All he did to get that win was beat all the guys at the top of the AOY standings that year. He beat the best of that season to get the win.

Careful! Treading on hallowed ground there�s.

Sure Seth is excited, he won�t have nearly as many of the best anglers in the world to compete against at the classic next year.

He also placed 2nd at the Miss River and at 2nd at Lake Champlain. He almost won Champlain with mostly largemouth. This dude can hang with the best of them. Yes a lot of talent left the Elites but who's to say some of the new guys brought in aren't better then some that left. The Bassmaster Classic will always be the Super Bowl of bass fishing. I guarantee you some of the guys that left the Elites that fished the Classic this year were having a hard time believing this might be their last classic. They know it will always be the biggest tournament in bass fishing.

Seth can compete with the guys that left, JMO but him and Zaldain should have taken the invites and moved on with the best.

Think the motivation was there for everyone when there was no money involved and you couldn't really catch the AOY leader? Or Maybe the it was a little more for the first year tour guy fishing his home waters.

Either way the point of my original post was that he will have a lot better chance in future classics since the talent pool is reduced. Looking back at that win of his just supports my point. 40 of those 50 guys are now fishing MLF.

It's going to be very interesting to see where we sit in 3 years time from now. I imagine there will be several that wish they would have taken the invites, and guys that took the invite and wish they had stayed. I love all of the coverage and love both formats. Lot of guys picking sides nowadays and I don't understand why everyone feels the need to do that.

You might be taking this "sport" thing a little too serious. Age has nothing to do with the success of fishing... "Old men" win all the time. It's not like you have to be in shape to catch a fish.

PS... I'm not an old man.

The guys that went to MLF will be back at the classic, they will be working booths. BASS will be fine and their are so many great fishermen out there with a story, they to will become stars in this sport. As BASS showcased those who have left. The Classic will always be the best of the best and no other event will measure up. It�s good that other opportunity�s are out there and I look forward on seeing the next guys step up.

And you would be right. All the depth is at BPT, now.

http://bassrankings.com/articles/2019/01/br-updates-ranking-algorithm/

Not worried about BASS. Wendlandt, the Johnstons, Canterbury, Gustafson, and Yelas have come over from FLW and there are rookies like Livesay, Depalma, Walters and Cook that will be household names soon enough.
My question is how does an angler keep their spot on the BPT? Is it an invite only tour? How do you get an invite?

I'm old school so I thoroughly enjoyed the weigh-in at Bass Master and FLW events. I'll watch BPT too but without a formal weigh-in it's like the event isn't finished. There's plenty of competition in the Elite's no matter who left and the excitement is as good as ever.

There is supposed to be a qualifying system in place in 3 years, recent rumor has been MLF is trying to buy FLW to gain this.

I agree with you Brandon.

And I agree with both of you.