Milikin on Private Equity

[king fisher]

The Bait Monkey is going to hate me, and I hope I don't get kicked off the forum, but I am a selfish person, who will argue we don't need to grow the sport.

      If bass fishing becomes less popular, there will be more bass for me to catch.  Tackle companies will not grow, and develop new lures that catch bass, they may even go under because they can't sell the lure's they already produce. Of course this is bad for the economy, but I already told you I was a selfish bass angler.  If there are fewer people fishing for bass, but there are more less pressured bass, my old lures will continue to work just fine.

      Fishing license revenue will go down, limiting the money available for sound fisheries management.  This of course should be a concern but if there are fewer people fishing, there is less need for management, offsetting the effects of depleted funds for fisheries departments.

     I live in Mexico where there is zero management, and few anglers.  There are two reasons fishing is great here. One is the climate is perfect for largemouth bass.  The other reason is there are very few anglers. Commercial fisherman catch most of the bass in gill nets, and the ones that live may learn to ovoid nets, but are dump as rocks when it comes to lures.  I am certain in a couple lakes I fish, that many bass die of old age without ever encountering a lure.  That is why an old school inexpensive Pop-R can catch as many big bass an expensive Magabass bait.

     If many Mexican bass lakes had 1/100th. the sport angler pressure that most big bass lakes in the US have, the average anger wouldn't be able to catch a single bass, let alone a quality five pound bag.  I would need FF sonar, and $25 lures just to catch a dink.  If Mexico promoted sport fishing for bass more and increased the numbers of fisherman, they would be forced to manage the bass fishing lakes for sport fishing over the commercial fishing interests.  If they didn't, the bass population would switch from very few but big and stupid to very few big and smart bass.  It wouldn't be long before an average angler such as my selfish self would be forced to look for bass in other places.  The more bass anglers, the more need to manage the resource, the smarter the bass, and the more money it will take to catch the bass and the more dollars required to manage the resource.  This is why even though I know it is a national past time to complain about fisheries management in the US, and many mistakes are made, all and all most departments should be commended for the work they do considering the challenge of not only managing the populations of sport fish, but to be able to do so with unbelievable pressure from many competing interests and balance all that with a limited budget,  I even comp.ain about the lack of management on my favorite bass lake here, then I have to remind myself that it really can't get much better, and the best thing I can do is the hardest thing for me to do, which is keep my mouth shut.

     I understand why people want to grow the sport.  I love bass fishing.  I want to share that passion for bass fishing with my family, friends, and community.  I want more bass in more lakes, and more of an opportunity to enjoy the bass with a large fishing community.  It is only natural for someone to want to grow any sport they are part of.  People like to do what is popular and be part of a growing community.  That is why every town, state, country, and family considers growth a good thing.

      Being the selfish person that I am, I couldn't care less about growth.  I have lived in remote locations much of my life, and was fine with zero growth, I even secretly wished people would leave.  When wishing for the growth of bass fishing, remember you may get what you wished for, but it may not be what you want.

      Please don't take this reply in a bad way.  I don't want the bass police nocking at my door at 3:00 AM.  I do support the bass fishing industry, and have given the Bait Monkey a home well past the limit of my wife's patience. I release my bass,  I dream of having a large boat with top of the line electronics, enough tackle to stock a Bass Pro shops store, and win a major bass tournament.  I give old rods and tackle to kids, teach people how to fish, and encourage every one I know to give bass fishing a try.

       Deep down I do have to wonder if my selfish side isn't right.  If bass fishing declined, the popularity went to almost zero, and fishing license sales went so low they quit even selling them.  I could probably catch as many or more bass on poor tackle, have complete solitude while fishing, become rich investing the money I save, all while enjoying the sport as much as I do now.

Just a thought.   Happy New Year. 

[J Francho]

I would think that the fishing industry is more dependent on a healthy economy than the other way around.  

[Bandersnatch]

41 minutes ago, king fisher said:

The Bait Monkey is going to hate me, and I hope I don't get kicked off the forum, but I am a selfish person, who will argue we don't need to grow the sport.

      If bass fishing becomes less popular, there will be more bass for me to catch.  Tackle companies will not grow, and develop new lures that catch bass, they may even go under because they can't sell the lure's they already produce. Of course this is bad for the economy, but I already told you I was a selfish bass angler.  If there are fewer people fishing for bass, but there are more less pressured bass, my old lures will continue to work just fine.

      Fishing license revenue will go down, limiting the money available for sound fisheries management.  This of course should be a concern but if there are fewer people fishing, there is less need for management, offsetting the effects of depleted funds for fisheries departments.

     I live in Mexico where there is zero management, and few anglers.  There are two reasons fishing is great here. One is the climate is perfect for largemouth bass.  The other reason is there are very few anglers. Commercial fisherman catch most of the bass in gill nets, and the ones that live may learn to ovoid nets, but are dump as rocks when it comes to lures.  I am certain in a couple lakes I fish, that many bass die of old age without ever encountering a lure.  That is why an old school inexpensive Pop-R can catch as many big bass an expensive Magabass bait.

     If many Mexican bass lakes had 1/100th. the sport angler pressure that most big bass lakes in the US have, the average anger wouldn't be able to catch a single bass, let alone a quality five pound bag.  I would need FF sonar, and $25 lures just to catch a dink.  If Mexico promoted sport fishing for bass more and increased the numbers of fisherman, they would be forced to manage the bass fishing lakes for sport fishing over the commercial fishing interests.  If they didn't, the bass population would switch from very few but big and stupid to very few big and smart bass.  It wouldn't be long before an average angler such as my selfish self would be forced to look for bass in other places.  The more bass anglers, the more need to manage the resource, the smarter the bass, and the more money it will take to catch the bass and the more dollars required to manage the resource.  This is why even though I know it is a national past time to complain about fisheries management in the US, and many mistakes are made, all and all most departments should be commended for the work they do considering the challenge of not only managing the populations of sport fish, but to be able to do so with unbelievable pressure from many competing interests and balance all that with a limited budget,  I even comp.ain about the lack of management on my favorite bass lake here, then I have to remind myself that it really can't get much better, and the best thing I can do is the hardest thing for me to do, which is keep my mouth shut.

     I understand why people want to grow the sport.  I love bass fishing.  I want to share that passion for bass fishing with my family, friends, and community.  I want more bass in more lakes, and more of an opportunity to enjoy the bass with a large fishing community.  It is only natural for someone to want to grow any sport they are part of.  People like to do what is popular and be part of a growing community.  That is why every town, state, country, and family considers growth a good thing.

      Being the selfish person that I am, I couldn't care less about growth.  I have lived in remote locations much of my life, and was fine with zero growth, I even secretly wished people would leave.  When wishing for the growth of bass fishing, remember you may get what you wished for, but it may not be what you want.

      Please don't take this reply in a bad way.  I don't want the bass police nocking at my door at 3:00 AM.  I do support the bass fishing industry, and have given the Bait Monkey a home well past the limit of my wife's patience. I release my bass,  I dream of having a large boat with top of the line electronics, enough tackle to stock a Bass Pro shops store, and win a major bass tournament.  I give old rods and tackle to kids, teach people how to fish, and encourage every one I know to give bass fishing a try.

       Deep down I do have to wonder if my selfish side isn't right.  If bass fishing declined, the popularity went to almost zero, and fishing license sales went so low they quit even selling them.  I could probably catch as many or more bass on poor tackle, have complete solitude while fishing, become rich investing the money I save, all while enjoying the sport as much as I do now.

Just a thought.   Happy New Year. 

This is the answer, close the forum. Go home folks. I’m not kidding.

[TnRiver46]

2 hours ago, king fisher said:

 but are dumb as rocks when it comes to lures. 

Now I see why you throw spinnerbaits 

[king fisher]

51 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Now I see why you throw spinnerbaits 

It is better to be lucky than good.

[rgasr63]

18 hours ago, J Francho said:

I would think that the fishing industry is more dependent on a healthy economy than the other way around.  

I believe that you are right about sales being flat due to the economy. But times have changed a lot in just 25 years. Before Pure Fishing there was a company called Shakespeare and Abu Garcia and Stren and etc. When you put them all in the same basket then they don't grow like they did before the merger. Then Pro fishing changed it's own image and it looks and seems like a sport for millionaires not for real people. Golf did the same thing. 

[J Francho]

Most of the fishing companies are owned along side of golf and bowling. Who cares? Make sure your purse and belt matches your shoes and you're fishing the hottest rod and reel, wearing a hoodie that has some trending logo on it. It's been the same since the 70s. Or at least as long as I can remember, which isn't much anymore as I navigate my 50s. 

[Swamp Girl]

17 hours ago, king fisher said:

It is better to be lucky than good.

 

As a fellow small boat angler, I understand the challenges of landing bass from a wee platform. However, your bass are twice the size of my bass, so I don't believe for a nanosecond that you aren't an excellent angler. 

[Pat Brown]

I just wanted to say *harumph* to @king fisher

 

People who clearly have never experienced real fishing pressure make me chuckle to myself.

 

I can't wait for bass fishing to continue to decline in popularity.

 

Hope all the fair weather fisherman go learn 3D printing, Tik Tok or drone flying or some other such 2024 stuff.

 

I'm about ready to stop learning to be an incredibly good bass fisherman and start just catching lots of dumb fish.  But I'm selfish too!

[PhishLI]

4 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

I can't wait for bass fishing to continue to decline in popularity.

 

Hope all the fair weather fisherman go learn 3D printing, Tik Tok or drone flying or some other such 2024 stuff.

Amen. Gotta say, I saw far less new dudes this past year than last though. I suppose they got discouraged because of the low catch rate due to the overwhelming poaching pressure. Whatever caused them to quit, sorry to see them go, NOT! 

[Johnbt]

"I believe that you are right about sales being flat due to the economy."

 

The economy and much higher prices on many things I've looked for. No wonder so many of the vendors aren't restocking.

 

I recently rearranged my tackle storage and needed a few more Plano (a Pure Fishing company) 3670 CUSTOM DIVIDER boxes. I thought they'd be more than $8.99 due to inflation, but everywhere I looked they were $14.99 (@TW and Tackle Direct), $16.99 (@Amazon), and $12.99 lots of places that were and still are OUT OF STOCK.

 

It's sort of sad seeing some Wall Street types once again spending a lot of money, not making enough to stay afloat, and have to scramble to find a new leader to bail them out somehow while they refinance debt and try to stay out of bankruptcy.

And we get higher prices. You would think they could make some big bucks from their high prices, but then again they have executive salaries and benefits to cover, and the interest payments on all those big loans.

 

After 60 years of investing I have to admit that most of the bigwigs aren't as smart as I would like them to be or as smart as they think they are. It's hard to pick the winners from the losers.

 

__________

Not fishing related, but a prime example of how being smart and well educated isn't always good enough. Good reading if you like the topic.

 

Anyone familiar with the rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management? They were among the best and the brightest and they collapsed and nearly took the country down with them.

 

www.businessinsider.com/the-fall-of-long-term-capital-management-2014-7

 

"Twenty years ago, one bond-trading hedge fund grew from launch to over $100 billion in assets in less than three years. It saw yearly returns of over 40 percent. It was run by finance veterans, PhDs, professors, and two Nobel Prize winners. Everyone on Wall Street wanted a piece of their profits."

 

There is a wonderful book about them.

www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259

 

"Praise for When Genius Failed:  <great title btw>

“[Roger] Lowenstein has written a squalid and fascinating tale of world-class greed and, above all, hubris.”—BusinessWeek

“Compelling . . . The fund was long cloaked in secrecy, making the story of its rise . . . and its ultimate destruction that much more fascinating.”—The Washington Post

“Story-telling journalism at its best.”—The Economist"

________

 

Warren Buffett's involvement in the bail-out and his lessons learned. His offer was turned down.

https://novelinvestor.com/buffetts-lessons-long-term-capital-management/

 

"The whole Long Term Capital Management – I hope most of you are familiar with it – the whole story is really fascinating because if you take John Meriwether, Eric Rosenfeld, Larry Hillenbrand, Greg Hawkins, Victor Haghani, the two Nobel prize winners Merton Scholes… If you take the 16 of them, they probably have as high an average IQ as any 16 people working together in one business in the country, including Microsoft or where ever you want to name. So an incredible amount of intellect in that room. Now you combine that with the fact that those 16 had had extensive experience in the field they were operating in. These were not a bunch of guys who had made their money, you know, selling men’s clothing and all of a sudden went into the securities business. They had in aggregate, the 16, probably had 350 or 400 years of experience doing exactly what they were doing. And then you throw in the third factor that most of them had virtually all their very substantial net worths in the business. So they had their own money up. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money up, super high intellect, working in a field they knew, and essentially they went broke. That to me is absolutely fascinating."

[TOXIC]

@Johnbt here’s a little tip.  Buy your Plano boxes during the spring and fall classic events at bass pro/Cabela’s they get heavily discounted.  Second tip….make a stop at Lowe’s or Home Depot because they carry the exact same Plano boxes.  As for long term capital management, I’m not the one to comment.  I closed banks for 34 years caused by a lot who thought they were geniuses in financial markets. 😂🤣

[Tennessee Boy]

5 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

Second tip….make a stop at Lowe’s or Home Depot because they carry the exact same Plano boxes.

You better watch your back.  The bait monkey gets very angry when people start buying fishing stuff at Home Depot at a fraction of the price.  

[JT Bagwell]

Ben definitely isn't wrong but he definitely didn't bring to light anything new. 

[slowworm]

1 hour ago, JT Bagwell said:

Ben definitely isn't wrong but he definitely didn't bring to light anything new. 

Maybe not new, but certainly new to a significant chunk of his audience.  Unless you are doing research and development and presenting at conferences and getting patents, then you aren't introducing anything new to any field of study. Instead, you're just putting old knowledge into practice.  That would be the vast majority of us BTW.

 

But if you are writing books, or doing social media posts, to introduce those concepts to a wider audience than you are certainly doing a good thing. They used to call that democratization of knowledge. That should be good thing we can get behind.

 

There was a thread here recently about AI/ML, a subject that I have more than a passing familiarity with.  Between flat out wrong understanding interspersed with some other decent posts, that thread was all old stuff 101 level stuff to me.  But I was not the audience.

 

I really don't get the hate, real of implied, for  Millken's post, just because we have a bunch of people here who already knew.  Whoop-de-do for them.

 

The world is full of people who know way more about some stuff and way less about other stuff on any topic you could possibly choose.  Just cos they know less on a given subject doesn't make them stupid.

[JT Bagwell]

On 3/23/2024 at 5:05 PM, slowworm said:

Maybe not new, but certainly new to a significant chunk of his audience.  Unless you are doing research and development and presenting at conferences and getting patents, then you aren't introducing anything new to any field of study. Instead, you're just putting old knowledge into practice.  That would be the vast majority of us BTW.

 

But if you are writing books, or doing social media posts, to introduce those concepts to a wider audience than you are certainly doing a good thing. They used to call that democratization of knowledge. That should be good thing we can get behind.

 

There was a thread here recently about AI/ML, a subject that I have more than a passing familiarity with.  Between flat out wrong understanding interspersed with some other decent posts, that thread was all old stuff 101 level stuff to me.  But I was not the audience.

 

I really don't get the hate, real of implied, for  Millken's post, just because we have a bunch of people here who already knew.  Whoop-de-do for them.

 

The world is full of people who know way more about some stuff and way less about other stuff on any topic you could possibly choose.  Just cos they know less on a given subject doesn't make them stupid.

 

You are on the money. 👍

And to clarify, I was not hating on Ben. He's been decent too me anytime I communicated with him. 

[Columbia Craw]

There is only one dilemma.  As the sport grows, and sport related sales increase,  will States and Counties recognize the trend and make appropriate or proportionate improvements to fisheries and accessibility.  I’m not seeing anything close to that in my state. 

[TOXIC]

15 hours ago, Columbia Craw said:

There is only one dilemma.  As the sport grows, and sport related sales increase,  will States and Counties recognize the trend and make appropriate or proportionate improvements to fisheries and accessibility.  I’m not seeing anything close to that in my state. 

Very good point.  In my opinion, you are going to see more impoundments like Headwaters in Florida which was developed, constructed and managed as a trophy fishery.  Existing lakes could easily be converted to this model.  

[BucksBasser]

On 3/23/2024 at 4:34 PM, JT Bagwell said:

Ben definitely isn't wrong but he definitely didn't bring to light anything new. 

I think a lot of people are missing Ben's point.  He is saying that Covid caused a huge spike in demand at the same time the mom and pops struggled.  So many sold out and now we are on the back side of the demand curve.  People can say that the trends to big corps was going on for years but no one can deny that the Covid period caused major inflection points in how many businesses operated.  (At the time I was managing a number of projects in Chinese factories.  So I certainly had a front seat to the disruption.)

[JT Bagwell]

On 3/26/2024 at 2:02 PM, BucksBasser said:

I think a lot of people are missing Ben's point.  He is saying that Covid caused a huge spike in demand at the same time the mom and pops struggled.  So many sold out and now we are on the back side of the demand curve.  People can say that the trends to big corps was going on for years but no one can deny that the Covid period caused major inflection points in how many businesses operated.  (At the time I was managing a number of projects in Chinese factories.  So I certainly had a front seat to the disruption.)

You are definitely right.