Luke Nichols & Jim Jarvis Win Anglers Choice with 23.61lbs on Smith Mountain Lake
Photos & Videos taken by Alicia Matherly
Jim Jarvis and Luke Nichols were the big winners today on the first stop of the 2024 VA division of Anglers Choice Team Tournament Trail. They weighed in five fish with a total of 23.61 pounds to take home the winning check! A very close second place went to the team of Steve Crist and Dennis Stump with 23.56 pounds! Kenny Reynolds bag of five fish hit the scales at 21.48 pounds capturing third place! CONGRATULATIONS!
Auburn Claims Fishing Version of “Iron Bowl” with ‘College Fishing Faceoff Win over Alabama
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (March 17, 2024) – Two Alabama staples are bass fishing and college football. While the Bass Pro Shops REDCREST Powered by OPTIMA Lithium was taking place Saturday on Lay Lake, a friendly in-state rivalry combining two of Alabama’s favorite pastimes was happening one lake up the Coosa River.
The Auburn University and University of Alabama bass fishing teams competed for bragging rights in their own Iron Bowl on Logan Martin Lake at the Abu Garcia College Fishing Faceoff Presented by This Is Alabama.
It was a close finish, but Auburn pulled away in the fourth quarter and won with a total of 68 pounds, 7 ounces for their two-boat team to Alabama’s 52-8. The College Faceoff was contested under MLF’s catch/weigh/release format, with officials on each boat and a minimum weight of 1-8 for a scorable bass.
Auburn’s four-man team consisted of Sam Harvey and Hayden Marbut in one boat and Blake Milligan and Carson Maddux in the second boat. Both schools wore headsets identical to those in the General Tire Team Series and communicated throughout the day.
“We talked together all day long and had a good time. It was a lot of fun,” said Marbut, winner of a recent Toyota Series on Lake Guntersville. “We were fishing the same things and communicating about it to stay on the same page. All of us were throwing a Berkley Powerbait Maxscent Flatnose Minnow on a Damiki rig in any shad color. It didn’t matter which one we were using.
Even though Logan Martin’s bass are itching to spawn, the Auburn duos decided to stick with this approach in open water.
“The bass are on the bank spawning, but there are still a bunch of fish out in the creek mouths, drains, and backs of little pockets,” Marbut said. “We were both targeting bait balls and using forward-facing sonar to catch our fish. We caught a bunch, probably 60 in our boat, and only one in three was big enough to count; you just had to weed through them to get a scoreable.”
Harvey and Marbut boated 37-14 on 19 bass and Milligan and Maddux added 30-9 for their 13 scoreable bass.
Alabama’s team consisted of Hayden O’Barr and Cooper Gilroy catching 21 bass for 40-5 in one boat and Patrick McMurray and Dillan Dolvera boating six for 12-3 in the other.
This was the first taste of the SCORETRACKER® pressure for several of the anglers, and they enjoyed the competition.
“It got really close there for awhile before we pulled away at the end,” Marbut said. “I’ve fished that format for a couple of different events, but fishing under this format with an official was a blast. It was intense all day and full speed ahead from the minute we started.”
The Iron Bowl football series dates back to 1893 and has 88 meetings in total. The budding bass fishing rivalry has a long way to go to match that, but both teams enjoyed the friendly competition.
“It’s not nearly as big as the football rivalry, but we tried to have some fun with it,” Marbut said. “We know a lot of those guys and compete against them in different events. I hope we can do another one of these sometime.”
Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Abu Garcia College Fishing Presented by YETI include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, E3, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, General Tire, GSM Outdoors, Lew’s, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Onyx, Phoenix, Polaris, Power-Pole, Strike King, Suzuki, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota and YETI.
For complete details and updated information visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular MLF College Fishing updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the MLF5 social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Bass Talk: Nick LeBrun on Gary Yamamoto’s 3-Inch Scope Shad Snack & Buckeye Lures Scope Head
The new fish snack that is catching Bass all across the country. Order some today at Discount Tackle.
Smallmouth and largemouth in play at Kayak Championship on Tenkiller
Lake Tenkiller is set to host the 2024 Yamaha Rightwaters Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship scored by TourneyX March 20-21.
Photo by Mark Cisneros/B.A.S.S.
March 17, 2024
Smallmouth and largemouth in play at Kayak Championship on Tenkiller
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Qualified kayak anglers from around the country will gather in eastern Oklahoma to compete in the Yamaha Rightwaters Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship scored by TourneyX, and Oklahoma’s own Jim Baird believes there will be plenty of opportunities to catch both smallmouth and largemouth.
“We should be able to smack them,” Baird said. “It all depends on how much rain we get. I expect there to be good numbers of bass caught. There will be a few big bass caught.”
Tournament days are scheduled for March 20-21 in conjunction with the weeklong celebration surrounding the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Jockey Outdoors, and anglers will be able to launch from any approved public launch on the lake. The top finishers will be honored on the Classic stage at the BOK Center in Tulsa before Friday’s Day 1 weigh-in.
While its appearances on the Bassmaster schedule are limited, events held on Tenkiller have certainly been memorable. In 2018, Cody Huff and Bethel University partner Garrett Enders won a College National Championship there. The next year, Carl Jocumsen notched his first career Elite Series victory on the fishery.
Both of those events were held in the summer or early fall. But this time, kayak anglers will be dealing with a moody Oklahoma spring, which could bring any type of weather. The long-range forecast currently calls for daytime highs in the 70s, nighttime lows in the 40s and rain each day.
“Weather will be a huge part of this,” Baird said. “In a normal, mild season, water levels will be a little above normal and it will be stained to clear. It will be clear near the dam. The Illinois River can get pretty wild with not a lot of rain.”
Baird anticipates the bass will already be entering the prespawn phase. The smallmouth tend to set up on steeper banks and bluff walls. The river section could also yield big smallmouth bites if the water is high enough.
Largemouth, meanwhile, will be found around some of the flooded timber Tenkiller has to offer, as well as brushpiles and islands. If the water rises, buckbrush and bushes will provide flipping and pitching opportunities.
Spotted bass also inhabit the lake, but Baird views them as more of a nuisance and doesn’t expect them to factor.
“The largemouth will for sure be in prespawn, while the smallmouth may be a little behind,” Baird said. “They tend to spawn later. I think there will probably be more smallmouth caught.”
With bass in the prespawn mode, Baird said he anticipates a jerkbait being a key lure for the top finishers as well as a jig or a soft plastic.
“The jerkbait is probably going to be the biggest player,” he said. “That’s typical for anywhere really this time of the year.”
The field is made up of qualifiers from the 2023 Yamaha Rightwaters Bassmaster Kayak Series scored by TourneyX regular season. The winner will pocket $54,000.
The event is being hosted by Explore Cherokee County, Oklahoma, Tour Tahlequah and the Greater Tenkiller Area Association.
2024 Bassmaster Kayak Series Title Sponsor: Yamaha Rightwaters
2024 Bassmaster Kayak Series Partner: MotorGuide, YakGear
2024 Bassmaster Kayak Series Angler of the Year Sponsor: Dakota Lithium
Greg Gutierrez Moves Into Lead For Final Field Cut At BAM Trail Pro-Am Lake Oroville
Greg Gutierrez Moves Into Lead For Final Field Cut At BAM Trail Pro-Am Lake Oroville
BAM Pro/Am Circuit Second Stop: Top-10 Elimination
Oroville, Calif. – The top-10 cut to the final field of pro and co anglers was established following the Day Two weigh-in at the second stop of the BAM Tournament Trail (BAM TT) Pro/Am at Lake Oroville. Following a leaderboard shuffle of the top pros, Greg “Double G” Gutierrez of Red Bluff, Calif. settled into the first-place position adding 11.86 to his Day One weight for a two-day total of 25.19.
“I would have never thought; not with what I had,” said Gutierrez. As the first-ever BAM Pro/Am champion crowned at the inaugural event on Lake Shasta, Double G is the only pro angler with the potential to go back-to-back in BAM. “That’s kind of a cool thing,” he stated.
Gutierrez started the fishing day in 5th place, trailing the Day One leader by a little over one-pound.
Although he weighed less today than yesterday, it was enough to climb the standings, securing the top position as he enters the final day of competition. “I found some new stuff towards the end of the day and culled three or four times,” he said. “For tomorrow, it looks like it will be okay, if I didn’t burn everything up, because I was poking everything that bit.”
Burnt up or not, Gutierrez plans to return to these same spots and see how it plays out. “It’s just loaded in there,” he said. “I’m going run my Bass Cat Puma from one end to the other slinging the steel off my Mercury prop and grind it out.”
Gutierrez is sharing his starting spot with fellow angler Zack Thompson from Alameda, Calif., also in the top-10.
“We’ve been doing this around each other for so long; he is professional and I’m professional, so we just work around each other,” Double G added. “He caught more fish out of there yesterday and I caught more out of there today. It is just the way it is.” Thompson sits in 9th.
JR Wright Rises Into Runner-Up Position
JR Wright of Truckee, Calif. came from 9th place yesterday to end Day Two in 2nd with 24.67, roughly a half pound back from Gutierrez. Wright is wild and out with fishing spots all over the lake. “I’m running from the west branch all the way to the middle fork, up the north fork,” he said. “I haven’t been up the south fork; but that could all change tomorrow.” He is targeting areas both deep and shallow. “I’m using some Keitechs and basically moving slow and methodically,” he added.
Aaron Britt Plans Adjustments For Final Day Of Fishing
Slipping to 3rd from his Day One top spot, Aaron Britt of Yuba City, Calif. found the changing conditions slightly more challenging. “I was fishing an A-rig yesterday and stuck with it today,” he said. “I didn’t get as many bites and clearly not as big of bites.”
His two-day total put him at 24.36, feasibly within striking range with less than a pound separating him from first. Britt’s plan for Day Three includes disregarding the river arm he had been in and seeking out main body locations. “I am going to slow down and fish some plastics on flats,” he revealed. “Green pumpkin has been a key color.”
Gasper Busalacchi Is The New Co-Angler Leader
Launching as the runner-up, Gasper Busalacchi from San Mateo, Calif. bumped lake local Jason Bubier off of the top of the co-angler standings when his two-day total of 21.27, surpassed Bubier’s by a mere .04. Busalacchi packed in a variety of baits to get the job done. “I have a wacky-rigged Senko, a 3/8-ounce underspin, a shakey head, a jig, and a float ‘n’ fly; basically, I was ready for whatever place I ended up,” said Busalacchi.
Making it through the field cut, the top-10 pro and co-anglers will check in for their championship day at Loafer Creek Ramp on Sunday, March 17. Similar conditions are expected. Championship Sunday’s weigh-in will kick off by 3:30 p.m. at Loafer Creek Ramp. Tune in to watch LIVE.
Complete BAM TT Lake Oroville Day Two Results Are Available
Top-10 Pros:
Place/Angler/Day 1 Big Bass/ Day 1 Weight/Day 2 Big Bass/ Day 2 Weight/Total
1 Greg Gutierrez 03.78 13.33 02.66 11.86 25.19
2 JR Wright 12.25 04.22 12.42 24.67
3 Aaron Britt 04.35 14.44 09.92 24.36
4 Wyatt DeBusk 12.09 04.68 12.18 24.27
5 Asher Haynes 04.72 13.27 03.06 10.43 23.70
6 Antonio Gold 04.96 13.79 09.72 23.51
7 Joseph Orozco 03.27 12.96 10.45 23.41
8 Ryan Hall 02.90 12.83 02.96 09.87 22.70
9 Zack Thompson 14.39 08.20 22.59
10 Steve Hoover 11.46 03.10 10.94 22.40
Top-10 Co-Anglers:
Place/Angler/Day 1 Big Bass/ Day 1 Weight/Day 2 Big Bass/ Day 2 Weight/Total
1 Gasper Busalacchi 04.79 12.07 09.20 21.27
2 Jason Bubier 12.27 08.96 21.23
3 Rodney Brown 11.71 02.57 08.88 20.59
4 Chris Trumbull 02.60 09.24 02.75 10.78 20.02
5 Craig Main 10.28 09.48 19.76
6 Kirk Marshall 09.64 09.85 19.49
7 Roy Desmangles JR 11.80 07.39 19.19
8 James Rodgers 09.95 08.88 18.83
9 Tommy Rice 09.92 08.37 18.29
10 Dante Ray 03.36 10.74 07.48 18.22
About BAM Tournament Trail
The Bass Angler Magazine Tournament Trail (BAM TT), offers an unparalleled platform for anglers and sponsors, alike combining vast exposure opportunities that celebrate the skills of western bass anglers. The circuit garners extensive coverage across print and online magazines, websites, videos, television, and multiple social media channels.
Oroville Event Sponsors:
The Oroville tournament proudly welcomes a diverse array of sponsors including Bass Boat Technologies, Tackle Warehouse, Storquest, Crestco Rents, Gold Country Casino, and our dedicated conservation sponsor, Fisherman’s Warehouse.
Proud Sponsors of the BAM Tournament Trail:
BAM TT is honored to be associated with its title sponsor, Bass Boat Technologies, and presenting sponsor, Tackle Warehouse. The trail is also supported by Storquest, Garmin, Bass Cat Boats, Ford Fairfield, Dish – Accel Marketing, Power Pole, Mercury Outboards, Bob’s Machine, Wood Bros, Sticky Graphics, Jean Deleonardi Real Estate, Valley Outdoors, Eternal Lithium, Alpha Angler Rods, and Fisherman’s Warehouse.
BAM’s Esteemed Tourism Sponsors:
The BAM TT is grateful for the support of its tourism sponsors: the City of Oakley, the Lake Almanor Chamber, the Boardman Chamber, and the Feather River Tourism Association.
Tournament Details:
The BAM Tournament Trail features the BAM Pro Tour, Pro-Am, and Kayak events, each designed to test the determination of western anglers in a competitive and environmentally conscious format.
Connect with BAM TT:
To learn more about the BAM Pro Tour, Pro-Am and Kayak events. Visit: BAM TRAIL, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram
Media and Advertising Inquiries: Please contact Mark Lassagne for further information regarding media and advertising opportunities.
#bamtrail #bassanglermagazine #bamprotour
Field of 10 Anglers Set for Championship Sunday at Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Shops REDCREST 2024 on Lay Lake
Clanton, Alabama’s Dustin Connell catches 18 bass weighing 52-15 to lead top 10 anglers into final day of competition
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (March 16, 2024) – The Knockout Round at Bass Pro Shops REDCREST Powered by OPTIMA Lithium turned into a no-holds-barred melee. It didn’t matter whether anglers were chasing spotted bass with forward-facing sonar, beating the bank or dissecting current, the bite caught fire across Lay Lake, with the top spot on SCORETRACKER® and the weight needed to qualify for Sunday’s Championship Round fluctuating all day as a result.
Ultimately, Dustin Connell of Clanton, Alabama, wound up atop the leaderboard with 18 scorable bass for 52 pounds, 15 ounces. Connell bailed on his main-lake area where he caught most of his fish during the Qualifying Round, instead opting to run up the river and fish beneath the Logan Martin dam. He started slow, spending the first two periods below the cut line, before making an adjustment and boating 10 spotted bass for 29 pounds even in the final period. He finished just 1 ounce ahead of Gonzales, Louisiana’s Gerald Spohrer , who ended the day in second place.
Link to HD Video – Fish-Catch Highlights of REDCREST 2024 Day 3 on Lay Lake
Link to Photo Gallery of REDCREST 2024 Day 3 Knockout Round Afternoon Highlights
Meanwhile, after 39-1 across two days proved enough to qualify for the Knockout Round, it took nearly as much Saturday alone to earn a spot in the Top 10 and a shot at the $300,000 first-place paycheck. Nick Hatfield claimed the 10th and final spot with 38-14, 1-8 ahead of BFL All-American champion Emil Wagner. University of Montevallo angler Dalton Head narrowly missed extending his dream event another day as well, finishing 12th.
Connell has emerged as a vocal proponent of forward-facing sonar, and for good reason. The technology played a role in each of his five previous Bass Pro Tour wins, including Stage One this year on Toledo Bend. But this week, on a lake he grew up fishing without modern electronics, he’s making it a point to try and win old school.
“I don’t want this tournament to get won, on my home lake, ‘Scoping,” he said. “I’m going to do my best to save it.”
Connell believed his best chance to find bass in the same numbers as those anglers using live sonar would be in the turbulent tailrace at the upper end of this week’s playing field. Finding the morning bite slow there surprised him; he was the last angler in the field to post a scorable bass.
“That first period was just brutal,” Connell said. “There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to get some bites here and there, but the speed at which I was going to get a bite was just slow. I mean, it was just dead.”
Knowing he needed to make a move to keep pace with the cut line, Connell resisted the temptation to run to the lower end of the lake, instead moving about 10 miles downriver to a current seam shortly after the start of the third period. It didn’t take long for the decision to pay off.
During a 32-minute flurry from 1:37-2:09 p.m., Connell used a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader on a scrounger head to haul in seven scorable bass and leap from outside the Top 10 into the lead. Not even getting his line tangled in his clip-on microphone could slow him down.
“I pulled up on a place and stomped ‘em, right off the rip,” Connell said. “And then I was like, okay, we’re good.”
Lay Lake continues to showcase its diversity, with five distinct patterns producing spots in the Top 10. However, Connell believes the championship will boil down to a battle between anglers fishing current up the river and those using forward-facing sonar to chase schooling spotted bass at the lower end of the main lake.
The Knockout Round results support that assessment. Connell wasn’t the only angler in the river to catch fire late. Berrien Springs, Michigan pro Ron Nelson, who hunkered down in a honey hole just beneath the Logan Martin dam spillway, also started the third period outside the Top 10. Like Connell, he stacked 10 scorable bass on SCORETRACKER® in the final 2½ hours, climbing all the way to third. Spohrer did all his damage in the current, too.
While those three ended up claiming the top spots in the Knockout Round, that might have had something to do with the fact that the most proficient anglers using forward-facing sonar caught their weight early before intentionally backing off the throttle. Michael Neal, Cole Floyd and Jacob Wheeler all spent much of the day in the top five. Neal has looked particularly in tune with the roaming fish, leading after Day 1 of qualifying and after each of the first two periods Saturday.
“I feel like I’ve pretty much led the tournament all the way through even though I haven’t technically been at the top of the leaderboard, just because I’ve quit every day,” Neal said. “But tomorrow, there’s no quitting. We’re going to burn it to the ground.”
Connell acknowledged that Neal and company will be tough to beat. He also noted that the generation at Logan Martin dam is scheduled to change Sunday, which might reposition his fish.
Still, he’s “all-in on the river.” Predicting it will take more than 50 pounds to hoist the trophy, he doubts he can catch as many fish as his lower-lake competition but hopes to make up for it with a bigger average.
“I’m trying to catch big ones,” he said. “I want to catch big spots. That’s why we come here.”
Another variable that could favor Connell’s approach is having less company nearby. Neal, Wheeler, Floyd, Hatfield and Alton Jones Jr. are all scanning the same section of the lake, often within sight of one another. While a few of the anglers who occupied that same zone during the first three days of competition missed the cut, the fish have to be feeling the pressure.
Meanwhile, Connell didn’t see another angler near his Saturday afternoon spot. Even if someone else has stopped by, he said, the dynamic nature of river fishing means the fish probably won’t be caught with the same presentation.
“I’m in a section of the river I don’t think is getting a lot of pressure,” Connell said. “And tomorrow, the water schedule is supposed to change some, so it’s going to change the whole deal. It’s going to mix up a lot of things.”
Connell admitted that there’s a chance he’s being too stubborn. But whether it’s because he’s already experienced a REDCREST win, taking home the trophy at Lake Eufaula in 2021, or because of his many memories catching spotted bass out of Coosa River current, he doesn’t just want to add another title to his resume. He wants to do it his way.
“It’s very sentimental to me to have a chance at a major, major tournament at one of my home waters that I’ve always fished, but I worry if I’m being too stubborn or not,” Connell said. “So, it’s back and forth. I don’t mind going down there and ‘Scoping, but it would mean way more to me if I won it doing what I’m doing.”
The top 10 pros that made the cut and will advance to Championship Sunday on Lay Lake are:
1st: Dustin Connell, Clanton, Ala., 18 bass, 52-15
2nd: Gerald Spohrer, Gonzales, La., 20 bass, 52-14
3rd: Ron Nelson, Berrien Springs, Mich., 17 bass, 51-12
4th: Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 18 bass, 48-12
5th: Alton Jones, Jr., Waco, Texas, 19 bass, 46-8
6th: Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio, 17 bass, 45-14
7th: Takahiro Omori, Tokyo, Japan, 17 bass, 44-15
8th: Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 17 bass, 44-6
9th: Jesse Wiggins, Addison, Ala., 17 bass, 42-13
10th: Nick Hatfield, Greeneville, Tenn., 14 bass, 38-14
Finishing in 11th through 20th place are:
11th: Emil Wagner, Marietta, Ga., 14 bass, 37-6
12th: Dalton Head, Moody, Ala., 13 bass, 33-12
13th: John Cox, DeBary, Fla., 10 bass, 32-6
14th: Anthony Gagliardi, Prosperity, S.C., 10 bass, 26-12
15th: Keith Poche, Pike Road, Ala., eight bass, 24-12
16th: Greg Vinson, Wetumpka, Ala., nine bass, 24-4
17th: Nick LeBrun, Bossier City, La., seven bass, 18-1
18th: Ryan Salzman, Huntsville, Ala., six bass, 16-15
19th: Cliff Pace, Petal, Miss., five bass, 14-10
20th: Jonathon VanDam, Kalamazoo, Mich., four bass, 11-2
A complete list of results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 260 scorable bass weighing 709 pounds, 11 ounces caught by the 20 pros Saturday.
Cox won the $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award Saturday with a 5-pound, 6-ounce largemouth bass that he sight-fished off of a bed on a wacky-rigged worm in Period 1. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day, and a $3,000 bonus to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass of the tournament. Chris Lane’s 7-pound, 1-ounce spotted bass that he weighed on Day 2 is currently the biggest bass weighed in the competition thus far.
All 50 Anglers competed on Days 1 (Thursday) and 2 (Friday) of the event. After two days of competition, the field was cut to just the top 20 based on two-day total cumulative weight. Weights were zeroed, and the top 20 anglers competed on Day 3 (Saturday). Only the top 10 anglers now advance to the fourth and final day of competition. Weights are zeroed again for Sunday’s championship round, and the winner is determined by the heaviest one-day total cumulative weight, with the victor earning the top prize of $300,000 and the REDCREST 2024 trophy.
The General Tire Take Off Ceremony will begin each morning at 6:15 a.m. on Championship Sunday at Beeswax Landing, located at 245 Beeswax Park Road in Columbiana, Alabama. The final 10 anglers will depart at 7 a.m. and return after competition ends at 3:30 p.m. Fans are welcome to attend all launch events and also encouraged to follow the event online throughout the day on the MLF NOW!® live stream and SCORETRACKER® coverage at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
In conjunction with the event, the FREE, family-friendly REDCREST Outdoor Sports Expo will also take place Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex, located at 2100 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. N., in Birmingham. Fishing and outdoor enthusiasts will have the opportunity to visit numerous booths and vendors, showcasing the latest and greatest in fishing, boating and the outdoors. The biggest names in the outdoor industry will be on hand, including the professional anglers that compete on the Bass Pro Tour and legends of the sport.
Children are welcome to visit and play in the MLF Kids Zone, plus meet Skye & Marshall from PAW Patrol. Throughout the day there will be giveaways and prizes, including signed MLF angler jerseys, rods and reels, gift cards, and more. On Sunday one lucky attendee will walk away with a brand new 2024 Toyota Tacoma truck. Fans must be present to win the Tacoma grand prize. For more information on the MLF Outdoor Sports Expo, visit REDCRESTExpo.com.
The 2023 Bass Pro Tour featured a field of 80 of the top professional anglers in the world competing across seven regular-season tournaments around the country. The top 40 anglers in the Angler of the Year (AOY) standings after the seven events qualified to compete in REDCREST 2024 Powered by OPTIMA Lithium.
The MLFNOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live on Championship Sunday from 7:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT. MLFNOW!® will be live streamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com and the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app.
Television coverage of REDCREST 2024 Powered by OPTIMA Lithium will be showcased across two, two-hour episodes, premiering at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, July 6 and July 13 on Discovery Channel. Starting in July 2024, MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery Channel, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel.
Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Bass Pro Tour include: Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, Garmin, General Tire, Humminbird, Lowrance, Mercury, MillerTech, Minn Kota, Mossy Oak Fishing, NITRO, Onyx, Plano, Power-Pole, Rapala, StarBrite, Suzuki, Toyota and U.S. Air Force.
For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the Bass Pro Tour, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.
