Professional bass fishing experienced quite the shake up this Septemeber when Major League Fishing (MLF) announced a brand new pro-level tournament trail – The Bass Pro Tour (BPT). Many of the industry’s top-performing and most popular professional anglers we were used to seeing on the Bassmaster Elite Series or FLW Tour made the switch and will be competing under the BPT banner in 2019.
Heightened payouts, more live streaming content and the most TV coverage competitive fishing has ever received incentivized the 80-angler field to join MLF. The difference in name is not the only change, however. Anglers fishing the BPT will follow a rule set similar to past MLF events. From my understanding, every bass weighing 1 pound or more is added to an angler’s cumulative weight. There are currently no five-fish limits in BPT tournaments; instead every bass counts throughout a competition day.
We talked to three former Bassmaster Elite Series standouts to gauge how they would approach the MLF format differently than the five-heaviest-bass standard they are accustomed to.
