Letter from the CEO

Pro Fishing Research was created to help amateur anglers make better purchasing decisions, help vendors make better product decisions, and help pro anglers in our network obtain value from their experience and expertise. Our mission is to collect objective, unbiased information from pro bass fishermen and bring that insight down to amateur anglers in a time efficient and easy to consume manner to help them make better purchasing decisions and get better value with the time and money they spend on fishing. 

Our information is unique because our customers are not product manufacturers.  The information we provide is solely based on the product preferences of the pros in our network, who in the course of conducting their business have the opportunity to use a vast array of the industry’s products, and test them in the real-life setting of catching fish to win tournaments.  We believe the opinions of this group provide us with a credible source of information to obtaining rankings of products that really work.  

Our ranking process is driven by our network of pro bass fishermen who have agreed to provide our company with their unbiased opinions on confidential surveys.  The anglers in our network spend an average of 172 days per year fishing, have fished for bass for an average of 32 years, and have fished in an average of 220 tournaments.  Approximately 85% of our network participants are in the top half of the Bassfan World Rankings.  Slightly less than 40% fish the Elite Series, with most of the remainder fishing the FLW.  We do have a few guys in the network who are past the peak of their career and while they may not go at it quite as hard as they once did, they still have a wealth of relevant knowledge and experience that we believe is very valuable to our target audience.  We have created a website where these pro’s can log in with a secure username and password to get to our survey, fill it out, and send it back to us electronically.  In the event our members’ schedule does not allow for the timely delivery of an electronic survey, we may also opt to take their responses over the phone.  We only use the aggregate results of our surveys and keep individual responses confidential so that participating pros can be more objective in their opinions regardless of any sponsor relationships they may have.  Through this process we have ranked pro preferred products such as rods, reels, line, lures, and the top U.S. bass lakes.  We started the company for people who have a lot going on in their lives and do not have time to dig this information out themselves.  We would like to provide it to as many fellow anglers as possible to help them make better purchasing decisions and get better value with the time and money they spend on fishing.  With that in mind, we are making our rankings available on our website free of charge for anyone to access.

You may be wondering how we are able to cover the cost of providing this information at no charge without accepting payment from product manufacturers, which is the source of funds for most of the rest of the industry.  We derive revenue primarily by  providing informational videos on the favorably ranked products from our network, which feature pros in our network highlighting exactly what they think you need to know about these products.  Simply knowing what the products are is not sufficient to maximize their effectiveness, so we offer informational videos available for purchase to bring quality information from our network of pros to you in video form. 

We have recently produced a video featuring the Top 10 Bass Lures from our rankings.  This video highlights some of the pros in our network demonstrating exactly how to use these lures most effectively to optimize their fish catching potential.  Mike McClelland, Jeff Kriet, Randy Howell, Ken Cook, and Jimmy Houston spent two days filming this topic and captured over 10 hours of footage.  We put this together with the goal of providing time efficient, easy to consume information that can help you get more value with the time and money you spend on fishing.  Sound familiar?  We shot this video at Jimmy’s private lake, and to be clear, Jimmy’s lake is a well managed private lake that is not available to the public.  We chose this location for logistic and convenience reasons and are not trying to demonstrate how many fish top pros can catch at Jimmy’s place.  Instead, we are focused on providing the highest quality information possible on how to effectively optimize the fishing techniques and features these lures have to offer and hopefully you can find it in your heart to forgive us for also catching a lot of fish.  We did.  Throughout this process, I couldn’t stop thinking ‘these guys are good’.

If you have read this far, I hope you have found an appreciation for our mission and our commitment to bring to you the highest quality, least biased pro bass fishing insight available anywhere, in a format that is efficient with your time and easy for you to consume.  We have gone to considerable effort to structure the company in a way that will give you confidence that the information you receive from us is not sponsored by any product manufacturer, and is driven solely by the opinions of the pros in our network who use these products competitively to catch fish and win tournaments.  We like this structure and intend to keep it that way.

Sincerely,
Troy Showalter, President/CEO
Pro Fishing Research
Topeka, Kansas