Major League Fishing (MLF) is a professional
bass fishing league and television show that airs on
Outdoor Channel
Outdoor Channel is an American pay television channel focused on the outdoors, offering programming that includes hunting, fishing, Western lifestyle, off-road motorsports and adventure. The network can be viewed on multiple platforms including ...
,
World Fishing Network
World Fishing Network (WFN) is an American television network, which offers online and mobile platform dedicated exclusively to fishing. Based on the Sportsman Channel (Canadian TV channel), Canadian television network of the same name. The netw ...
, and
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
. The league was established in partnership between the Professional Bass Tour Anglers' Association (PBTAA) and Outdoor Channel as an answer to other professional
fishing tournaments that the anglers compete in.
The show focuses on personalities and struggles of anglers in competition rather than purely on results.
Major League Fishing was the top-rated show on Outdoor Channel and is different from other professional fishing tournaments in that every
bass boat
A bass boat is a small boat that is designed and equipped primarily for bass fishing, usually in freshwater bodies such as lakes, rivers and wetlands. The modern bass boats are motorboats that feature an elevated flat front deck with swive ...
has a
referee
A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...
on board to weigh each catch immediately and ensure quick
catch and release
Catch and release is a practice within recreational fishing where after capture, often a fast measurement and weighing of the fish is performed, followed by posed photography as proof of the catch, and then the fish are unhooked and returned ...
, and
fisherman
A fisher or fisherman is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish.
Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishers may be professional or rec ...
all have a constant update on how fellow competitors are performing through
iPads
The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...
on their boats. Additionally, anglers do not know where they are going before the day of the competition. The new style of tournament fishing was designed with
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
in mind, which is why fish are weighed and instantly released, anglers are not allowed to land fish or cradle them to their body and fish are never kept in the boat's live well. The shows are fished without revealing results instantly, as the results are shown when the television program airs.
Major League Fishing headquarters are located in
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...
.
History
In 2010, the anglers of the PBTAA met with the Outdoor Channel to outline the first Major League Fishing competition—the 2012 Challenge Cup was filmed at
Amistad Reservoir
Amistad Reservoir ( es, Presa Amistad) is a reservoir on the Rio Grande at its confluence with the Devils River northwest of Del Rio, Texas. The lake is bounded by Val Verde County on the United States side of the international border and by th ...
, Texas, in 2011 and aired on the Outdoor Channel in 2012.
Professional Anglers Boyd Duckett and Gary Klein represent the anglers and originally came up with the idea of Major League Fishing. Major League Fishing is sponsored by a number of fishing-related companies and external organizations including
Bass Pro Shops
BPS Direct, L.L.C, doing business as Bass Pro Shops, is an American privately held retailer which specializes in hunting, fishing, camping, and other related outdoor recreation merchandise. With headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, Bass P ...
,
General Tire,
Lowrance,
Sig Sauer
Several brother companies that design and manufacture firearms use the brand name SIG Sauer . The original company, ''Schweizerische Waggon-Fabrik'' (SWF), later ''Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft'' (SIG), went through several selloffs, ...
and
Geico. Many other fishing clubs around the country now use the MLF format for their tournaments, including the Brecknell digital scales used in competition and the SCORETRACKER LIVE! scoring system, as MLF continues to grow.
Anglers
Professional anglers who currently compete in Major League Fishing are
B.A.S.S. or
Fishing League Worldwide
Fishing League Worldwide (FLW) was the world's largest tournament fishing organization. FLW ran five tournament circuits, four of which offered a path to the largest tournament in professional bass fishing – the Forrest Wood Cup. The organizat ...
current or retired pros, including
Edwin Evers
Edwin Dinan Evers (May 9, 1971 in Hardenberg) is a Dutch drummer and radio presenter of the radio station Radio 538.
Biography
Evers was born on 9 May 1971 in Hardenberg, the Netherlands, his first experience with radio was by the local broadcast ...
,
Kevin VanDam
Kevin VanDam (born October 14, 1967), often called simply "KVD," is a professional bass fisherman from Otsego, Michigan. He is the all-time money winner in professional bass fishing, having earned $7,089,388 through August 2022 according to Major ...
,
Mike Iaconelli
Michael Iaconelli, also known as Mike and by his nickname "Ike", (born June 17, 1972 in Runnemede, New Jersey) is a professional bass fisherman, television personality, and podcast show host from Pittsgrove Township, New Jersey. Iaconelli compet ...
,
Skeet Reese
Skeet Reese is a professional sport fisherman of the B.A.S.S. (Bass Anglers Sportsmans Society) and Major League Fishing. He was born in Walnut Creek, California on June 30, 1969. He has a wife, Kim, and a two daughters, Leamarie and Courtney. Re ...
,
Casey Ashley
Casey Ashley (born February 1, 1984), is a professional bass fisherman from Donalds, South Carolina. Ashley attended Piedmont Technical College, a two-year community college, where he earned a degree in Industrial Electronics.
Ashley started ...
, Ott DeFoe and Gabriel Kilgore .
Events
Major League Fishing has two independent competitions, the Selects and Cups, which are each fished by a different set of anglers.
The Cup anglers also compete for a chance to fish the MLF World Championship, which airs on
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
. MLF Cup events feature 3 days of competitions between 10 anglers, with the top 4 advancing from each day of competition into a Sudden Death Round. In the Sudden Death Rounds, the first 3 anglers to hit a designated "cut weight" receive a spot in the Championship Round, which is winner-take-all.
Cup Champions
2012 Challenge Cup- Brent Ehrler
- Denny Brauer
-
Edwin Evers
Edwin Dinan Evers (May 9, 1971 in Hardenberg) is a Dutch drummer and radio presenter of the radio station Radio 538.
Biography
Evers was born on 9 May 1971 in Hardenberg, the Netherlands, his first experience with radio was by the local broadcast ...
-
Kevin VanDam
Kevin VanDam (born October 14, 1967), often called simply "KVD," is a professional bass fisherman from Otsego, Michigan. He is the all-time money winner in professional bass fishing, having earned $7,089,388 through August 2022 according to Major ...
- Kelly Jordon
- Scott Suggs
-
Edwin Evers
Edwin Dinan Evers (May 9, 1971 in Hardenberg) is a Dutch drummer and radio presenter of the radio station Radio 538.
Biography
Evers was born on 9 May 1971 in Hardenberg, the Netherlands, his first experience with radio was by the local broadcast ...
-
Kevin VanDam
Kevin VanDam (born October 14, 1967), often called simply "KVD," is a professional bass fisherman from Otsego, Michigan. He is the all-time money winner in professional bass fishing, having earned $7,089,388 through August 2022 according to Major ...
- Bobby Lane
-
Mike Iaconelli
Michael Iaconelli, also known as Mike and by his nickname "Ike", (born June 17, 1972 in Runnemede, New Jersey) is a professional bass fisherman, television personality, and podcast show host from Pittsgrove Township, New Jersey. Iaconelli compet ...
- Jacob Wheeler
- Skeet Reese
- Kevin VanDam
- Mike Iaconelli
2019 Challenge Cup- Jacob Wheeler
2020 Summit Cup- Takahiro Omori
2020 Challenge Cup- Jeff Sprague
2021 Summit Cup- Marty Robinson
2021 Challenge Cup- Edwin Evers
World Champions
2017 World Championship- Bobby Lane
[Majorleaguefishing.com]
2018 World Championship- Greg Hackney
2019 World Championship- Jacob Wheeler
2020 World Championship- Jordan Lee
Bass Pro Tour Champions
2019
Stage One Kissimmee- Jordan Lee
Stage Two Conroe- Edwin Evers
Stage Three Raleigh- Jacob Powroznik
Stage Four Dayton- Andy Morgan
Stage Five Cullman- Dean Rojas
Stage Six Branson- Aaron Martens
Stage Seven Table Rock Lake- Jacob Wheeler
Stage Eight Neenah- Cliff Pace
REDCREST La Crosse- Edwin Evers
References
External links
{{fisheries and fishing
Fishing television series