Becoming a professional angler takes patience in both the short and long-term. It takes a sharp intellect to size up a new lake quickly and efficiently, and it takes a decisive mind to make quick cost-benefit analyses while under pressures from tournaments, sponsors and time constraints. And, as most anglers will admit, it takes some luck, too.
Many professional anglers must leave their jobs to pursue fishing full-time. The time between that and competing at a high, well-paid level is rough. It takes months of traveling from tournament to tournament to qualify, and even then, there are no guarantees of a spot.
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