The boat, truck, gear, entry fees, food, lodging, travel, mortgage/rent, utilities, repairs, family upkeep...it all adds up to a lot of time and money. I'm a middle class individual and I could NEVER afford all these things.  Am I to assume most touring pros have some type of "wealthy" family or friend backing their love of the sport?  Or do they live on huge amounts of debt and are always "in the hole"?  Or do they all have awesome jobs when not on the water?  Where does all that money come from?

10 minutes ago, Bartableman7 said:

The boat, truck, gear, entry fees, food, lodging, travel, mortgage/rent, utilities, repairs, family upkeep...it all adds up to a lot of time and money. I'm a middle class individual and I could NEVER afford all these things.  Am I to assume most touring pros have some type of "wealthy" family or friend backing their love of the sport?  Or do they live on huge amounts of debt and are always "in the hole"?  Or do they all have awesome jobs when not on the water?  Where does all that money come from?

See all the stickers/patches for manufacturers on their boats/shirts/jackets?

 

It's called 'sponsors'. They get quite a bit of their stuff at cost or even free in exchange for promoting the sponsor's goods.

A lot of them stay at friends or relatives houses when they’re at an event. They don’t all stay at a 5 star resort.

 

A fair amount of them are single guys too so they don’t have families or kids. And we all know kids are the biggest expense that exists. Boats are cheap compared to kids.

 

A few of them have their own lure/tackle businesses too.

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

A lot of them stay at friends or relatives houses when they’re at an event. They don’t all stay at a 5 star resort.

Or a bunch of them will pool their money and co-rent a place. I watched one behind-the-scenes vid where 7 pros were sharing a rental-home for a tournament.

8 minutes ago, gimruis said:

A few of them have their own lure/tackle businesses too.

KVD is the big one for this. His dad owns it, he and his brother work at it.

 

Or guide services...'our own' James Niggemeyer guides on his home lake during the off-season.

1 hour ago, Bartableman7 said:

The boat, truck, gear, entry fees, food, lodging, travel, mortgage/rent, utilities, repairs, family upkeep...it all adds up to a lot of time and money. I'm a middle class individual and I could NEVER afford all these things.  Am I to assume most touring pros have some type of "wealthy" family or friend backing their love of the sport?  Or do they live on huge amounts of debt and are always "in the hole"?  Or do they all have awesome jobs when not on the water?  Where does all that money come from?

Yes and yes.

Pretty sure alot of the guys are not just sponsored, but are more like actual employees for those companies. I have seen some articles about the anglers "salaries", and it's um, well I wish I had those jobs. 

There is/was a video series on youtube going over the costs of being a pro.

19 minutes ago, slonezp said:

There is/was a video series on youtube going over the costs of being a pro.

Link or it didn’t happen. 

10 minutes ago, 12poundbass said:

Link or it didn’t happen. 

IT HAPPENED!!!!

There are only a few anglers that have really lucrative deals with companies that legit get paid to fish (like, really get paid).  It's like <10% off pro anglers...and I bet you can figure out who the majority of them are.  The rest are either 1) independently wealthy 2) cut enough checks to cover costs 3) have spouses that actually pay the bills or 4) are in debt up to their eyes.  Randy Blaukat talks about this stuff a lot on his youtube channel.  He's been in the game a long time and dishes some pretty good info.

13 hours ago, RichF said:

Randy Blaukat talks about this stuff a lot on his youtube channel.  He's been in the game a long time and dishes some pretty good info.

Randy has been a pro fisherman for decades . He made a video about his truck . It has 300,000 miles on it . That right there tells you hes a long ways from wealthy .

6 hours ago, scaleface said:

Randy has been a pro fisherman for decades . He made a video about his truck . It has 300,000 miles on it . That right there tells you hes a long ways from wealthy .

You think he lives on beef jerky?

3 hours ago, jbsoonerfan said:

You think he lives on beef jerky?

I’ve tried that! It doesn’t work, the potato cravings are fierce! Especially for us somewhat Irish folk