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Major League Fishing Pulls Back the Curtain on a Monster 2027 Season
Professional bass fishing rarely stands still, and Major League Fishing is making sure of it. With the 2026 Bass Pro Tour season still playing out on the water, MLF has already rolled out what amounts to a full blueprint for 2027 — a multi-circuit slate that stretches from the cypress-choked backwaters of Louisiana to the cold, trophy-laden currents of the St. Lawrence River. The announcements are extensive, the venues are elite, and the stakes have never been higher. This is not a league tiptoeing toward the future; it is one that has mapped it out in precise detail more than a year in advance.
Major League Fishing, the world's largest tournament-fishing organization, has announced the 2027 Bass Pro Tour schedule, featuring seven regular-season events, Bass Pro Shops REDCREST 2027, and the Kubota Heavy Hitters all-star event. Taken together with the simultaneously released Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit schedule, MLF's 2027 footprint spans the continent — touching legendary fisheries that have defined tournament bass fishing for decades alongside compelling new venues that promise to generate fresh storylines.
The Bass Pro Tour's 2027 Road Map
The 2027 season will feature 50 of the top anglers in professional bass fishing competing for the sport's biggest payouts, Fishing Clash Angler of the Year honors, and qualification into REDCREST 2028 — MLF's most prestigious championship event. The Bass Pro Tour season will open January 14–17 at the St. Johns River in Palatka, Florida, before traveling to fisheries across Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, New York, and North Carolina.
The schedule includes a mix of legendary tournament destinations, dynamic river systems, proven big-bass fisheries, and a dual-lake event in the Shreveport-Bossier region featuring Caddo Lake and Cross Lake. That dual-lake format — where the field fishes two entirely different water bodies over the course of a four-day event — has become one of MLF's signature innovations, forcing anglers to develop a plan A and a contingency simultaneously. It rewards versatility in a way that single-venue tournaments simply cannot.
Stage 1: St. Johns River, Palatka, Florida — January 14–17
Kicking off in the Florida winter makes tactical sense. The St. Johns River system offers mild temperatures and a bass population that is historically productive during January. Palatka has long served as a reliable launchpad for professional tournaments, and opening the season on a river rather than a reservoir immediately signals that these anglers will need to read current, cover, and tide-like fluctuations from day one. For fans tuning into the livestream, watching 50 elite pros simultaneously attack the same river system from day one — under MLF's full-field qualifying format — provides an instant narrative overload in the best possible way.
Stage 2: Caddo Lake and Cross Lake, Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana — February 25–28
The twin cities and the two fisheries will host Stage 2 of the tour from February 25–28. Hosted by the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission, the event will feature 50 elite anglers competing for top payouts, valuable Fishing Clash Angler of the Year points, and spots in the REDCREST 2028 championship tournament. Caddo Lake's Spanish moss-draped cypress swamps and Cross Lake's more open, reservoir-style; it is a logistical commitment. Venues have been booked, hosts have been contracted, and launch ramps have been designated. When an organization publishes specific ramp addresses more than a year before competition, it has done the hard work of turning an ambitious schedule into a binding one.
As Daniel Fennel, MLF senior director of tournament operations for the Bass Pro Tour, explained: "The 2027 Bass Pro Tour schedule is exactly what this league is built for – great fisheries, passionate host communities and the best anglers in the world competing in a format that showcases every decision they make on the water. From historic venues like the St. Johns River, Toledo Bend and Lake Champlain to exciting stops like the Pasquotank River and our dual-lake event in Louisiana, this schedule will give our anglers a tremendous test and give fans a season full of storylines to follow, from start to finish."
The economic implications for host communities are real and substantial. Major League Fishing produces more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America's living rooms on CBS, Discovery, Outdoor Channel, VICE, World Fishing Network, RFD-TV, Game and Fish TV, and Rumble, and on demand on MyOutdoorTV. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world's top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 20 countries. That reach means every host community gets not just the economic activity of tournament week — the hotel rooms, restaurant seats, and fuel sold — but also national and international television exposure that conventional advertising budgets could never replicate.
The competitive structure MLF has built over roughly a decade of operation has matured into something that now resembles other professional sports leagues in the clarity of its hierarchy, the logic of its qualification pathways, and the transparency of its championship format. The Pro Circuit feeds the Bass Pro Tour. The Bass Pro Tour feeds REDCREST. REDCREST produces a world champion. The 2027 roadmap, viewed as a whole, is the clearest articulation yet of how tightly integrated that ladder has become — and how deliberately MLF is positioning itself not just as a tournament-fishing organization, but as the definitive stage on which professional bass fishing plays out in America.
For fans mapping out their own 2027 travel plans — whether it is making the drive to Palatka in January for the season opener, catching the chaos of the dual-lake Louisiana event in February, or standing on the banks of the St. Lawrence in July to watch an Angler of the Year crowned — the calendar is already set. Major League Fishing has made the future concrete, and it looks very good from where the sport currently stands.
