Glenn

Try living in Washington state and then go to those tournaments.

Vyron! Holy cow, look what came out of the woodwork! Good to see ya!

Well, coming from a TV news background, I can't even begin to recite the dozens of dumb comments I witnessed go across the airwaves. Made me really embarrassed to be a part of it. One of the many reasons I quit. Bottom line - NEVER let the on-air talent ad-lib! NEVER! :

That's absolutely awesome! She's a keeper!

I see your point, and it makes sense from that perspective. My point is that it's harder to qualify through the WBT because it's only a handful of tournaments spread across the country. You have to travel hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to fish them all - against hundreds of women. And only one makes it to the big show. By comparison, there's far less traveling for the opens and federation route, and you get to fish local waters that you already know. So from an expense, logistics, and knowledge standpoint, it's "easier". Plus you have more opportunities because there's far more tournaments in those venues across the country. Great question! Glad somebody asked that. The fact-of-the-matter is, the largest growth potential of this sport is with the women. Not a whole lot of women are participating, but their numbers are growing much faster than any other demographic. To be sure, women can participate in the other tournaments, and they do. It's easy to argue the women have more opportunities than the men because of the WBT, but they just aren't participating in those other tournaments. More than a 1/3rd of anglers are female, but you don't see that number represented in those tournaments. Those other tournament avenues have been available for years, but have you seen a lot of women participate? Nope. Why is that? It's because they're dominated by men. That's not to say the women are intimidated by the men, but look at it from their perspective. If you wanted to do something, but it was dominated by women - even though you would be welcome - you'd feel very out-of-place. I suspect a lot of male nurses felt this way years ago when they first broke into that career. Since few women are participating in the well-established, male-dominated tournaments, yet we KNOW more women are participating in the sport, something had to be done. Enter the WBT. Now you see hundreds of women participating in just a few short years. Kinda odd when you think about it. It's actually harder to participate in the WBT than the other tournaments, yet women are attracted to it because they don't have to fish with "the guys". For clarity's sake, the WBFA was the predecessor to the WBF, and existed for a couple of years - Judy Wong won two of those championships as well. However, the WBFA was modeled after the Federation, and there just wasn't enough female bass clubs to support it. I suspect that sometime in the future, the need for the WBT will no longer exist. But until then, it's successfully attracting more and more women to the sport. This is fueling the growth, which benefits all. Again, only one woman makes it to the Classic via the WBT. It's not like hordes of women are invading the Classic. Yet it's an incentive to integrate women into this male-dominated sport.

Welcome home!

There shouldn't be ANY political ads. Please PM me the URL that's on the ad please.

Should be gone now. Everyone - please let me know if you're seeing any other political ads. Thanks!

Lesseee here... alt+arrow gives me a forward/back button, alt+tab switches between windows, ctrl+tab switches between tabs, F5 refreshes, and so on... using keyboard shortcuts are MUCH faster than using a mouse! Seems a Firefox plugin is only needed for the young 'uns who haven't been using a computer long enough. ;D Viva la 8-track!

Ok, I know about the Prop 8 ads and am working on filtering them out now. Any others, please let me know. BTW - the prop 8 ads are appearing in full force across the internet, unnanounced, taking over entire websites - and are pi$$ing off a TON of webmasters. Expect a huge backlash against Google for this! >

RW is correct to an extent. Google is serving these political ads without "asking" me first. However, I can AND WILL shut them off immediately as soon as i know about them. The problem is, they are geotargeted. Meaning, people in California see something different that people in Texas, and people in NY see something entirely different. I don't see them. So I had no idea these are running. I've removed the ones I saw, but clearly there are more that I don't know about. Look at the ads and you'll see a URL in them somewhere. PM me the URLs and I will block them asap. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Let's get away from the 2nd ammendment comments folks.

I fish almost every week of the year. As for what I do - I'm in the online marketing field.

Chrome/blue back 1/2oz Rat-L-Trap in the spring. Can't go wrong with that! Oh, and Welcome Aboard!

I gotta agree with Senko77. Strait tail finesse worms dominate my winter arsenal. That said, I think everyone would be really surpised to know how many bass I catch on crankbaits during the winter. You'd think slow, slow, slow. But pull a fast-moving crankbait by a bass in 50+ feet of water and he just can't resist! Oh, and how do I get a crankbait that deep? Let's just say it involves a 3-ounce weight and a 3-way swivel.

Looks like Mann's 20+ lures.

oooh, boy, that's a tough one. Turnover is one of the toughest conditions you'll encounter. It really screws the fish up. The lake temp will be the same top-to-bottom, so there really isn't a "prime" depth during this time. The only advice I can give you is to try a variety of lures, starting with reaction baits and moving to slow baits. Sometimes a bait whizzing by them will illicit a strike, other times a Senko dead-sticked on the bottom will work. And when I mean "dead-stick", I mean leave it there for 5 or more minutes! For reaction baits, focus on structure. Try to bring by where they're waiting, rather than expecting them to track it down in these conditions. Good luck!

Don't look now, but a woman just won the co-angler division at an Open, and WBT pro Debra Petrowski of Arlington, Texas, finished 29th. http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bass-texoma2-08.html

You're right, it's not a good comparison. It's much tougher to make it through the WBT than the federation because only one makes it to the Classic. Regardless of how you make it, once you're in, everyone is on the same playing field.

Does now.

Come on Preach, that argument is just about as sound as saying somebody who qualifies through the federation or opens isn't as "good" as somebody who does it through the Elite series. But I guarantee you that if somebody from the federation makes a run for the crown during the Classic, everyone will be rootin' for him! At least have the same common sense to give the WBT the same credibility.

My state has the 4th highest gas tax in the country. >

Welcome Home!

Welcome Home!

Welcome Home!