angler here recently on Amistad because I've been traveling so much, man, I just wanted to get bites, try and capitalize on what fish that I could roll over top of with that forward facing sonar. Of course, I'm using a jig head minnow. And I want to get y'all's perspective on this. I'll kind of go through the panel here, each one of you. But I'm finding coming from Lake Mojave and now being back at Lake Amistad is how different size of fish look on forward facing sonar. When I was at Lake Mojave, man, just a smallest little blip or maybe the fish was moving faster or maybe it was because the water clarity was a little bit greater, but the fish showed up much smaller. Like a, you know, I would see a fish at Mojave that looked like maybe a, you know, a pound and a half or two pounder. And I throw over there and catch it to be a four pounder. Over here at Lake Amistad, I would see a fish, and I think it was a ten-pounder, and I'd throw it there and catch it, and it was like a two-pounder. So I'm interested to get your all's take on why fish look different on forward-facing sonar. Mike, let me bring you in first. You're on a James River, the river system. What have you noticed? I know you're kind of newer to forward-facing over the last eight to fifteen months, but what have you noticed differences like when you're seeing them on the James River? Yeah, jumping in the game kind of late because, I mean, really it was just a financial obstacle at first trying to get into it, seeing everybody with all these graphs all on the boats. And I finally do. I've got a good setup right now in my basket. But, you know, the first thing is kind of funny. I can remember the first time I went out there, I went out, I'm scoping around, I look, and I think I'm on them. And I pull up, first cast out there, I think I caught about a twenty pound catfish in the Chickahominy River. And I thought I was on it, you know, like I was thinking that was it. Before long, though, and I think the thing that really helped me was catching all those different species of fish. So we go out there, we can just pound crappie with these, you know, with the units the way they're set up right now. And learning the difference in the way that they swim. I mean, you can actually see it. I think also you can tell how many fish are grouping up together. You know, the school itself. I think the hardest part, maybe one of my biggest obstacles in getting into fishing fishing with forward-facing sonar was that it is very tough to describe what we're seeing. You know, like I can see it on there and I can tell you a lot of times when it's a bass, I can tell you when it's a crappie, I can tell you when it's a catfish down there, but, or maybe it's something else like a bowfin, but I will tell you, it's really hard to explain it until you actually put your eyes on it and get there on the water to know exactly what you're dealing with, because it's time on the water with the forward-facing that I think makes the biggest difference right That's a great insight. Gray, let's hear your thought process. You're able to fish all across the country. Forward-facing sonar is part of your arsenal, I know. Do you notice they're different looking from fishery to fishery? I have noticed that, and I honestly don't have a good answer of why that would be. I know if you go from unit to unit, fish look differently. I have Lowrance's. The active target makes your... fish show up a lot bigger your bait shows up a lot bigger than if you hop in a buddy's boat and like brian has a garment everything's a lot smaller and just it looks different so you have to readjust your eye if you're going from one manufacturer to another but I don't understand why you're saying if you go from one fish to the other why that would make a difference because I can see like the clarity of it being different if you have a dirty body of water where it's picking up more um But that might be a question for the actual brands. I don't have a good reason for you. Have you ever noticed that, though? I have noticed that. Yeah, if you go to Clarks Hill the one year we were there two years ago, those fish, they really popped. Like, they were big. Like, you threw at them, and they look like stripers out there, and they were spotted bass. So... I'm not sure. Not a good answer, but... No, no, no. All right. That's why we got the panel. Let's see what Brian Schmidt's got to say about this. Brian, what's your viewpoint? Obviously, Elite Series going to a lot of different places. Do your fish... You're using a Garmin, as Gray mentioned. I'm using a Lowrance. Do you see that your fish look different from a fishery to another fishery based on maybe just conditions or... Or am I just clueless? Oh, no, there's something to that for sure. I consider my setup pretty, pretty dialed in. You know, so I'm not going to even get into like, am I worried that my equipment's not operating? Like, I feel like mine is super, super set up properly, dialed in. So I've seen it. many different fisheries, they pop different ways. There's, there's easy assumptions, right? If they're swimming away from you, if they're facing away from you, they're going to look a lot smaller. You know, that fish is going away from you. You're pointing at their tail. They're going to look a lot smaller. If they're laying sideways across your beam, they're going to look a lot bigger and head first to look a little bigger. But I've seen at different fisheries. I don't know the science behind that. If they're tighter to the bottom, they're going to look a lot smaller. Like, you know, on Garmin, you do have a little bit of a, you know, a blind spot there close to the bottom. You might not see them as good as if they were suspended up. I've seen Hartwell where they look tiny, the large mouth. Okay. And then you get the hook and it jumps a four pounder. And I've seen the flip side to it. It could be, you know, could it even be the mood of the fish? Okay. Could they be putting off something via the mood of the fish? You know, are they sitting kind of just suspended, sitting still? Are they on the feed? Those could be affecting the return as well. Water quality for sure could be, you know, definitely affecting it. Water quality, I mean like water color. Don't know the exact science behind it. Okay. Very cool. All right. All right. Well, we kind of jumped into that a little early. I'm going to take a quick break. My Mojave experience, my Amistad experience kind of threw me into that question, but we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk a little bit about Four-facing sonar setups. We're going to get Mike's weekend angler look at it. We're going to get my semi-pro more weekend angler look at it. Then we're going to talk to the two full-timers, Gray and Brian, and see where we think this regulation in four-facing sonar, what's needed, what's not, and what everybody thinks about it. Y'all stay tuned. 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I got to tell you, I'm ready with Mike today. I'm ready to get out on the water this afternoon. Fires me up. I'm ready to go, especially after a conversation like this. All right, here we go. Back at it, guys. We're going to talk, like I said, about some forward-facing sonar. Mike, I remember in our conversations way back... You know, two years ago, you know, you kind of felt like, man, all this forward-facing sonar stuff going on. You were priced out of bass fishing because it seemed like you had to have all of these things in order to catch a bass in this new technology, in this new generation. Tell me how you've overcome it and what you're doing in your forward-facing sonar, particularly out there on a tidal fishery like the James River. You know, interestingly enough, everybody told me it wasn't going to play on the tidal fisheries. You know, that at first, the first wave of the information was that I didn't need to worry about it because I was fishing so shallow. And then we started realizing, you know, some people are showing up around here that they've got it. Like Brian said, they're dialed in, man. And they can find them in shallow water. They can find them in current. They can find them in dirty water everywhere. And it took me a while to kind of buy in. But after after a while, you know, I'd gotten in a boat with a couple other people. I'm very fortunate to have some good fishing partners that have really good setups, too. And when I started messing with their stuff, I realized there's there's something to be done there, that it wasn't just because it's shallow water that I shouldn't be shouldn't be playing with this stuff. So, um. Ended up getting a Laurent set up, put it on my boat, installed it myself, did all that. Took a lot of time trying to get it really dialed in. That's what I mean. I went out there just looking for fish. I was just trying to find anything so that I could practice knowing what they look like, knowing how they react to the bait, knowing what my bait looked like compared to the fish. That's one of the things I think Brian or maybe it was Gray that said it. Blows me away sometimes that my little... jighead minnow looks as big as it does next to a fish. When I reel it in, that's a three pounder or something like that. That that's, that has me blown away. I'm not sure. And maybe even Brian can tell us how he gets his set up, but he can tell the difference on something like that because it's, I've had that trouble with it but I'll tell you then I bought in on it once I bought in I realized that there was something that there for me I felt like I could I could learn some stuff I could catch additional fish and I'll say I'm not necessarily in my fishery casting at fish like I'm not setting up on it doing that it's more I've got places that I fish and I'm saving myself time maybe becoming more efficient where I'm pulling up it might be a brush pile it might be a lay down that I fish a lot or just an area And I'm kind of scanning around looking to see if there's fish there, if there's movement. There's a lot of times I pull up on places right now and just, I'm like, yep, they're not here right now. And that's, that's where it's probably helped me the most is just from a timing standpoint. Very cool. Greg, you start seeing these different, you know, organizations doing different regulation. You know, you got weekend anglers like Mike looking at, you know, guys with three or four transducers and two or three units. We'll get to Brian later. He had the biggest setup in the Elite Series earlier this year. But where do you see this going and what do you think is the right piece for the puzzle? yeah no so I've had to change my setup for twenty twenty five from what I ran on twenty twenty four just because I'm going from fishing those the bass pro tour events to fishing the bass opens so I'm gonna be next year we can only run one live transducer up front so I'm gonna have one there where I had two this past year because I was running one in forward and I was running one in scout mode to do like the perspective And there was definitely an advantage to having both of them, but I could see where they want to limit it, try to make it more friendly for everybody to get into, kind of balance the field out a little bit. I think there's definitely a place for having forward-facing sonar. I can't say I do it all the time. Like, I... I love throwing a chatterbait and I love burning the bank and just going down it. And after a week of having a tournament where I'm out there live scoping them all the whole time, I can't wait to get home and flip a gym. I'm done looking at that thing, but you got to learn to use it. And it's just one of the tools we have. And it's a new technique that you have to kind of, build around because you can't compete without it now unless you're fishing I guess the MPFL that's the only option right now to not have to use it right right all right good good news all right Brian let's take it from you last year it was a wild year right a lot of guys had you know you know, uh, live scopes or, or, uh, Ford facing Sonar on their transoms had two units up on their trolling motor. You went in on it because you didn't want to get caught up without having it. So, you know, you set up your boat at the beginning of the year, you kind of get everything that, that, you know, can't, it won't hurt you. You're not sure if it's going to help you because we didn't really didn't, everybody was kind of thrust into this. Um, where is, uh, the happy place for you now that you've been on both ends of the spectrum my my happy place is where we're going back for this year um still having the one still having the one live scope dedicated the four facing live scope and you know minimizing the screens a little bit um there was no image better than when I ran just one live scope for several years that once I got Everything turned off. I don't care if you got the power source disconnected. It's still not the same images as if when you have just the one. So that image to me, as long as I have that one up front, I'm comfortable. I can do what I need to do. I can see what I need to see. It was getting pretty crazy. I was all in on the craziness. I might have contributed to the rules needed to change because of my setup. I say that's a good thing. I say that's a good thing. I wasn't going to be without. It was a legal option to do, and I chose to go all in on it. There was times where it was really beneficial, like Grace said, to have live and effective up front. You know, and I also ran live scopes off my jet plate. I'm idling around. I found suspended fish that I never would have found, you know, idling in the middle of the lake, you know, and all of these really can help, but it's a lot of information you got to process very quickly. It was getting to the point where a guy like Mike or somebody that fishes locally is like, dude, It is. But for for where I was at in my career, you needed it. OK, you do not want to go to a gunfight with a knife. It's just the bottom line. And, you know, I was all in. So where we're going is a good place. You know, getting back to normal, normal kind of setups and one life goes pretty damn good. So, yeah. You can't argue. You qualified for the Classic last year, so you're going to be up at Ray Roberts in twenty twenty five looking for a classic championship. So that's going to be fun to watch. Guys, you know, we were talking about fall patterns. I think it's an interesting thing on forward facing. We're going to kind of kind of move move topics a little bit. But I think we broke that down really well. But I would like to kind of roll into some. We talked about our favorite fall patterns. First, I want to say, let's kind of break this down. How many of y'all watch everything that's going on? So we've had three events here recently. We've had the Bass Nation Championship at Grand Lake, Toyota Series Championship on Wheeler, and then the MLF Team Series not far from my house here in Central Texas, which was on Ivy and Brownwood, the Patriot Cup, they called it. all fall fishing events, all broken down differently. Mike, let me bring you in first. Which event did you follow most closely and would you find most interesting about it? You know, it's hard for me to follow a lot of that stuff. As the weekend guy, I'm working full-time out there, so I'm trying to always gather that information whenever I can get stuff that's kind of the summary of what happened at a tournament. That's where I'm going, really, for my information because I'm not getting to – Watch that, you know, the broadcast sometimes that they have, even the ones online, kind of tough to have that on on the side while you're trying to get work done during the day. But, you know, I'm always trying to find those just unique things that we can pull over to our fishery that we don't necessarily see people do locally. And, you know, I didn't get a chance to keep up with these as much as probably you guys did. I'm interested to really hear what Gray and Brian saw that what they're bringing over to the East Coast from some of that stuff. All right. Well, I would say, you know, let me throw this out first. The one I watched the most was the Wheeler Lake Toyota Championship. I mentioned it in the intro before I brought you guys on. Keith Poche had twenty seven pounds day two at Wheeler. Just freaking unbelievable. Just a giant bag. Caught them all in this much water on a frog. The winner, he caught them all scoping and caught many smallmouth. I think he had a few largemouth he weighed in, but it was primarily smallmouth scoping on some of those river ledges. They're really river bluffs, I think, is what he was targeting. And then, of course, the Grand Lake event. I don't know why spinnerbait works so well at Grand Lake in Oklahoma, but I see Brian shaking his head. Dude, what is going on with that place and the spinnerbait? You go to Oklahoma, you throw a spinnerbait. Do you hear what I'm saying? Anybody listening, if you go to Oklahoma, you throw a spinnerbait. And the story, Jason Christie, spinnerbait. end of story all right great then you had the mlf event right you had the mlf event here in central texas uh man guys catching them in in water lilies on on uh on a swim jigs that was a big deal couple on jerk bait but then you saw a big run one day by ayler and lucas they were catching them on the uh berkeley call shed you know a bigger swim bait um a lot of the same stuff we're talking about but You didn't see a lot of that bottom bouncing bait stuff in any of these. And I feel like even when Poche talked about catching twenty seven pounds on on the Wheeler Lake event that. It was a deal where there was bait being flushed into the shallow water area where he caught him on a frog. What's your take on these events? What do you glean from watching? Do you watch these events as a full-timer? Do you pay attention to this stuff pretty closely? I would say this time of year, I kind of just check in and see how it went. I look at the results, see how my buddies were doing and everything. I didn't watch any of them actually live, but I did go back and watch quite a few of them, like the highlights they have from the day to see how the top guys were catching them. Yeah, MLF does a great job on that, by the way. I love their highlight videos. Yeah, you can watch a full day in less than five minutes of the prime stuff that happened. So that's nice. It's a great way to kind of tune in and get just a feel of what was happening. That's what I basically have is a feel of what happened at each of those events. But like you're saying... That shallow stuff in that late summer, early fall, which I guess is most of the country that's kind of south of that Mason-Dixon line right now. Yes. Small bait has always been the key with this Toyota Series championships and all that. And the fish are keying in on that right now. They're trying to start to feed up. The daylight is getting short. And they know winter is coming, even if it doesn't feel that way temperature-wise. The fish know they have to feed, though. That's why little baits work this time of year and why those guys are targeting those areas that have either the shallow pads like, what was the name of the fish? And then the water lily that Sprague and Thriftnet wanted out of. And that's the kind of the key where that little bait's going. They want somewhere to be protected and kind of hidden so they can also try to survive for the winter. But the bass have different plans. Yeah, right, right. I think some of the most interesting parts about that, too, is, you know, there's a certain time in the fall when you can catch a ton of fish, twenty, thirty, forty fish a day. But it's not till later in the year. And I feel like a lot of anglers feel that first cool or, you know, the sunlight starts to really diminish or, you know, Mike, I see all those deer behind your head. The deer start moving in the woods and stuff. But, you know, it doesn't always immediately happen. Schmidt, what's your take on these events that have happened and just kind of the process of fall fishing from your perspective when you look at these tournaments? Besides throwing a spinnerbait in Oklahoma. Yeah, so I didn't watch the grand. I did watch a lot of the MLF, the thrift and spray ones. And I didn't get to watch any MLF Toyota Championship, which I'm really interested to hear about now, especially with what Poche did. You know, like, man, you get that initial cool off. You think all that's going to happen. You wake up. There's a pool outside. Oh, they're going to be on the feet. It takes a little longer. You're absolutely right. about that so I've seen you know on the tennessee river scenario and I wonder if poche experiences too sometimes shallow fish they they need the current just you know they're they stop moving water like they've done during the week and the weekend hits and they stop moving the water on the same schedule and it affects those shallow fish as well I don't know if that's what happened today but looking at the weight that he had and then you know he would it was like the day did they move a lot of water type thing I've seen that um and then like thrift and spray they were burning them down with the swim jig guys and you know that that's such an awesome bite there and it seems like they're really tuning in on points um if they get get near a point and they kind of pull down and work it really really good and very very fast um what's the deal with that you know why do fish want to get super super shallow sometimes early in the fall yeah for me man I think that a lot of it just has to do with that bait fish movement I think that's the primary deal when they're lifting off the bottom you have a group of fish and I think it's just kind of You know how some fish live shallow and some fish live deep, and I feel like some of the deep fish stay out there, but they start suspended over bigger water. But I do feel like some of the better bites come shallow, and they get on these ambush points, and they're waiting for those opportunities, like I think happened to Poche. That's a great point, Brian, by the way, with the current deal. It'd be cool to go back and look at the generation schedule that day. He caught . Were they pulling some water in the morning? Did that help, you know, kind of ignite a bite that he had to catch twenty seven pounds? Because he caught he caught it pretty early. I think he had it all by like ten, ten thirty in the morning. So it's not something that took a long time to happen. But they did mention that the third day was cooler out. And yeah. So, so that can affect the top water bite. Obviously this time of year, the fish do get temperamental, but, um, I prefer to catch them shallow. I think your overall chance to catch a better quality fish is more shallow than out away from the bank. And I feel like that's because those fish that are out away from the bank are just, they're, they're moving a lot more. Um, and, and I say that, and of course the guy that won was, was running forward facing sonar, uh, So, you know, it's a catch-twenty-two. You've got to kind of pick your poison and do what feels right. That's what's so great about having the scenario of both things, particularly in the fall. Gray, how many times did you see this year in the MLF that it didn't really matter? You had to be out forward-facing Sonar or you were going to get whooped. Yeah, that was a good chunk of the year, especially early on when those – like Toledo and Dale Hollow and all that stuff. It was forward-facing center or as the king, and especially in that catch-all-you-can format, it seems like there's more fish in that, say, whatever the average fish is in a lake, say two to three pounds. That's where a majority of them live until they get bigger and they want to go live on that one stump, live on that one lay down, whatever it is. So guys were thriving with that, and that was probably part of the reason I didn't quite catch them like I normally do. Gotcha. Gotcha. Hey, Kurt. Also, I was going to say, Kurt, I want to tell you one of the things that has caught my eye just recently with broadcast, though, this team stuff that they're doing. A lot of people are talking about that. Like, it's kind of fun. Like you guys talked almost exclusively about how they caught him, how much they caught. We kind of like watching the other guys here that don't know y'all as well. We love seeing that interaction up on the bow. You know, like when guys are fighting for the trolling motor or some guy, you know, they're bumping into each other. It's the stuff that I deal with every day out there fishing with my buddies. And that's kind of fun. I'm enjoying watching that more than anything. I fished one of those up in Wisconsin with Martin Villa. And we had an awesome time. I remember Martin this year and it was a blast. As much fun as it is to watch, it was that much fun to fish it. Like we're coming up with a game plan and how we fished completely different. The two styles we had, but it really complimented each other where I was kind of burning the bank with my chatterbait and he was following up with a wacky rig behind me and picking off those. fish that weren't quite as aggressive, but that kind of teamwork, you could put it together with it. You could see how some people really thrived together and there's other teams that they did not. And it was, there is nothing better than watching that. There is nothing better than watching you guys like bumping elbows and trying to like, I mean, that's, that's the fun stuff. And knowing that you had to go through the game plan, like we have to go through on a Saturday tournament or something. I love hearing that stuff. I think that's just, that's what makes it real for us. I love seeing it. I think there's definitely room for them to keep expanding on that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's definitely a cool format. And, uh, Mike, you know, you've asked me some questions in the past about, um, you know, obviously when you're a local angler, a weekend guy, you got some buddies that you're bouncing some stuff off with. Um, you know, you've often mentioned to me, like, you know, how do guys get on fish so fast and, and, um, you know, are they working with other people within, outside of this team, obviously team style format. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we talk about it all the time, no doubt. What intrigues you the most about that from, like, say, the Elite Series or the BBT or the Invitationals? You know, it's a couple things right now, and I think, you know, it blows me away that we can be out there every week, and we know pretty much what we need to do, we feel like. But then when new guys show up who are the pros, and they get on something totally different than we thought they would be on, And I, you know, I look at, yeah, we're now we're taking team a whole different way, but I think it was, I think gray, you're fishing the opens this year. Is that where you're going with it? So, I mean, If you're moving tours right now or you're going to or, you know, even if you're just putting your focus somewhere else, seems like everybody's got a few people they can trust that they work with. You know, having having some good people around you that maybe you travel with just to talk to you. That right there, I think, is really it appears to me to be really challenging moving tours. from one tour to the other, or even just one series to the other, because so many people have the syndicates right now that they're working with. And I'm, I'm just kind of curious to get you guys opinion too, on maybe where that's going, if there's going to be any changes in that and how you handle it, if you're moving to a different series. Yeah. I was the reason I was trying to get Smith to fish all the division one opens with me. I wanted him to stay with me again. Get them in there. Yeah. Yeah. It's very important that I have a couple of guys you can room with that you, kind of just jive with when you're back at the house and then also you can call and talk to when you're on the water just to kind of get a couple clues to help you move along and break down a fishery in three days because it goes by super quick. And that's one of the challenges. I'm figuring out who I'm going to stay with next year, talking to some guys that I had stayed with in the past and just kind of getting that all lined up. So it's definitely one of the factors when you're picking what you're fishing. And it's also about having a good time when you get back to the house at night that you have somebody to enjoy staying with. You don't want to be having just, whatever, dinner and not talking. That's not an enjoyable way to live. So having guys that you can stay with, trust, and that's the biggest thing. Brian, what's your take on that on the Elite Series side? Obviously, I know you very well. I know you stay with a few guys. How important is that, and how prolific is it for – do you see a lot of the same – I think Mike used the word syndicate. Do you see a lot of the same groups of anglers doing well? Like this year you saw rookie anglers, right? And those rookies had great relationships coming into the elite series, super tight. Do you feel like that was part of their success? And do you feel like that's important to be consistently catching quality fish on tour? It's a big deal. You know, the rookies that came in this year, they were special, okay? Did the teamwork help them? Yes. They still would have done well. But where it helps, guys, like Gray said, it's the camaraderie. It's the good vibes. You know, when you feel good, you're having fun, you know, you're cutting up with the guys back at the house. That's a big deal, man. That's good momentum. And, you know, let's say you're starting to get a pattern going, you know, and you start to feel like you're right there. You call Kirk and Ray up. They're doing the same thing in a whole different – you're – confidence goes through the roof. You know, you're like, and that's a big deal to have somebody you can trust, a good camaraderie. You know, on the Leafs, man, the minute they announced that schedule, which is almost a year in advance, you're no information, which I really, really liked. But when you show up a year later to pitch the tournament, you get three days of practice. It's fresh. Like, you feel like there's a fresh campus in front of you. Nobody has anything. Anything better than you and you got to go figure it out. I Enjoy that side of it. I really enjoy trying to crack the code of figuring out But I want to have a group of guys that I trust a lot that hey, I'm I'm dying over here Throw me a bone, but you definitely see there's there's certain groups of guys Distantly do very well. Um You know, you'll see like one group of guys where, you know, are two different guys that really, really work good together. One guy has a really, really good first day. Other guy has a bad first day. Well, day two, you see that. Start to change. Get clued into the deal. So that's a big deal, man. It's a tough deal to show up a year later, you know, and no information, get after it and do well consistently. Not everybody can do that on their own. yeah let me throw this out to you real quick gray um you know bbt a couple years ago had a rule the anglers couldn't even talk to each other I know that wasn't the case this past year as you fished the tour over there but um you know did you ever talk to those guys like did they like the no info thing from uh even talking daily or was that just too hard to police or it just sucked no everybody I talked to hated it just from the fact like we're fishermen we talk about fishing and When you're at a fishery that nobody's been to or haven't been, like don't live on, what else are you going to talk about? That's what we bring up. We're all addicts. We all want to just talk about fishing. We love fishing. To be able to not tell your buddy about an eight-pounder you caught that day in practice or whatever it was. It's hard. So I think that was the biggest reason they went back to let us talk about things together. You couldn't share waypoints. You couldn't share specific things. But I think that's what maybe was a good way to kind of combat the team aspect of people attacking things. Because there is sometimes that's a big advantage. If you don't have that person that you can trust like that, it puts you behind. But it's... it's kind of we all like talking about fishing and that's they couldn't keep it how it was absolutely mike what's your what's your take man now that now that you hear the guys and and kind of is is the purity and the sanctity of the sport still there or is that kind of what you expected you know I'm always going to think the purity is there the sport I mean this is this is one of those sports that anybody can get into so you gotta love that but yeah you know I like hearing that and I'll tell you, I mean, I just feel like I'm always looking at it from such a competitive standpoint, whether it's just my little stuff or that high level you guys are at. And I look at, like, at what point does the team kind of thing get just right? Like, is it just a couple guys that work together? Or are we going to get it out of control at some point where you got ten guys that say, we're going to go break down this piece of water? We're going to do it this way where it's actually kind of responsibilities out there. And I know some guys do that. I mean, I think we all kind of do in our own right. But at what point does it go too far? Is it almost like a forward-facing sonar thing? Do we get it? to that point where just too much is too much. But I like hearing this. I like hearing about, there's a little bit of doc talk going on even at the high level. Yeah, no, I don't think you can have too many guys working together because otherwise you're just going to cannibalize each other. So it's, there's always so many, whatever grass flats or lay downs or whatever you're fishing on a body water, even if it's a hundred thousand acres and we kind of, you can do your research before you show up to like, you know, the four, general areas where it typically goes down. So if you have ten guys trying to work together, it's not going to work out for anybody. There's going to be two of the ten that catch them, and then everybody else is going to be mad about what happened. If you have, I think, two to three people to work with, like total, is like that little sweet spot because then you know who you can like truly trust and I'm not going to tell somebody I'm using my chatterbait I'm dipping it in chartreuse this little bit and I'm throwing a couple orange strands in there to more than one person like that's maybe two people like the guys that you really know that you can get that same feedback back when you're struggling and that's how you have to have that give and take as far as I'm concerned A hundred percent. I hope that always stays into it too, because the last thing I want to do is go back to what we were talking about before, which is no communication amongst anglers at all. I think that would be mentally one of the worst positions you could be in. Like when you got to go back to that hotel and you just like, you look the other way that that would be, that'd be horrible. So I like where we are right now. Very cool. All right, guys, we're going to take another quick break. We're going to talk about one more thing toward the end at the end of the show. And that is, I know that when the elite series announced no entry fees, everybody was like, Oh my gosh, this is so great. But then we saw the paybacks and it was like, Oh, my gosh, where are we going? So we're going to kind of break down the recent happenings and also the BBT. We're going to get Gray's perspective, a BBT angler going now to fish the opens. We're going to get Brian Schmidt's perspective with, you know, fishing the Elite Series and what he sees based on this new scenario of payback and hear from Mike and how – The perspective from his view is on where the sport of bass fishing is headed with basically three tours now. I think NPFL has kind of solidified itself now that they've been around. This will be going into their fourth year. And where does Mike's perspective take the vision for a young angler maybe looking at or the fan looking at coming into this sport? So y'all stay tuned. We're going to be right back. Like I said, it's been a fun, fun episode. Don't miss it. Minor glitch right there, guys, but it's all good. All right, we're going to be back right after this message. That was crazy. Come on, man. Let's roll. What the? To catch the fish, you need to be one with the fish. With Power-Pole shallow water anchors, you'll get the ultimate in precision, power, and control, so you can catch more fish. No face paint or phony fins necessary. Excessive shock and vibration are two leading causes for premature battery failure. Prolong the life of your batteries with the new MegaWear Battery Guard. The Battery Guard sits under your battery and absorbs excessive vibration and bounce, reducing G-shock by up to eighty percent. Great for boats or anywhere shock and vibration can damage a battery. The Battery Guard can easily be trimmed to fit virtually any custom shape or battery size. Save money by protecting your batteries. Spend more time on the water and less on maintenance. Find yours at MegaWear.com. All right, here we are back. Let me say about those battery guards. Gray, I know you're a MegaWear guy, but man, I do have to say with the money we're spending, if you're running lithium batteries, you'd be crazy not to have that shock absorption and protection from the battery guard. It's such an easy investment. And a shout out to MegaWear for supporting, obviously, Bass Edge Radio for so many years since two thousand and six. Unbelievable. And of course, Power Pole, Bass Cat Boats, appreciate all those partners as well. So guys, here we go. We're going to break it down real fast. Who wants to jump on this first? Anybody want to raise their hand and say, all right, I got a piece of the action on what is going on in the world of bass fishing. I'm going to show a screenshot of first the BBT payouts for twenty twenty five. One hundred fifty thousand first place, tenth place down to twenty thousand. I'm going to say solid return. Second, forty five, third, thirty five, four, thirtieth, fifth, twenty five, six, twenty three on down the line. And you're only looking at I believe it's sixty five anglers are fishing next year. Is that right, Gray? Yeah, I believe that's correct. Right around sixty five anglers. Now, Greg, what's the entry fees for guys jumping in the Bass Pro Tour next year? I think it went up a little bit from what it was this year. We paid forty five this year. I think it was closer to fifty this coming year, but I don't know that. I don't know. I kind of tuned out after I, uh, yeah, no worries. So, so about fifty five hundred dollars a tournament, let's say five hundred sixty five hundred says Brian Schmidt. The Annie, the Annie goes up. So so you got sixty five hundred an event, but at sixty five hundred an event. And, you know, what's quick math? They're doing nine events over there. That right, Gray. Yes. Nine events, sixty five and nine. Wait, no, no, seven, seven, I think seven for the actual week that you pay into. The other two are the Red Crest and heavy hitters. So forty five K, which was the same entry fee that the that the elites have been paying. Right. Forty five thousand plus. They have some special events. They got heavy hitters. They got the team tournaments. Gray, is there an entry fee for the team tournaments in the BBT? There is not. It's part, part of the show, part, part of your participation in the Bass Pro Tour. So, and then also, like I mentioned, you got heavy hitters, which is big payout. And then you also have obviously the ability to qualify for the Red Crest, which is a very large payout as well. If you go down the payout for the BBC, eleventh through thirtieth, you know, basically fifteen. That's, that's really good though for fifteen payouts. For eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty fifteen thousand dollars so almost It's you know two point seven five times your return on entry fee somewhere in that ballpark Mike Grogan knows I'm great at math All right, so now I It's a lot of money. It's a big investment. Forty five K. We all know that same investment that the elite series was. But we all got excited when the elite series said no entry fee. And and here is what that looks like. Elite series, no entry fee, one hundred thousand. for first place. Drops off pretty quick. We talked about fifteenth place down to twentieth getting fifteen K on the BBT side. Here only fifth place getting fifteen thousand. Quickly drops down to tenth place getting ten thousand. You look at the bottom of this thing. Guys, where are we headed? Thirtieth place, eight hundred and fifty. I didn't even screenshot the other portion because fortieth place is the last paying check and you get five hundred dollars with a no entry fee. elite series brian schmidt we're going to bring you in first this affects you what's been your thought process once they announce this you look at the other tours how many they're fishing with they're only fishing with sixty five guys you got a hundred and hundred and five anglers or hundred four anglers they're on the elite series uh can you make a living with that payback and no entry fees is that where you want to be You know, that's a very tough question. I really got to put some – you know, do some math. I really got to look at some numbers of my history. But, you know, when I saw that, man, it's like, wow, Bass is really – Stepping it up huge. This is a big deal. I'm like, wow, I just made forty five thousand dollars. You know, that's that was every one of us. We're all texting each other like, what are you kidding me? Oh, my God. So, you know, that's a really cool thing that Bass is doing for us. Like I said, I got to look at the numbers there, you know, to see how it would affect me. You know, it's an easy thing to do. But there's, you know, I've learned over the years in any form of business or any kind of decisions I've had to make, almost my initial reaction, my initial gut feel is usually the right one. And, you know, I'm just a guy that, like, I want to get paid for performance. Right. Like, all competitive people are like that. There's something that I enjoy about that care of if you make the weekend. So it sounds like you're more interested in maybe keeping some of your skin in the game to create a better payback. If you catch them well, then you get paid better rather than relying on maybe a top ten finish. and sponsorship income to kind of turn your revenue in this sport? Yes, for sure, Kurt. I'm definitely at the standpoint of if a guy doesn't have to be me, if you catch him, you need to get paid accordingly. The unfortunate part of this sport and all sports is for somebody to do good, somebody has to do bad. We're competitive. I might never get another check. I might never make another classic or win another tournament. But whoever does needs to get paid for doing so because it's a hard thing to do. These guys are so good. We just got rid of nine guys that have a little bit slower years and brought in nine killers again. So that's not a ten percent change. That's like a twenty thirty percent right there. So. that's it. You know, we're going to look at the numbers and, and, you know, Bass is trying to do something really, really cool here. And it is cool, but, you know, you got to get paid for, for performing well. And, It'd be really cool if they had eight million to give back, but they've got four. Right. So so and I understand that's part of business that they don't have eight to give right now. But but maybe maybe from forty K entry or forty five K entries to zero was was maybe a little bit too big of a step. Mike, let me bring you in here. Mike, from a weekend angler standpoint, you know, you live in Virginia. You're a fan of the sport and you're a sports guy in general. I mean, you followed sport for your whole life. You're a good business. You've got great business acumen. Where does it go from your perspective as a fan to seeing these changes on the BBT and in the elite series? What's your view? You know, I was just getting ready to ask some questions, too, because I really want to know, like, almost what their vision is, what Brian and Gray sees for the sport, say, two, three, five years down the road. Is our goal to be a zero entry fee at the top level like every other sport, right? We don't have the PGA players are not paying twenty five hundred bucks to enter a tournament there. If they qualify for that tournament, they're in, and then they qualify for the first payout. But at the same time, if we need to have a little skin in the game like that because that's sort of – the culture of the industry maybe that's okay too and I'm I'm dying to see where that goes I thought just like everybody else when I heard that bass was going zero entry I was like we're here like this is it you know it's it's great but then I started doing some of the math and that's maybe you know my the way I'm wired a little bit but I started doing some of the examples of different anglers out there and realizing some come out ahead some come out like way low way way below on that Tell me, guys, where's your vision, though? What do you think we'll see a couple years down the road? This is, I think, just the beginning of it. I'll be curious to see if it's sustainable. The Best Pro Tour did that. Was it the first year or the first couple years? Yeah, it was the first two years. First two years, the Bass Pro Tour had no entry fee. That's correct, Gray. And they had some major backing where they thought the implications were that they could create some more non-endemic money that would allow them to sustain that model. The model didn't exist. And Mike, I love your thought process with the PGA, but we're not on CBS every Sunday anymore. you know, twenty eight days, twenty eight weekends a year. So so a little bit obviously different there. But yeah, great. They did try it in the BBT and it didn't work. And now they do have entry fees. But that gum, they got big payback. Yeah, now it's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out over the years. If they can keep it going. It's probably going to really come down to the anglers want to keep it this way. I wonder if there's going to be some pushback from the Elite Series guys. Kind of same with the no information rule they had, where they decided they were going to let them get info. And then, was it probably a week, week and a half later, that kind of flipped. So, yeah. I don't know. I'm curious, just kind of like Mike, and I think everybody in the fishing industry, because I don't think anybody has a crystal ball that's going to be able to tell what's going to happen. Right. Do you guys have input in it? Do you get to have a little bit of input when it comes to these things? Are they calling you up and saying, hey, we need to get together and chat about this? Um, sometimes, Mike, yes, sometimes we do. This was a thought Bass was doing on their own, too. They didn't want it to get leaked. They wanted it to be like a surprise reward type thing, you know, and we did not get to put any input on this, but To their defense, every professional bass angler in their whole life always said they don't want to pay entry fees. The input, you know what I mean? So they didn't really need our input, but it's like then you look at the payback and then you're like, did we really want this? Exactly. You know. I'm not sure where we're going to go. I'm talking to several guys that I know that I trust pretty good that I consider pretty good fishermen on the leads. They, they also are a little bit worried about the payback or the payout. Um, So I don't know what's going to happen. You know, it would be like Kurt said, like, we're not on CBS. Will fishing ever get big enough where we're fishing for that kind of money? Like, it's really cool to have no entry fee, but could it be that no entry fee with the payout we just had? You know, that would be something. But where we're at now, I don't know. You know, I got to look at the numbers. I'm definitely about what helps the majority. Whatever helps the majority of guys all about. So I don't know if this payout and this formula does. I got to look at it. But I know for me to go make the weekend, like you make a top, a top fifty. The care it's always been. You made the weekend. You got ten grand. OK, ten thousand dollars. You've taken care of your week. You've taken care of your entry fee. You make a few bucks. Now, let's see if we can make the top ten. now so right now we would be going to only the top forty would make the weekend and if you make forty a place to get five hundred dollars that's a huge difference there's also take the ten guys opportunity to gain a lot of points on a saturday so that's another very big thing that's changed um so I don't know I think things are gonna be uh getting worked out here soon you know and and hopefully hear something and see what direction we're going to go brian what do you think about I gotta ask him too kurt what do you think about the optics of having a five hundred dollar payout at the top level of bass fishing I look at that and I'm going brian come join me thursday night you win five hundred bucks with me thursday night on the james river what do you think when you see that though I was going to ask. So I was going to ask you that. Oh, if you could come fish with me Thursday night. Yeah, you can get down. I'll work it out. Yeah. No, just kidding. Like your your general like if if you see that and you're talking to some friends of yours, what are you guys saying? We're thinking there's some problem with the model right now. The sustainability is not there if we're having payouts that are five hundred dollars at the top level. Again, we go fish at BFL or something like that. There's there's money down the list in that. And of course, you're paying the entry fees to get in. But again, that's always been in the culture of the sport. I see something like that when it gets down to those lower numbers. I almost wish some of those last lines weren't there. because you're not going to be able to really do much from your budgeting standpoint, when you guys are sort of building your, your budget, your, you know, figuring out your finances for the year, if you're getting paid on five, six, seven hundred dollars. And let me tell you, that's very hard to get a top four. That is hard work there. You could make the classic, you can make the twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six classic. You could finish first, the forty fifth, forty ninth place every time I get a nickel and make the Bassmaster Classic because it's hard, hard to do. So my wife last night was just shocked. OK, that this this is not a living. That's that's the kind of. feedback I'm getting and and like we keep talking about where we are supposed to be the best fishing at the highest level man it's a tough one to swallow man you know just to get forty plates is hard and that's five hundred dollars so I don't know man you know here here's the other thing we got to put in the account bass is also looking at us like you know, we're taking away your risk. We're taking away that forty five grand right off the right off the table. Yeah. Just just so the listeners can know when he says the forty five grand, he's talking about entry fees for the season, which it has been for several years. Go ahead, Brian. So they they're away in it. And that's a forty five thousand savings right off the top. And they're minimizing, you know, so you have these off years. It's not as hurtful. You might not even lose any money. You might make money under this formula on an off year. But guys, let me tell you something. You have, what do you think, Kurt? Two years of off years gone. Yeah. You don't fish on the leads anymore. That model, if you were guaranteed fifteen years, if you made it to the league, you were guaranteed fifteen years, maybe a model like this could work. But you're not guaranteed. So you must catch them very well to sustain a career. And here's another thing. Even if you're just skating by and just barely continuing on the leagues, barely making it every year, and you're not winning a lot of money, but you're not losing a lot of money, let me tell you something. You're not getting any sponsorship. If you're not making any employees consistently, you're getting sponsorship money. So you're not making any money fishing, and you're not making any money sponsoring. That's my Brian Schmidt easy math. Like I said, there's a lot. But that's where my gut's at right now. I know Bass is trying to do a good thing, man. You know, listen, they really are trying to do a good thing. But those are some things you got to look at, you know, right off the top. Like, you don't catch them, guys, you're gone. There's no – you don't get to do this a couple years and not catch them. You're going to get kicked off. They're going to bring somebody in that's better than you. You have to catch them. To stay here, you have to catch them to make any money. You have to catch them to have any kind of sponsorship unless you have some crazy social media that's blowing down the doors, YouTube, this kind of thing. Bottom line, you have to catch the bass. Well, and I've even seen that. You know, Milliken, Ben Milliken, huge YouTube presence. He's even mentioned, hey, man, on the Elite Series, I'm spending YouTube money to fish the Elite Series. I mean, so he could just be staying on YouTube and making more than he is fishing the Elite Series. Now, do I think it's growing his brand and that type of thing? For sure. Is he selling more Sixth Sense stuff, you know, fishing the Elite Series? He has an additional recognition for – branding of that. But it's a hard bike. Gray, let me bring you in here. We're going to kind of wrap this up here pretty quick. But Gray, you're moving from the BBT going to the Opens. I love Mike's question of your vision over the next several years. What say you on where you're headed, what your decision was to move from MLF toward Bassmaster? And, you know, kind of break it down for the listeners real quick. Yeah, just it's still the end goal to make the Elite Series. Even after seeing what that payout and the no entry fees and that sort of thing, it still is the best place that I want to get to. The switch was part of it was I want to go fish something that has five fish format again. That was a big thing for me. And part of it was I also if I were to requalified for the Bass Pro Tour when they made that cut from eighty guys to sixty five for next year, I would have done it again just because you're at one of the top tours. And it's silly to leave one of the top tours if you're already there, in my opinion, or at least in my position. And a great Pang tour. Correct. Yeah. The best Pang tour. I had a very tough year myself. And with that team series, getting to fish that one and Martin and I came in third in it. And all of a sudden it went from being a pretty bad year to like, I more or less kind of got close to breaking even. That's huge. That's huge. Like when you have a down year, if you can just survive to go on to the next year and get everything back to where it needs to be the following year. And I have full confidence. plans on going through the opens and making the elite series out of it. That's, that's what you have to think when you're going to go fish this at any level, but you need to have that goal. So I'm looking forward to getting the year started and I'm excited to hopefully try to make that elite series and hopefully Brian will give me some room in his house. Yeah, a lot of events close to home for you next year, Gray. So you got that, I'll call it a northern division, essentially, where you got Champlain and, God, break it down for me. We start at Clarksville, then we go to that Tom Bigby, I think it's called, river in Mississippi. Then we go to Chesapeake, which is right around the corner, and then I get to St. Lawrence as well. All right in the wheelhouse. Two I'm very familiar with. And you got to figure once you qualify, the way this new division system sets up, you have two divisions. And so you have four events in each division. And if you make the top fifty, you go to the final three events. And you got to assume the final three events being in the, you know, late summer, early fall. You're probably going to have another one up north somewhere, you know, kind of close to home. Yeah. Give me Champlain. Give me another. Give me somewhere in New York to start that off. I love that. And then work my way south over there. Mike, with this new opens format, does it seem like, okay, and I know you've got a lot of friends that have looked at the opens, not you particularly as much, but you've got some buddies and we all have weekend anglers that would love to fish for a living or fish the top level. With this new format, does it obviously make it more sustainable? And do you see more people from your area of the country say, hey, I couldn't do the nine events. That was ridiculous. But okay, now with this four event series, I'm back in the mix. I think it does. I think it gets maybe some of the regular people back in the game. Nine, I remember even hearing you talk about it. I think it was last year where you said it was going to prepare the anglers better for taking the next step. And I think that that's totally true. Also, though, that the guy who's out there working right now, very, very difficult to make nine events. I mean, maybe impossible. There's only a few people and you've got to have some sort of external forces that are helping you. I think if that's going to be the case, but for events, you can make it work like that's something that if it helps you have a pathway to the next level, that's good. And I think it's attainable. It seems like it's a real viable pathway for that average guy to go out there, take four weeks of the year, and he's got to take that chance right there. But going nine, I did. I talked to a couple of my really good friends here who are just absolute hammers. And, you know, I was trying to help with the numbers. It's going like, look, how do we make this work? And you can't. It doesn't work. Like I'm going like, how do we do this? It just doesn't work for somebody who's a great angler. It just doesn't have the back. Well, that's good. I love the bass changed it. I think it does bring more anglers, which creates more participation, more involvement in the sport in general. I also like the fact that I think is kind of left out being that I was regulated from the elite series in the past that, that if you have a poor couple of years on the elite series that you can go fish and, If you're an elite series angler, go fish these final three events and get yourself back in. I think that's phenomenal. I love that method, that format, and that opportunity for an elite series angler rather than just saying bye-bye or on to something else. Guys, I super appreciate all of you all being with us. Gray, you got any final thoughts? No, I'm just excited to get the next year started. Ready to rock and roll, get that bass cat set up, do his thing. Brian, where are you at? You got any final thoughts? What's your plans the next couple weeks? You got your new Ranger yet? Yeah, got the new boat. Still got the old boat. Got a lot of rigging to do. Just going to be working a little bit. My final thought is last time I fished the Chesapeake Bay, Gray beat me. I'm going to put this out here. Hope Gray's okay with snacking. I'll take a second. Yeah, other than that, man, thank you for having me. Super excited to get after it. At the end of everything, guys, you got to catch the bass. You catch the bass, everything takes care of itself. I enjoy fishing. Guys, I had a really roller coaster season, stressful season. Dude, I got back, got to work for a few weeks, but I've been fishing like crazy. It's like I can't get enough of bass fishing, man. Like I've been going every day I can, going to the river by myself a lot of times. you know, and just love fishing. I hope we can continue to do this. I hope guys make a living doing it. And thank you for having me. Absolutely. Mike, what do you got? Last, last thoughts that you're, you're the, our first, maybe weekender on the podcast. It was awesome to have you, man. You brought a lot to the show. I appreciate you being here. It's so funny because I don't really think of myself as a weekender because I spend every waking moment trying to go fishing. But, you know, that is about what I am. I'll tell you that what's great with these guys is they've been so open with us. Like I'm sitting there just throwing questions and they're giving us those like unscripted answers, which I think are great. And then to hear Brian just wrap it up with, you know, Great. Both of them said when they get done working fishing, they go fishing. They like to still do that. That's what keeps me going. There is the tournament side of it, but I got into this stuff just because I like catching fish. It's fun to hear that they have that same passion that I have. Absolutely. All right. Yeah. Thanks for having us, Kurt. I love it, man. Thank you. Absolutely. Thanks guys. Really appreciate everybody being here on the show. And, uh, I'm going to wrap this thing up, uh, Bass Edge Radio, our first multi, uh, angler episode. So that was a lot of fun. Really enjoyed it. We are going to have another show here over the next week and a half or two. Uh, we're going to, we're going to get my old buddy, Rick Harrison here, Rick, uh, You know, always catching big fish. He had a good season this year, went out to the U.S. Open, had a great event there. But we're going to talk to Rick Harris about more late fall fishing, talking about targeting bigger fish in the fall as well. Not just tournament bassing, but just targeting that maybe big wall hanger before it's wall hanger season in the spring. So it's going to be a lot of fun on that episode, but then we're going to have one more episode in December. So we're going to break down another one in December and just kind of close out Bass Edge for twenty twenty four. It's been a great year. I know we had a big hiccup in the middle of the year because of my little dog issue. But now we're back at it and super appreciate everyone being here with Bass Edge Radio. Y'all stay tuned for the next episode. Be sure to like, subscribe, everybody.