FIRST CAST : JOEL SHANGLE
the view from the midway point of 2023
As I sit down to write this , the Internet is still percolating over the dominant performances of Jacob Wheeler at Bass Pro Tour Stage Four on Lake Guntersville and Alton Jones Jr . at General Tire Heavy Hitters on Bussey Brake in Northern Louisiana . As you ’ ll read later in this issue ’ s Tournament Report , Wheeler claimed his sixth BPT trophy and Jones completed one of the most epic championship days in MLF history with a 59-pound beatdown of a Top 10 with a half-dozen Angler of Year awards .
Those two events in April and May signified the halfway point of the 2023 MLF major-tour season – a perfect time to assess and acknowledge the most interesting , successful , story-worthy anglers , trends and events of the season to date . Without further ado …
ebare was the hottest angler on the planet
To say that Texas pro Dakota Ebare is having a good season is an egregious understatement . Let ’ s remove “ good ” and sub in “ phenomenal ” or “ astounding ” because Ebare was both of those through the first half of 2023 . The second-year Bass Pro Tour pro started the year with a win at the Toyota Series kickoff at Sam Rayburn in February and then claimed the trophy and winner ’ s check at the Clarks Hill Tackle Warehouse Invitational a month later .
He also added a pair of second-place finishes ( Bass Pro Tour Stage Three at Cherokee Lake and Heavy Hitters ) and a couple more BPT Top 20s to boost his midseason winnings well past the $ 300,000 mark and place him in the Top 10 in both Bass Pro Tour and Invitationals AOY standings .
As Bass Fishing magazine columnist Joe Balog says in this issue ’ s feature on Ebare ( see page 20 ), “ windows of opportunity don ’ t open themselves ” and the halfway point of 2023 , Ebare has done a yeoman ’ s job of capitalizing on the windows he ’ s created .
the bally bet aoy race is anybody ’ s game
The list of Top 10 pros in the 2023 Bass Pro Tour standings tells an interesting story that I ’ m excited to watch develop over the final four tournaments of the season . Ott DeFoe perched in the No . 1 spot is nothing new – DeFoe has lurked near the top of the AOY standings virtually ever year since the 2019 start of the BPT – but the anglers in hot pursuit of the Tennessee pro are a compelling mix .
Edwin Evers is in second , a resurgent Chris Lane sits at No . 4 , Bass Pro Tour rookie Matt Becker is No . 5 , fellow rookie Nick LeBrun holds down the No . 10 spot and all-time greats like Andy Morgan and Wheeler lurk as well . Wheeler was notable in his absence from the AOY race until his Guntersville win , but now that the two-time defending AOY has some momentum … look out .
As the schedule heads into smallmouth country in New York and Michigan – and to a season finale on a Saginaw Bay fishery that very few of the pros are familiar with – I ’ m betting on this season ’ s AOY race to come down to a spectacularly interesting finish .
… and what about jones jr .?
It would be a disservice to Jones to rush past his Heavy Hitters performance without adding a little context , because it really was THAT extraordinary .
Jones finished the final round of Heavy Hitters with 19 fish for 81-15 . Ebare finished second with five fish for 22- 15 . The entire rest of the field ( places 2 through 10 ) accounted for 21 fish for 98-10 . Regardless of how well he fishes the rest of the season – and odds are that he ’ ll do well in the smallmouth fisheries that remain on the schedule – Jones ’ performance was an all-timer .
Let ’ s see what the second half brings , shall we ?
joel shangle , editor-in-chief
6 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | JUNE-JULY 2023