Bass Pro Tour Stage 1 Lake Kissimmee

[RFeyoMN]

Well here we are, starting another season. If you haven't followed along, there's more new anglers, and some rule changes. Most significant being the new scoring of the heaviest five fish in each anglers bag. I'm kind of indifferent on this...as almost every events top finishers would have still been there with the biggest 5. It will be interesting to see guys abandon good bites on smaller fish when they know they need weight!

Anyhow..i'm not sure if we can accomplish our pool this year, as to me it seemed guys were losing interest last year. Hopefully i'm wrong, and we can keep it going.

Also, if any new guys are interested, please post up and we'll fill you in on the rules, and try to include you. Already have 3 of 10 spots taken.

We'll start off the same as in the past, i'll just use a random number generator for our picking order for the Stage 1 top ten.

So...post up if you're in!
RFeyoMn- In
Bass-o-msticjm- In
Bassnpro1- In
DrewFlu33- ?

[bass-o-maticjm]

In!

[bassnpro1]

I'm in.

[bassnpro1]

I'm not a fan of only 5 at all. At least if they could weigh everything, you always held some hope your guy could make a run. Now if somebody pops a big one, it is too hard to overcome and the day is over rooting for your angler.

As a spectator, there is WAY less energy and stress. Which every angler who had comments about it mentioned. Seemed most of them couldn't take the heat and just wanted to slow down and relax. Which was impossible in the previous format.

I've fished a MLF style tournament and it is the best format I have ever fished from a competitor standpoint. Knowing what everyone had in relation to your weight certainly made for some interesting on the water decisions that I would have never considered before.

[RFeyoMN]

I have to agree, i'm not digging the best 5 format. It will create much more dead 3rd periods, as guys that feel they're in will mostly quit fishing, and start looking...and of course, they'll have the cameras. There will be much less excitement from late runs up the scoretracker, less come from behind successes.

The guys that dominated the "every fish counts" format, will still be the guys winning. Now, there's just a little more chance of the slow-movers to have a little more success. You can't compare someone like Jacob Wheeler to Mark Davis...JW probably makes 10 times the amount of casts in a day. Though, both are very talented anglers. Now, the playing field has evened a bit for guys like Davis. We'll see if they can capitalize.
I feel like it's a publicity move by MLF in hopes of keeping the veterans relevant. And while I do like the older guys staying at it, they just aren't consistant players in the BPT. Maybe now they can be, but I doubt it.

[jaderhold]

I'm in if we can do it. Don't know how it'll work other than doing largest catch on the last day.

[RFeyoMN]

Yeah, same as before. We'll pick from the top ten on championship day. Or, did that change??

[RFeyoMN]

Well...I just looked, and it did change. JFC, MLF!!!

So that will mess up picking on championship day. With that, I think we should abort. That, or make our picks out of the 40 for the Knockout Round, and the winner will be determined by the highest finishing angler chosen.

I'll leave it up to you guys to decide. That seems like the only fair option. I'd venture to guess, the majority of the tournaments will be won at the end of the Knockout Round this season.

Thanks fir the heads up Joey!

[bassnpro1]

Abort makes the most sense. But with that being said, if yall decide to do a top 40 pick, i'll do it.

[bass-o-maticjm]

I'm in for the top 40, but would still be in for the old format as well. Yes, the weights carry over, so you there is a perennial favorite pick. However, day one leaders don't always win 100% of the time. That said, I won't lose sleep over it if we choose to abort. I'll just follow along and go with the flow.