MLF Announces Scoring Change for 2023 Bass Pro Tour

[Ski]

https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/mlf-scoring-change-102522.html 

 

Major League Fishing (MLF), the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, announced today a scoring change for the 2023 Bass Pro Tour. The extremely popular catch, weigh, immediate-release format will remain, however scoring will change from every scorable fish counts to scoring each angler’s five (5) heaviest bass per day. The “every fish counts” format will remain for both the General Tire Heavy Hitters all-star event and the General Tire Team Series.

The scoring change will slightly alter how anglers advance in each Bass Pro Tour event. The 40 anglers in Group A will compete on Days 1 & 3 and the 40 anglers in Group B will compete on Days 2 & 4. The top 20 from each group, based on the two-day, heaviest cumulative weight of five bass per day will advance to the Knockout Round (Day 5). Anglers who win the Qualifying Round will no longer receive an automatic Championship Round berth. Weights are zeroed for the Knockout Round, and 10 anglers will advance to the Championship Round (Day 6). Weights from the Knockout Round will carry over into the Championship Round, and the winner of the event will be decided by the heaviest Knockout and Championship Round two-day cumulative weight.

[MN Fisher]

Ya, just read that article.

 

Frankly - I'm all for it. Some commenters on FB want weigh-ins, but I like the CWR format...saves fish.

[TnRiver46]

So they are trying to put the goal posts back into the hole they dug them out of 

[Deleted account]

Changing stuff usually means it's not working, I don't see how it makes it better, or more ZZZZZZZZZ, sorry, interesting...

[Tennessee Boy]

The 5 fish limit format is a better test of angler skill.  The every fish counts format makes for better TV.  It should be interesting.

[Logan S]

Last ditch effort to stay relevant.  They aggressively alienated the core audience for bass fishing tournaments for several years, and now hope they will tune back in.  They probably won't.  It's a shame that sounds so negative, but it's just the reality. 

 

They still have the rest of the goofy rules and it will probably make it even slower than BASS live shows....Because the anglers will know exactly where they stand thanks to scoretracker.  Once they are safely within the cut, you'll see a lot of spot protecting and practicing and a lot less fishing.  

[uglyasheck]

  You Can't please everybody and sometimes nobody. LOL    I like the all counting format they had but would have like to have seen them add the one that had the five biggest be added to the mix then you could of had like 2 tournys going on at the same time. 

[Deleted account]

3 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

The 5 fish limit format is a better test of angler skill.  

No.

[scaleface]

5 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

The 5 fish limit format is a better test of angler skill.

I think so . I've been on groups where a bass was caught almost every cast . It took absolutely no skill to catch them . 

[bowhunter63]

5 biggest always rocks. They took the crowd out of it and now there paying the price. Plus all the rounds are confusing to a lot of people. Thankfully there is a few youtube channels that have tournaments from the good old days 

[Deleted account]

34 minutes ago, scaleface said:

I think so . I've been on groups where a bass was caught almost every cast . It took absolutely no skill to catch them . 

Still no.

[T-Billy]

Boo....... I much prefer the every fish counts format. 

[ryanerb]

This will be interesting!!

I think it may eliminate the 'dink fest' that sometimes happens, as well as some of the hardcore forward facing sonar watching... Just predictions. Cool that they can 'change it up' and we'll see how it goes!

[Deephaven]

I think a hybrid would have been better.  5 biggest fish weight is doubled or tripled in the overall bag.  

[SWVABass]

BTL did a good interview with Jordan Lee on it. Was interesting to hear his take on it. Sounds like it was driven by the anglers. I liked the every fish counts and I’m sure I’ll like this…. But boy is it going to change up picking a fantasy team

[TnRiver46]

20 hours ago, T-Billy said:

Boo....... I much prefer the every fish counts format. 

I think their new strategy is poll the internet and change accordingly. Guess we will see how that works out 

[Tennessee Boy]

I follow both the B.A.S.S. Elites and the MLF tournaments.   I can checkin with B.A.S.S.  a few times a day and feel like I'm following the tournament.   Not many people are able or willing to watch 8 hours a day for 4 days.   MLF has wacky rules but they have resulting in me spending WAY more time watching online.  Having anglers qualify on one lake and then start from zero the final day on a different lake makes no sense as a test of angling skill but  does make the competition more interesting to watch on the final day. 

 

I can understand why the angler's would want the rule change to have the final round run for two days.  It would be very frustrating to dominate the qualifying rounds only to see someone else win $100K on another lake in the finals.  If they want to make the transition from fishing for each others money to fishing for sponsor's money they have to do more to make professional fishing more of a spectator sport.  I don't think this is a step in the right direction in that regard. 

 

[Deleted account]

9 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Having anglers qualify on one lake and then start from zero the final day on a different lake makes no sense as a test of angling skill. 

 

Kind of like the Dodgers not in the World Series...

[gim]

20 hours ago, ryanerb said:

I think it may eliminate the 'dink fest' that sometimes happens, as well as some of the hardcore forward facing sonar watching

These are the two worst parts about both professional tours.  Dinkfest and screen watchers with drop shot.  Neither one is appealing to me.

 

I say get rid of the dinks (which is what they're doing now), and the screen watchers I.E. ban live scope lol

[TnRiver46]

23 minutes ago, gimruis said:

These are the two worst parts about both professional tours.  Dinkfest and screen watchers with drop shot.  Neither one is appealing to me.

 

I say get rid of the dinks (which is what they're doing now), and the screen watchers I.E. ban live scope lol

They still stare at 2D sonar with drop shot for the last 15+ Years 

 

the star of the show is the bass itself, don’t care what lure or graph they use, I just want to see them fishies

[Greg Walker]

I like it either way. MLF is a big success for me....