Leesburg’s Tim Frederick will be among the 170 professional anglers competing in the 2019 Fishing League Worldwide (FLW) Tour.
The 24th season for the FLW Tour features seven regular-season tournaments around the country, with the competition kicking off at Sam Rayburn Reservoir Jan. 10-13, in Brookeland, Texas. The prestigious tourney will culminate with the world championship of bass fishing – the FLW Cup – at Lake Hamilton Aug. 9-11, in Hot Springs, Ark.
Frederick is competing in his fourth season as a professional angler on the tour. He is hoping to capitalize on his success after winning the FLW Tour event at Lake Okeechobee this past January.
There was enormous demand to compete on the 2019 FLW Tour, with 210 anglers registering for a slot on the tournament circuit in its final year of priority registration before switching to a strict qualifying process and a 150-pro field in 2020.
The top award at each Tour event is $125,000, with $300,000 going to the winner of the FLW Cup. Since the final field exceeds the published payout basis of 150 pros, FLW will survey all 170 participating pros to finalize the 2019 payout structure.
“With the demand we saw this year to join the FLW Tour, we couldn’t be more eager to kick off another season at Sam Rayburn Reservoir in January,” said Bill Taylor, FLW’s senior director of tournament operations. “FLW has long been the home to some of the most decorated bass anglers in the sport, and with the expanded live coverage at all of our tour events this year, we are more than ready to show off their skills at some of the best fisheries in the world.”
The 2019 FLW Tour roster is headlined by a stout contingent of bass-fishing heavyweights, including three-time Angler of the Year and 2003 FLW Cup champion David Dudley of Lynchburg, Va.; 2015 Angler of the Year and 2011 FLW Cup champion Scott Martin of Clewiston; and two-time Angler of the Year Bryan Thrift of Shelby, N.C. They’ll be joined by bass-fishing legends Jimmy Houston of Cookson, Okla. and Larry Nixon of Quitman, Ark., as well as three former FLW Cup champions John Cox (2016), Brad Knight (2015) and Darrel Robertson (2002). The 2019 Tour also will feature 34 rookies from around the country.
The complete FLW Tour roster for 2019 can be found at FLWFishing.com. In addition to the opening event at Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Texas and the final event at Lake Hamilton in Arkansas, the other events include:
- Feb. 7-10: Lake Toho (Kissimmee);
- March 7-10: Lake Seminole (Bainbridge, Ga.)
- March 28-31: Grand Lake (Grove, Okla.)
- April 11-14: Cherokee Lake (Jefferson City, Tenn.)
- May 2-5: Lake Chickamauga (Dayton, Tenn.)
- June 27-30: Lake Champlain (Plattsburgh, N.Y.)
FLW, the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, announced last week a greatly expanded live schedule for the upcoming season as part of its commitment to growing the sport of tournament bass fishing and bringing more publicity to the anglers who fish its circuits. The live on-the-water broadcast will air on days three and four of all FLW Tour regular-season events from the boats of the tournaments’ top pros. Check out FLWFishing.com to learn more.
FLW provided anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions of dollars in prize money in 2018 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Ky. and with offices in Minneapolis, FLW and its partners conduct 286 bass-fishing tournaments annually around the world, including the United States, Canada, China, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa and Spain.
