Sturgeon Bay Gears up for Tackle Warehouse TITLE Event

STURGEON BAY, Wis.– The Tackle Warehouse TITLE presented by Toyota, the FLW Pro Circuit Championship, will visit Sturgeon Bay and Lake Michigan next week, Aug. 24-29, to crown the top Pro Circuit angler of 2020. Hosted by Destination Sturgeon Bay, the tournament will feature the top 50 professional anglers from the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit 2020 standings casting for a piece of the $820,000 purse.

Although Sturgeon Bay and Lake Michigan have played host to numerous professional-level bass-fishing event – including the massively-successful Major League Fishing (MLF) Bass Pro Tour event last month – it has never hosted a Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit event.

“This event is really going to come down to who can find and stay on top of their fish,” said pro Matthew Stefan of Junction City, Wisconsin, who will be making his sixth career FLW Championship appearance. “We can have a wind shift and the fish you found in practice will be gone – there won’t be a fish within a mile of where you found them. So, it’ll be so important to stay on top of them and make sure you find them if they relocate.

“There is so much water in play, and this tournament could be won in so many different places,” Stefan continued. “With just two days of practice, you can’t even come close to looking at all of the water. That being said, I feel like the best approach for an angler will be to pick a general area and fish it for two days of practice and then live and die by it. I think the tournament will be won in practice.”

Although late summer is normally the toughest fishing time of the year at fisheries around the country, Stefan said that he still expects the tournament weights to be really good in this event.

“On the final day, I think you’re going to need to be topping the 100-pound mark to be in contention to win,” Stefan said. “The Berkley (Powerbait Maxscent) Flat Worm will be a major player. Drop-shots, tubes and bottom baits in general will generate more bites, and that’s important because this event is a total-weight format.

“We should have some great weather, and we’re going to see a lot of monster smallmouth caught in this one,” Stefan went on to say. “There isn’t a better location in the world to wrap up our season than on Sturgeon Bay.”

Unique to the TITLE Championship, the event will be fished using the MLF catch-weigh-immediate release format. A select group of 25 pros will compete in Days 1 & 3, with the other 25 pros competing on Days 2 & 4. The top-10 pros from each group based on their cumulative two-day total will advance to Day 5. Only the top 10 pros will continue on to the sixth and final day of competition, with the winner taking home a $200,000 top prize.

Attendance is limited to anglers and essential staff and fans are encouraged to follow the event online through expanded FLW Live weigh-in broadcasts at MajorLeagueFishing.com and daily coverage at FLWFishing.com.

The 2020 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit featured a field of 150 of the top professional anglers in the world competing at six regular-season events around the country. The top 50 anglers in the Angler of the Year (AOY) standings after the six events qualified to compete in the inaugural Tackle Warehouse TITLE presented by Toyota.

The MLF NOW! broadcast team of Chad McKee, Marty Stone and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action on all six days of competition from 7:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m while FLW Live hosts Travis Moran and Todd Hollowell will be reporting and providing from-the-water analysis from Sturgeon Bay. On-the-water broadcasts will be live streamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Television coverage of the Tackle Warehouse TITLE presented by Toyota event will be showcased across six episodes, premiering at 7 p.m. EDT, Oct. 9 on the Outdoor Channel. Episodes premiere in Friday night primetime slots on the Outdoor Channel, with additional re-airings on the Outdoor Channel and the Sportsman Channel. Each two-hour long episode goes in-depth to break down the final rounds of each day of competition. Running through Dec. 27, FLW will air 312 hours of Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit action on the Outdoor Channel and the Sportsman Channel in 2020.

For complete details and updated information visit FLWFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the Toyota Series on FLW’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.