Lateral Lines

It's safe to say that for boating anglers, a significant part of our income every year is spent on gasoline or diesel fuel - for boats and tow vehicles. The past two years have been especially brutal on the pocketbook when it comes to gas prices. A fill-up of the tank in my Suburban routinely exceeds $100 and I'm maintaining strict radio silence on the cost of filling up the 50 gallon tank on my boat.

That adds up to thousands of dollars in the course of a year. The major oil companies recognize this and, in recent years, they have invested a significant number of advertising dollars back into the major fishing tournament organizations. Until recently the Bassmaster Classic, for example, was the "CITGO Bassmaster Classic." BP is also a major sponsor of FLW Outdoors.

Many sportsmen and women are a loyal breed. That is to say that they prefer to purchase products and services from companies that support the activities they are passionate about when it makes sense to do so. For the last 5 years or so, when prices were equal between stations, I would pull into a CITGO to fill up the tanks knowing that in turn they were helping to support an activity I was passionate about.

I was browsing through an article and ran across a factoid that gave me pause. It turns out the same CITGO that supported bass and walleye tournament circuits up until recently is owned by a wholly owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan Government. That's right; none other than Senor Hugo Chavez and his government which are less than friendly to the U.S. Incidentally, they own 50.1% of Conoco, 41% of Exxon-Mobil, 40% of Phillips and 30% of Texaco.

The closest filling stations to my house are a BP station and a CITGO. Guess which one I'll be stopping into when it's time to put that Ben Franklin in my gas tank from now on. While I may not be particularly happy about their polluting of Lake Michigan, their company isn't wholly owned by a self-proclaimed enemy of the U.S.

Perhaps that's a bit naive of me, but loyalty is a double-edged sword.