Martin’s musings
Circuit Breaker star blogs about sponsorships, filming a reality series and the 2014 season
It has been a while since my last blog but I will now be doing a monthly blog on FLWOutdoors.com which will be featured during the second week of every month. I’ve spent the last few months since the Forrest Wood Cup catching up, visiting family, working on stuff to be prepared for 2014 and getting back to some fun fishing. Fall is a great time to be fishing on the TVA and Guntersville has been on fire so I have spent some time out there working on set ups and trying to improve on some weaknesses. Obviously living in the south I have spent quite a few Saturdays watching college football and the Tide is still rolling which should make for a great Iron Bowl.
I’ve spent some time looking for sponsors for the 2014 season but year after year the sponsorship game seems to be getter harder. I have a few companies in the works but it’s really hard to get companies to commit with the tough economical conditions. From the look of the stock market and unemployment rates, however, it appears that the US economy is recovering well and hopefully this will allow companies within the fishing industry to increase their marketing budget again to help out anglers more. That being said Rat-L-Trap, a long time sponsor of mine, has been real critical in me stepping up as a pro this year and have committed again to helping me fish the Tour – so that’s good news so far.
I really want to make a living in this sport for a long time but also want to make sure I represent companies that I have a lot of confidence in. I am still pursuing a title sponsor for 2014 which will hopefully help take off some of the financial stress of making checks and I’ll be able to swing for the fences more (one of my overused sayings according to FLW editor Brett Carlson).
A lot of people have been asking about Circuit Breaker and my feelings about it last season. I was fortunate enough last year to be asked to be featured in my 2013 rookie season. Looking back on it, it was real cool to get my rookie year featured in an online-reality series and I don’t think the season could have played out better. I made a lot of good friends shooting the videos and the producers of the show were entertaining to work with to say the least. I sometimes think a reality show of them filming me would’ve been even more interesting. As of right now it hasn’t been determined if a second season will be shot. From a financial standpoint, FLW committed a lot of resources to that project and hopefully it is decided to bring it back for season two. Based on the feedback I’ve received from the fans they definitely want to see another season as one YouTube commenter said, “When is the next one?! I feel like I’m having crack withdrawals lol.” I was happy to be able to take part in the project and I think FLW has a good thing going here.
I am looking forward to my second season on Tour and will be fishing the Southeast EverStarts too. It won’t be long until it’s time to get back down to Okeechobee for the season opener. Until then, it’s a lot of time spent making calls, sending emails and trying to get secure financial deals for the next season.
Until next time, Casey.