Over the years, Florida has become the premiere destination for professional bass tours to kick off a new season.
The Bassmaster Elite Series has held one of their first two tournaments of the season in Florida for five out of the past eight years. On the FLW Tour side, the season has started in Florida five out of the past six seasons.
Both the Bassmaster Elite Series and FLW Tour are scheduled to return to Florida in 2019, with events taking place simultaneously on February 7-10th. The Elite Series will be on the St. Johns River in Palatka, Florida, while the FLW tour will be on Lake Toho in Kissimmee Florida.
Now there’s a third professional tour that has decided to kick off the season in the nation’s leading producer of orange juice.
On Monday, December 3rd, Major League fishing announced that Florida’s Lake Toho will be the playing field for the first Bass Pro Tour stop of the 2019 season that will take place January 29th through February 3rd.
The Major League Fishing press release includes the following:
“Though the majority of the Jan. 29 - Feb. 3 action will take place on historic Lake Toho, the championship round will be held on another nearby body of water out of respect for the Fishing League Worldwide (FLW) tournament that follows.”
Over the course of a 13-day period in January and February, all three major tours (B.A.S.S., FLW, and MLF) will kick off the 2019 season in Florida, with FLW and MLF competing on the same fishery in back-to-back weeks.
If that’s not enough Florida bass fishing action for you, there are two additional major tournaments that will take place at virtually the same time in Florida.
The first Bassmaster Basspro.com Eastern Open of the 2019 season will be held on the Harris Chain of Lakes in Leesburg, Florida on January 24-26, while the 2019 FLW Costa Series Southeastern Division will kick-off their season January 31 – February 2 on Lake Okeechobee.
In total, Florida fisheries will host five major tournaments between B.A.S.S., FLW, and MLF between January 24th and February 10th, 2019.