You Don’t Need a 250 to Fish a Tournament

Pull up to almost any bass tournament these days and it’s easy to see why somebody fishing out of a smaller boat might feel a little out of place.

21ft bass boats. 250 horsepower motors. Multiple graphs. Thousands of dollars worth of electronics.

Then here comes a guy with a 16ft jon boat and a 30 on the back. I know that feeling because I’ve been that guy. And I think there are a whole lot of fishermen sitting at home who would enjoy tournament fishing but never give it a shot because they think they don’t have enough boat.

I’ve Been on Both Sides of It

I ran bass tournaments for around seven years. Most of our tournaments were open to anybody, and we ran them every week.

One year we decided to try something different.

We started running a few tournaments specifically for boats with 60 horsepower and under.

I didn’t really know what to expect.

We ended up getting as many as 35 boats at one tournament and averaged somewhere around 25 boats.

But the number wasn’t the most interesting part.

It was who showed up.

Out of all those fishermen, we might have had one or two guys who also regularly fished our normal open tournaments.

Everybody else was basically a whole new crowd.

These guys already fished. They already owned boats. They already wanted to compete.

But when we created a tournament where they felt like everybody was starting with roughly the same equipment advantage, they showed up.

That’s something I’ve never forgotten.

I’ve Been the Guy With the 30

I’ve also experienced this from the other side.

I’ve got a 16-foot jon boat with a 30-horsepower motor, and I’ve put that thing in tournaments all over the place, from Guntersville to Lake Lanier.

I’d pull up beside guys with 200s and 250s hanging off the back. I didn’t care. I knew they could outrun me. I knew they could cover more water. There wasn’t any sense pretending otherwise. I just worried about my tournament.

Where am I going?

What am I fishing?

What are these fish doing?

What can I do with the boat I’ve got?

Did I win a bunch of them?

No. LOL.

But we finished in the top five plenty of times.

And more importantly, I loved doing it.

That’s the part I think some fishermen are missing.

The thrill of blasting off even if your version of “blasting off” isn’t exactly much of a blast the decisions you make throughout the tournament, watching the clock, wondering what everybody else has and finally bringing your fish to the scales.

You don’t need 250 horsepower to experience any of that.

Let’s Be Fair: Horsepower Does Matter

I’m not going to pretend a bigger motor doesn’t give somebody an advantage. It does.

If one guy runs 70 mph and another runs 30, the faster boat can reach more places and cover more water during the same tournament.

But there’s a difference between having an advantage and making the tournament unwinnable.

Eventually that guy with the 250 has to shut it off.

Then both of you have to catch fish.

Sometimes covering more water helps.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop running around and fish the water you’ve got.

A 75 Horsepower Boat Won $100,000

There’s probably no better example than professional angler John Cox.

During an FLW Tour event on the Red River in 2011, Cox competed from a 17-foot aluminum boat powered by a 75-horsepower Mercury.

And he did it on purpose.

The smaller, lighter boat allowed him to reach shallow water other competitors couldn’t access. At one point, reaching his fish meant getting through a culvert that the bigger tournament boats couldn’t get through.

Cox led the tournament from start to finish.

He won $100,000.

Against professional fishermen running considerably bigger equipment.

His smaller boat wasn’t something he had to overcome.

For the way he was fishing, it became an advantage.

How Many Fishermen Are We Leaving Out?

This is where I think there’s an opportunity for local tournament fishing.

National fishing participation research shows that 61% of freshwater anglers describe themselves as occasional fishermen.

Nearly half 49% say they’d like to fish more often.

And in 2024 alone, there were a record 4.6 million first-time freshwater anglers.

Not all of those people are interested in tournament fishing, obviously.

But how many fishermen already own a jon boat, aluminum bass boat or smaller fiberglass boat and have never considered putting their money into a Tuesday-night tournament?

I’ve seen firsthand what happens when you give some of those fishermen a tournament that feels like it’s for them. They show up. Our 60-horsepower-and-under tournaments didn’t just move fishermen from one tournament to another. They brought us a different group of fishermen.

Maybe We Need More Small-Boat Tournaments

I’d like to see more tournament directors experiment with this.

Maybe it’s 60 horsepower and under.

Maybe it’s 75 and under.

The exact number isn’t really the point.

The idea is creating another doorway into tournament fishing.

Keep the entry fee reasonable. Fish for three or four hours on a weeknight. Put some basic safety and livewell requirements in place.

Then go fishing.

You’re not trying to replace normal open tournaments.

You’re creating another opportunity for fishermen who might never enter one. And based on what I experienced running them, I think that group is bigger than people realize.

Don’t Let the Boat Beside You Fish Your Tournament

Even without a small-motor division, I’d tell anybody who’s been thinking about entering a local tournament the same thing:

Put your boat in.

Don’t worry about the guy beside you.

He’s got a 250?

Good for him.

You’re not racing him.

You don’t have to fish where he fishes. You don’t have to make the runs he makes. And you definitely don’t need to spend your tournament worrying about what everybody else is doing.

Fish your tournament.

Learn the water closer to the ramp. Find places other people overlook. Learn how to milk an area instead of running away from it every 20 minutes.

A smaller boat is going to have limitations.

So does every boat.

Learn yours.

Then learn where it gives you an advantage.

I spent years putting my 16-foot jon boat with a 30-horsepower motor into tournaments against boats that could run circles around me.

We didn’t win many.

But we competed.

We had plenty of top-five finishes.

And I wouldn’t trade those tournaments for anything.

So if the only thing keeping you from fishing that local tournament is what’s hanging off the back of your boat, quit worrying about it.

Put your boat in the water.

You’ve still got to catch them.