Commentary: High fuel prices forcing fishermen to innovate / LJWorld.com

Sports

By Ray Sasser - The Dallas Morning News

October 2, 2005

Higher fuel costs are causing sport fishermen to reconsider their pursuit of fish. Pain at the pump is magnified for the angler who drives a sizable SUV or truck for towing power and pulls a fishing boat behind the vehicle.

Many modern boats have fuel tanks that hold 50 gallons. Full-sized towing vehicles generally hold more than 30 gallons. Do the math and it's easy to see how a weekend fishing trip could cost $200 or more in gasoline expenses alone.

The problem is such that ESPN's "Bass Tech" television show addressed it recently. "Bass Tech" is like Monster Garage for bass fishermen. A viewer brings his or her problems to a "Bass Tech" team that includes fishing pros Skeet Reese, Gerald Swindle and Stephen Browning. They're hip, young guys who mug for the camera.

On the recent show, a weekend tournament fan brought in his Chevy crew-cab pickup with a DuraMax diesel and a mega bass boat with a 225-hp Mercury EFI outboard. His complaint: a truck that got 12.5 miles per gallon towing a boat that guzzled fuel on the water.

Swindle admits the "Bass Tech" crew got a little "Hollywood" with the solution. They replaced the outboard with a new $14,000 Mercury Optimax 225 that yielded 36 percent better fuel economy.

Since the viewer's truck was a duplicate of Swindle's, he knew how to tweak it for maximum performance. He put in a high-tech air filter, replaced the exhaust with a Flowmaster system that allows the engine to breathe better, and added horsepower with an aftermarket power chip and programming module.

Cost: about $700. Total improvement in economy? About two mpg while pulling a boat.

The problem, said Pete Albarado, a weekend bass fanatic and service manager for Chuck Nash Chevrolet in San Marcos, Texas, is that General Motors may void the warranty on any truck found to be using aftermarket products like those touted on "Bass Tech", if the product is believed to have caused damage.

"The Flowmaster exhaust system is fine, and lots of people use it," Albarado said. "There are some common-sense things you can do to conserve fuel without losing your factory warranty. Since gasoline weighs 8 pounds per gallon, and I have a 50-gallon tank, I tow my boat with the tank nearly empty and buy gas near the lake where I'm going to fish."

Keith Blair at Lake Fork Marina listens when his fishing guides talk. What he hears are guides who do a more efficient job of planning their day.

"They're fishing all day in one area of the lake," Blair said. "Big, comfortable, fast bass boats make it easy to crank up when the fish aren't biting and run 10 or 20 miles. We're constantly running past good fishing spots."

In a telephone interview, Swindle said high fuel costs will force anglers to be more efficient.

"We have to get smart," he said. "We need to spend more time studying fishing maps and locating potentially good spots in close proximity. The truth is, fishermen are running right past great fishing holes."