😁 Highlights from an interesting MLF announcement plus a little 2c:

Every fish counts is back, starting next year

> MLF GM Kathy Fennel: "We responded in 2023 to fans and anglers that wanted to see how 5-fish scoring would work with our Scoretracker live leaderboard. Unfortunately viewership growth was stagnant.

> "The Bass Pro Tour thrives on intense competition, and the scoring change affected the Tour's competitiveness in an unexpected way.

> "By reinstating the every fish counts scoring structure and having fewer anglers in the Knockout Round, pros will no longer be able to let their guard down without the risk of being overtaken by someone climbing Scoretracker."

All good but I didn't think anyone let their guard down – because it was theoretically easier to come back from being 3 lbs down in a 5 fish derby than 23 lbs down in a catch 'em all. Other than that, I'm gonna expect Dustin Connell to pick up where he left off in 2022.

The 2024 BPT format will be a little different

It's still 40 guys on days 1 and 3 and the other 40 on days 2 and 4, but only 10 from each group will advance to the Knockout Round instead of 20 from each group:

> Only the top 10 anglers from each group – based on the 2-day heaviest cumulative weight – will advance to the Knockout Round (day 5). Weights will be zeroed for the Knockout Round, and the top 10 anglers will advance to the Championship Round (day 6). Weights from the Knockout Round will carry over into the Championship Round....

Because of weights getting zeroed, the guys are still basically fishing two 2-day tournaments.

Also MLF will no longer livestream BPT competition days. Just the final 2 days of the Qualifying Round, the Knockout Round and the Championship Round. In my 2c, less Live (not just MLF) is actually good, but there's such big eyeball #s in it so....

In 2025 the BPT will only have 50 guys 👀

> ...50 anglers comprised of the top 35 pros from the 2024 Bass Pro Tour lifetime Angler of the Year (AOY) standings, the top 10 anglers from the 2024 Bass Pro Tour single-year standings that did not qualify via the top 35 lifetime AOY standings, and the top 5 anglers from the 2024 Tackle Warehouse Invitationals.

> MLF CEO Boyd Duckett: "By focusing on 50 anglers in a more compact event that's easy for both diehard and casual fans alike to follow, we'll do what other successful leagues have done to grow – focus on a small group of the highest performers and make them the most visible personalities in the sport. It also allows us to enhance what are already the sport's best payouts."

> Each Stage on the 2025 Bass Pro Tour will pay $130,000 to the winner and $2,000 through 50th place. Redcrest will feature the sport's top award of $300,000 with $10,000 through 20th place and $5,000 through last place. Heavy Hitters will feature $100,000 for a win with big bass awards in each round of $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000.

The change to 50 is an irony because that was Jerry McKinnis' vision for the top tier of pro bass fishing – which I guess started at FLW, but he tried real hard to somehow make that happen at B.A.S.S. for the same reasons Boyd mentioned.

Other than that, can I buy stock in Jacob Wheeler?? 😁

MLF also mentioned that starting next year they will livestream the fall General Tire Team Series – 25 days total.

Final 2c: Overall I like that the MLFers still aren't afraid to change things up to figure out their best recipe.

Jason – Jay's dad – is a wally-eye fisherman. Why would I want to talk to him? Well, he's a pro walleye fisherman so he knows the drill, he obviously has seen Jay develop fishing-wise over time (and taught him), and since he's a generation older than Jay and has been in the boat with Jay a ton, he might be a good guy to get some perspective on this whole FFS deal. Let's go:

1. Of all the stuff you'e taught Jay fishing-wise, what's the most important in your opinion?

> "That's a hard one to answer. [He thought for a bit.] I would say probably the #1 thing was to understand why you got a bite. And that comes down to learning every day on the water.

> "Things are the never the same from spring to summer to fall, no matter where you go in the country. Understanding the migration of any kind of fish...and learning all the time about that.

> "So when you get a bite, figure out how you got a bite and see if you can find a pattern. Was it a random lucky fish because we've all had that or.... I always asked him when he came home from fishing – what did you learn? Even if he didn't catch anything.

> "I'd say that was the most important thing."

2. How would you characterize his fishing style?

> "Very versatile. He's not afraid to do anything, be it fish the bank, fish offshore, fish in between, fish suspended fish – just being versatile is his strong suit.

> "Obviously he's good at offshore and FFS, but his favorite way to fish is throw a jig.

> "One thing I learned when I was starting out is you can't just be good at trolling suspended [walleye] on Lake Erie. You need to go to the Mississippi River and pitch wing dams and find an eddy, and go to big giant reservoirs where the fish move every day. That's one thing we did with him growing up – try to fish everything so you're not just good at one thing.

> "I remember when he was like 8, I took him out to a fish crib was way offshore. He said, 'Dad there's no fish out here. We're way too far from shore.' It opened his eyes real quick."

3. What do you think about forward-facing sonar and using it in tournaments?

> "I'm a huge fan of it. I think it's opened up a lot of ways in how people catch fish that we never did before, which is evolving the sport – which we're trying to do...teach people to catch more fish.

> "But the down side of it – not so much speaking as a tournament angler but on the conservation end of it – the DNRs, the fishery biologists...some of these fisheries are going to take a beating because fish are more accessible now because of it. So we need to manage our systems accordingly to take care of our future...making sure our fisheries are going to be in good shape....

> [He's talking about catch/keep fisheries, not bass.] "For example up here and I saw it in FL last winter, the amount of crappie fishermen that are using it. Those fish are very vulnerable in deep water up here in the winter time. Guys are catching them way more than they used to. So do we need to change the bag limits...."

Follow-up: Have you seen any instances of walleye getting spooked by FFS?

> "None of the people I deal with or talk to have seen any issues with the fish being accustomed to it at all. I think over time they might, but up here [WI, MN, etc] I haven't seen any of it. There's been times when they actually come to you [when you beam 'em 🤯].

> "You don't catch them all. [At the Devils Lake, ND National Walleye Tour championship] I chased quite a few with it that I didn't catch."

4. What does Jay get about FFS that you might not get?

> "I would say that he's able to pick things up on that screen that sometimes I don't see. I'm not saying that's because my eyesight is getting worse.

> "There'll be times when we're fishing together and he'll be like, 'Oh there they are.' I'm not even talking forward imaging – I'm talking [Garmin] Perspective Mode, seeing the fish swimming in Perspective. I'll be looking at that screen and it takes me 10 seconds longer to see them. He picks it up just instantly.

> "I think it's just time on the water with it. He's that much better. Just in the forward mode [FFS], we're both pretty good at it...we're not too far apart at all."

5. Do you think FFS enables people who aren't as good fishermen to get good tournament results?

> "No. The reason I say that is because I've fished against a lot of the guys over the years – a lot for many years – and the guys that are consistently in the top 10 in AOY finishes were top 10 before forward imaging and are still top 10.... You don't see too many of the guys that were in the mid to the bottom of the pack all of a sudden be great fishermen now that we have LiveScope.

> "If you're a good fisherman, you're a good fisherman, with or without it. The same guys are going to be consistently at the top at the end of the year if they have it or if they don't."

Bonus Q: What are the biggest differences between pro bass fishing and pro walleye fishing? Not including obvious stuff like trolling.

> "Honestly excluding trolling there's very little difference. Our techniques are a little different as far as what we use, but other than that it's very similar.

> "...a lot of our targets we can't see. Walleyes don't get up in a tree in a foot of water where we can flip a jig into it. So we have to use electronics more to find targets that are not visible above the water."

Big learnin' for me this year has been that walleye pros are REALLY good fishermen that know stuff we don't. Unfortunately they have really thick accents so they can be tough to understand...🤣 Just messin'!

- Matt Messer talkin'. Never heard that one before! More:

> "It landed on Griffin. So I went to Griffin to fish some lilypads that I caught a 4-lber out of and I caught some bass out of in Jan. I locked through at 11am with 2 bass and within an hour and a half I caught two 7-lbers and a 3-lber."

Maybe we need to start flippin' cranks! 😁