Yamaha professional angler snags first MLF Bass Pro Tour title

Yamaha Pro Jordan Lee became the first angler to claim a Major League Fishing (MLF) Bass Pro Tour title during the 2019 season on Feb. 3 in Kissimmee, Fla. The Alabama native is a two-time Bassmaster Classic Champion (2017 and 2018) and won a national collegiate championship in 2013 at the age of 21. Lee now boasts the most prolific Top 10 success rate in the sport of professional bass fishing; he has made the Top 10 in over 35 percent of his tour-level tournaments.

After finding an area of clean water on the north end of Lake Garcia, Lee put together a flurry of two- and three-pound bass in the third period winding a vibrating jig through the grass. Using that technique, he put more than 32 pounds to SCORETRACKER in the period to distance himself from the rest of the field and finished the day with a total of 55 pounds, one ounce.

“(The third period) was an unbelievable period,” Lee said. “I fished my way into that last area and got bite after bite after bite – and caught good ones, too – and just found myself in a spot with clear water and a lot of fish. Fish were moving in to spawn, so there were bigger fish in there.”

Stage Two of the MLF Bass Pro Tour takes place Feb. 12-17 in Conroe, Texas, where the 80-angler field will compete on Lake Conroe. The 21,000-acre impoundment of the San Jacinto River north of Houston hosted the 2017 Bassmaster Classic (won by Jordan Lee), and is one of the state’s most prolific producers of trophy-sized largemouth.

Yamaha Marine is an official outboard sponsor of Major League Fishing (MLF), and 19 Yamaha professional anglers will compete in the MLF Bass Pro Tour during the 2019 season. Founded in 2011, MLF brings the high-intensity sport of competitive bass fishing into America’s living rooms. With real-time scoring from officials in every boat, MLF offers a unique competition format designed to showcase the skills of the top bass anglers in the country. The MLF Bass Pro Tour field includes Bassmaster Classic Champions, FLW Forrest Wood Cup winners, several Anglers of the Year and top tour performers in competitive bass fishing. Each Bass Pro Tour event results in a two-hour television show that will air on the Discovery Channel in the fourth quarter of 2019, and will repeat on the Sportsman Channel in the first and second quarters of 2020.