Do that after dropping about $120,000 dollars on shoes and a basketball, sign up for little dribblers, then travel about 900 miles to do it. You would still get your little dribbler points too.
It's kind of hard to compare basketball to tournament fishing but I would hope you win

This comparison makes no sense. When fishing becomes a 1 on 1 battle between competitors and KVD has someone throwing plugs at his head and snagging his line during his cast and retrieve them maybe. If you are a fisherman capable of finding fish your chances of winning are equally as good as anyone whether you are a pro or not. Fishing has very little to do with athletic ability. Not saying bass fisherman can’t be athletes but you are comparing to different types of athletes.

I hope the BPT anglers take all the top spots. Then we will see how much they enjoy the higher level competition.

I fished redman/BFL for years and several everstart/stren/golden blend tournys….I had a regular job and was always competing against guys who had far more practice time than I did...two of my proudest memories are when I fished an all American and finished way ahead of brent chapman,peter T and kevin wirth...another time I fished against and finished ahead of roland martin,rick clunn and denny brauer plus several other pros in a golden blend tourney...not saying I could outfish them on a regular basis but am proud to say I did it twice....

It's funny how people that don't like MLF just make stuff up. There is no contract preventing them from fishing BASS

And would you be willing to risk pissing away $15k to take that gamble?

It makes perfect sense, these guys have next to zero chance of beating pros that have fished these lake for years/decades. But fine, you want to expand on it. You go play the World Series of poker against the best there is, you have next to zero chance of winning, it’s all the same. Most of the guys in the FLW have no chance of winning against the BPT guys. John Cox is about the only exception.

+1... As a tournament angler, you have already lost if you let the success of another get in your head. Yes, they maybe a stick. But you are fishing against the fish.
Whoever figures out how to get the fish to bite on that given day.

The reason neither of your examples make sense is because Mark Jones isn’t a professional basketball player and I’m assuming SAKS isn’t a professional poker player.

The FLW guys are good fishermen. Plus, again, it makes sense from a business standpoint to try and:

A) get their biggest names fishing in the MLF/FLW system, rather than a competing system.
B) get their guys exposure and try to get them to make some money competing, because so many tournaments were cancelled this season

They increased the payouts, right? They’re paying out much further down the line, if I remember correctly. You may not like it, but it should at least make sense to you why they’re doing what they’re doing. And I think there is something to the “true competitors want to compete against the best.” I imagine the majority of the FLW guys would jump at the chance to move up to the MLF, don’t you? So a true competitor would be motivated to show out even more because the competition just got much better. It’s not like the FLW is a Thursday working man’s jackpot. These guys are competitors and are very good at what they do.

And many of the guys fishing FLW aren’t professional fisherman either. Most of them have real jobs and this is a side dream of theirs.

I am on the amateur anglers of FLWs side on this, they don’t have sponsors paying their bills, it’s total BS to decrease their chances at winning. If BPT wanted to keep their anglers in their program, they could have more tournaments, period. Now if the FLW guys were allowed to vote wether the BPT guys could fish against them, it’s a different story, they weren’t.

Get a chance in 1-150 of making $100k or a chance at 1-206 with 56 of those being a notch or two better. I think I’ll take the 1–150 odds. If these were 1 day tournaments, that’s a whole different situation, anyone has a chance then; but it’s not and the FLW guys will get crushed.

We will just have to disagree on this one, as usual. I hope the FLW guys can pull it out, but the odds just aren’t there.



Edit: In response to your question. Yes I’m sure all of the FLW guys would love to go to the BPT, but is that what they get if they win one of these “super tournaments”? If it is, then I’ll change my stance and I’m all for it. Is this the year that 10 guys get booted from BPT or is next year that time?

I believe next year will be the nut-cutting so to speak. They should be in year 2 of 3.

I don’t know the answer to your edit, but my question was about whether or not they would dream of doing so if they are good enough in FLW and a spot opens up. I suspect they are not going to be elevated to MLF if they win one of these, but that wasn’t my question. It was about making a name for themselves and putting themselves in a position to move up in the future, which is how the system works. You keep plugging along, working your way up...if you want to make a career out of it.