Gas Wars! How will it play out for the BFL

[SODY]

Ok I just spent a week on a round trip tour to South Carolina. Michigans gas prices were higher than any state I travelled. I did my figures and if I'm honest my boater cost for one BFL would be $747! I figured entrance fee's, two days fishing, two cheap hotels, two tanks of gas for the boat and one for the van , plus cheap food etc etc. Get a load of this , I filled the boat $153. Filled the Van $113. Please note this was the 18' 150 Champion, not a 250 HP Ranger. Soo  ???Heres the Topic.

"How is this going to affect your season"?? As you can see I know how it's affecting mine.

[motocross269]

It probably won't effect me too much this year because I am already committed to fishing the season.  If gets to out of hand I will definetly make some adjustments for next year.  I am still going to try to have fun and not think about the money too much.  I will just have to work a little harder next year to save a larger fishing stash.

[Eric]

I'm out.  180 miles to all the BFLs plus all the expenses once I'm there.  Reality has set in and I have to stay home.

[Durand Dan]

I'm committed to fishing local tournaments, ABA and NBAA. Even some of those I will not fish due to the gas prices

[SODY]

I know how you feel, it really woke me up! Then I heard some expert saying on the radio that the latest government study showed that the American public would not significantly stop travel until gas reaches $4.38 a gallon. Has anyone checked marina on the water prices. Say at Spring Lake??

[djkimmel]

I don't know where they get their numbers from - I seem to hear a lot more general travelers and vacationers saying they are cutting way back or not traveling for holidays? It does seem like a lot of people are still heading out though. I wonder if the average trip might be shorter now? Everything has or will go up along with the gas prices to some degree.

I will fish only as much as I can afford. I can afford a lot less travel right now than before - just simple math - I can easily spend in one day on gas fishing a tournament on the Great Lakes what I used to spend in a whole long weekend for all expenses combined to practice or fish an event.

I plan on making less trips back and forth to the various sites and just working on using less time more efficiently. Might be an opportunity to improve there? Maybe work harder at finding closer fish. Like many others, I have a lot less 'free' time available. Might have no choice on only finding close fish later in the year, especially if gas prices keep going up.

Every time the gas prices go up, it cuts more days and trips off my available travel for the year anyway. I try to make it up by doing more work when I can, but there are limits...

I'm always happy to pad the $100 - 400 million annual paychecks and record multibillion dollar annual profits of big oil at the expense of every other industry. I just only have so much to 'add' to the 'padding.' (Used to cost me ~$8 to drive back and forth to work each day - now almost $20 - figure that increase out over a year's time.) I have to imagine all other industry is as happy as I am too.

[Skulley]

I am going to fish less tournaments this year.  I am going to fish NBAA on Wednesdays as I have for years and the Saturday NBAA One on Ones.  However,  I will be fishing more locally for rest and relaxation rather than spend a lot of money on entry fees.  What used to be $100 entry fees are now on some trails $125 for weekend events.  I will not be fishing these events.  I would rather take that money and put it in my gas tank to travel to other locales to fish for rest and relaxation.  Tournament entry fees are becoming way too extravagant.  It comes to a point where you have to ask yourself........."What is this all worth ?"

I have planned all winter to go to the NBAA Championship up at Houghton.  Well when my wife took on some work for her business (we don't turn down opportunities to bring money into the household in this current economic environment), meant that she would not be going and neither would my son.  Doing the budget for this trip, I found that even though it would just be my daughter and me, we would only be saving about $200 with just the two of us.  As I figured further into the trip, I figured the whole trip would cost us over $1500 including gas, oil, food, accomodations, etc.  Now for a family of four that is not too bad.  But when you figure it is now just two of us, that gets to be a little expensive.  The gas, oil, and accomodations would cost the same no matter how many of us were going.  The only savings would be on food.  Actually food is the least expensive expense.
As a result, we are not going to Houghton.  Too much money going out.  If I had a partner that was not my daughter then it would have been more affordable as everything could be split.  But when you have to pay for everything, which doesn't bother me that I would have to, and after all this is my family, I decided that this would not be practical.  I also wonder how many anglers have decided to not go because of the expenses. We have another family trip planned for vacation this summer and the money would be better spent for that rather than Houghton. 

Bottomline is that I will be fishing some tournaments but will be fishing more for my sanity than anything else.  And I will be doing it with the economics first and foremost in my mind.

BD           

[225XS4Garza200PXL]

I am just going to fish the BFL and the Wonderland Open...

I won't do nearly as much "fun" fishing unless someone is willing to pay for the gas for that day...

I may also just fish locally to hone different aspects of my fishing... No more 75 mph runs...

As far as how gas will affect me in tournaments on big water... it won't... if i'm on fish to win and they're 80 miles away... i'm gonna go there... and i'm gonna haul the mail doing so...

This gas thing is getting pretty outrageous though... it's pretty sickening if you ask me... my stomach churns at the site of the gas prices...

[bosshawg]

 won't be going out at all this weekend. that's a first for me, on opening weekend. i've only missed 1 or 2 other OBM kent lk tournaments since the 1st one they've had out there. lucky me got stuck working 2nd shift at chrysler windsor all weekend & next week.
and that really sucks.....

[Vic Cerabone]

I'm trying my hand at the BFL this year, and I'll be running just a far as it takes.  No limits!  I won't bother entering an event if I'm not willing to make a run.  I will be fishing slightly fewer events this year, because of gas prices, but also because I need to be sure I'm prepared for all the events, and some of the new lakes I am fishing.  I'll be carpooling to work again this sumer to save money for fishing!

[SODY]

I keep thinking of RED GREEN saying were all in this togeather and I'm pulling for you! I missed a major this morning because a partner could not afford to fish two in a row, so I'm crying over split gas tonight. I will be curious to see some of the weekend results, has anyone heard the turn out for CATT at Muskegon or any others?? Dan I'm with you this is a chance to focus and improve. Maybe we won't have to feel guilty when we don't get to Pre-fish.

Ok heres a bright spot, everyone including sponsors, hotels etc are feeling this and hotels are ready to deal!! I have purchased several in the last few weeks and my experiance has been positive. I have obtained discounts just for asking on $100 rooms and have not paid over $68 a room. I even snagged a Quality inn room with breakfast for two for "Get THis $53.95 "
I believe we are going to see some huge incentives to get us to the tournaments and big discounts in travel related industry's. DON'T forget to ask. Don't believe me, check this out. FOM in conjunction with Solar Batt and Strike King have provided me with enough sunglasses to make this a pretty bright summer series. I have been testing the new Denny Brauer edition that I have as give aways and they are sweet!

Remember I'm pullin for ya!

[Mojo]

I do feel sorry  for all of us. I am only going to the local ones.

I'll tell you guys - This is a 300 million person captured market. What you REALLY need to get upset about is in 1970 a truck get 11 miles to the gallon, my F150 averages about 16 mpg ...... 37 F$&*in years later. the only thing you can do now is buy gas only at the independents: NO Exxon, BP, Shell, Mobil (and Speedway is owned by BP I think ? They're owned by someone huge). Stop going there ! 

[LUMBERLEO]

I hope someone is trying to talk Eric of the ledge.  Eric haven't you been fishing BFL's for like ten years?  When guys like that start dropping out FLW is in deep trouble.

Scott

[djkimmel]

There is no doubt that the gas prices do not help the economy (other than maybe the spending power of a few CEOs). Some people may have to cut back. There are a good number of new people too coming in. Bass tournaments are still a growth area even if a lot of the growth is still more local.

High gas prices do not make a whole bunch of people want to travel more to more tournaments, but we can use the forum here to offer tips on saving money and making less time and travel more productive. Control what we can and maybe learn about ways to influence the bigger issues more too as we go along.

Also, the more members here, and the more participation with considering sponsors and advertisers, and remembering to use the affiliate links on the site when you do order online will help make more benefits available as we go along. It is possible as we go along that there might be more opportunity to give away valuable things like entries into tournaments and gas cards.

Maybe not this year, but I keep being surprised already how well things are going. I was very pleased with the level of prizes donated by great companies at the spring DK Open last month. The more support, participation and enthusiasm that is shown, the more willing great companies are to be a part of things.

And if I can ever figure out things we can do about the gas prices, I'll sure shout out any suggestions. For now, I continue to buy from the stations that raise the slowest and drop the fastest. If I can't avoid 'rewarding bad behavior' completely, I'll at least avoid 'rewarding' the worst behavior. In the meantime, I'm on the lookout for this mysterious phone guy who apparently sets the time the price will raise each time for most of the country, or at least Michigan. 'He' has too much power and must be stopped somehow.

That is if I have time beyond getting ready to go to Mullett Lake for a few days for the first BFL. Looks like I'll make it. I'll even try to catch a few extra fish for Eric.

[Eric]

Ok, you got me.  It isn't really the gas prices, but the guy I stayed with at Burt last year.

Just kidding. 

Yep, been fishin for awhile, but not this year, maybe next?

[SODY]

Glad to see your going DJ but I want a better report from you than last year....and the winner is Dan Kim.....I'm toying with the idea of going also, but their is this top secret (Laugh) hot spot at St.Clair were I could wax them for the opener.