Fishing News - 9/23/02
2002 BassFan.com World Rankings Round-Up
Looking at Next Year
The biggest factor that will affect tour pros and their rankings next season is the expansion of the BASSMASTER Tour regular season to 10 events, six of which (formerly the whole season) are compacted into just 3 months. Also, like FLW Tour events, BASSMASTER Tour events will now have a cut after the second day of competition.
So all tour-level events should favor pros who can get on patterns early, and 9 of the 16 possible tournaments (both tours combined) will favor pros who are better at early-spring fishing techniques like sight-fishing. Then there's the schedule itself: nine tournaments in 3 months, several of which are back-to-back; and 16 total events in 6 months, including two in California for pros who plan to fish the BASSMASTER Tour. Some dual-tour pros will shine with the added fishing and hectic schedule, and others will see their fishing suffer, though perhaps only temporarily.
Also, until the final registration lists are in for both tours, no one will know whether some pros who have fished both tours will instead fish only one, and vice versa.
The more tournaments a pro fishes, the better his chances of being ranked higher or lower in the BassFan.com World Rankings. In other words, more events fished means more opportunities for good or bad finishes. In the past this has favored the better pros, who fished well on both tours. But with some two-tour pros doubtless dropping one tour next year, and others struggling with the new rigorous schedule, it will be interesting to see how the pros and rankings are affected.
As a final note, because the rankings are over 2 rolling years, some effects of next year's schedule will be seen next year, but the full effects won't be seen until 2004 -- assuming the schedules stay the same.
