My 2 cents is that it is the structured competition, not the money, that brings out the jerk in some people.  Whether it be fishing, bowling, golf, bike riding, any activity where non-professionals can participate in a competition as if they were a professional, a different mindset comes into play.  It is a mindset filled with erroneous assumptions that help process the jerkiness of some.  I believe these assumptions are:

• The tournament, no matter the size, is important and therefore those who are in it are important;
• Those in the tournament have spent money to do so, meaning they are more serious and better at the activity than those not in the tournament;
• Those not in the tournament are an obstruction and should defer to those in the tournament.

This doesn't happen to just non-pro's, Mike Iaconelli portrays that mindset every time he is on the water.  His display on the first day of the Classic was embarrassing to everyone but him.

 

Here in Southern California, we have a lot of roads & not much water, so I run into (not literally) more bicyclists who believe they are in the Tour de France than bass anglers who think they are competing in the Classic.  They portray the same rudeness & condescension as the dual power pole/jersey wearers that T-9 so aptly described.

 

Think about the difference of some parents reaction and interaction to their kids playing baseball in some random park compared to a Little League game and I believe you have an illustration of the self-importance some put in organized competition.

@OCdockskipper the worst part of the Classic that I saw wasn't the Ike attitude but chris Zaldains wife Trait who also fished professionally. Her Instagram story for every day of the tournament was pictures or videos of casual fishermen complaining that they don't belong on the lake during the tournament and if a tournament angler shows up they need to move. I fish 20+ tournaments a year and understand my level of importance on the water is the same as everyone else out there, it's public and I have no rights to any spots. I have had people fishing the same tournaments as me pull up to a spot I've been on for an hour and want me to move because they prefished it and I have no problem telling them no. You get there first it's yours.

There's jerks in every walk of life.  No need to brand tournament anglers this way.  I see more jerk moves on the water from recreational anglers than anything else.  I just chalk it up to not knowing any better.  Most of them are panfish anglers, and I think they're used to fishing really close to each other.

The bad apples of the tournament world I'm sure make up just a small minority of the total number of tournament anglers. I just must be extremely unlucky that I run into so many. They aren't limited to bass tournaments though. Musky tournies have their share of rude fishermen. Their rude tactics do work though. I've had enough bad encounters that I stay off lakes on weekends. I do have to say that these guys have given me a negative attitude about how I feel about fishing tournaments as a whole. It bothers me that I can't fish when I'd like because of tournaments and the risk that one of those guys is going to ruin my day.

I have met rude people every day of my life.  It's no diffrent on the water than on the road.  If I was retired I would never fish the weekend and just do something else.  Fishing during the week is more peaceful and more productive in my experience.  Me and my partner are both very conservative and give people wide berth.  I will haze jerks when they act stupid, but that's rare and I am happy most people just want to have a good time.

2 hours ago, SMcLamb said:

...the worst part of the Classic that I saw wasn't the Ike attitude but chris Zaldains wife Trait who also fished professionally. Her Instagram story for every day of the tournament was pictures or videos of casual fishermen complaining that they don't belong on the lake during the tournament...

 

I didn't see that, but agree that is gross.  For her to post that shows a complete lack of awareness of how wrong she really is, kind of like the parent at the little league game screaming at the umpire.

 

As an aside, Trait (Crist) Zaldain is a "professional fisherman" in the same way that many people waiting tables call themselves "actors" and gamblers who continually lose call themselves "professional poker players".  She has the uniform & shows up at the event, but that is about it.

I've always had a theory that directly compared the size of the stacks on a diesel pickup truck to the size of "other things" (don't want to go violating site rules, lets just call it a wee wee with emphasis on "wee"). I guess the same goes for power poles and will in turn hypothesize that this dude was angry because he's hung like a tic tac. 

 

As far as the phone thing goes, I have used that line several times in a previous life working as a repo man. If they said they'd call the cops while I was there with a legitimate repossession order, when the cops came I always left with the car. That said, I handed them the company phone, not my personal one. I never had one thrown and I did have the police find 56 stamp bags of heroin and a couple needles in a debtor's car after they called the police on their own phone. They went to jail and things got complicated, as the police had the car impounded and I didn't get to pick it up for 2 weeks until their preliminary hearing was over. As an employee of a big company, though, I was threatened writeups for refusing to do unsafe things a couple times. Each time I heard "I'm going to have to write you up," they heard "here, use my pen." Never once did they take the pen. 

Some people just suck.  What boat he/she owns has no bearing on that.  Some of the nicest people I've ever met on the water ride around in $60k rigs while some of the worst have moss growing on their deck carpet and ride around the lake with no cowl on their motor.  The guy in the OP's tournament would've been a butthead no matter what boat he was driving around in.

..and we're done here.