We’re less than one month away from the Bass Pro Tour kicking off the 2026 season on Lake Guntersville. Each new season arrives with an air of mystery, and with some fresh faces on the roster plus a schedule that will take the 51-angler field to a mixture of new fisheries and some familiar favorites at non-traditional times, this year feels particularly unpredictable.
Here are the six biggest questions that will define the 2026 season.
1. Will Dustin Connell make history?
Dustin Connell has owned REDCREST, the Bass Pro Tour’s championship event. Last spring, he pulled off the bold strategy of running all the way to the upper end of Lake Guntersville to win his second consecutive REDCREST and third total title, bringing his earnings total near $1 million from REDCREST alone. Clearly, he’ll be the angler to beat when REDCREST 2026 heads to Table Rock Lake April 17-19.
On one hand, the fact that the championship will be held outside of Alabama figures to bode well for the rest of the field – Connell has won all three editions of REDCREST in his home state. However, he noted in a recent video that he has plenty of experience on Table Rock. No angler has ever won a tour-level championship event three years in a row, but Connell has to be considered the favorite until someone finally beats him.
2. Can anyone dethrone Jacob Wheeler?
Jacob Wheeler has had even more of a stranglehold on the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year award than his close friend has on the REDCREST trophy. Wheeler won AOY four times in the past five years, and the one time he didn’t (2023), he finished second. His past three AOY wins haven’t been particularly close, with Wheeler topping his closest pursuer by at least 30 points each time.
So, can anyone unseat Wheeler? The 51-angler field includes several worthy challengers. The lone angler who has managed to top Wheeler in the past five years, Matt Becker, remains on the BPT roster. 2025 runner-up Jake Lawrence could be even better with a full season of experience with the every-fish-counts format under his belt. Drew Gill has finished in the top three in each of his two seasons on tour. Then there’s rookie Banks Shaw, who just put together the best statistical season in the history of any MLF/FLW national tour when he won AOY on the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals in 2025. Can he keep it rolling when the competition turns up a notch?
While it wouldn’t be a surprise to see any of those anglers finish near the top of the points standings, my pick as the biggest threat to Wheeler in 2026 is Alton Jones Jr. He has been knocking on the AOY door for a while, finishing in the top five in the points three years in a row. And this schedule seemingly sets up great for him. He’ll likely get two wintertime tournaments to start the year, and he’s been excellent in early-season events during his career. He gets to compete in his backyard at Stage 3 on Lakes Whitney and Waco. And sight-fishing, a major strength for Jones, could be a major player at both Stage 4 and Stage 5.
3. Will the recent run of rookie success continue?
In theory, adjusting to the Bass Pro Tour shouldn’t be easy. Not only is the BPT field loaded with accomplished pros, its every-fish-counts format and live scoring on SCORETRACKER® aren’t something anglers get to experience at lower levels. Yet in each of the past three years, we’ve seen a rookie both win an event and finish in the top two of the Angler of the Year standings – Becker in 2023, Gill in 2024 and Lawrence in 2025.
Given the talent level of the four newcomers in 2026, it wouldn’t be a surprise if that trend continues. As noted above, Shaw brings the most decorated résumé of the bunch. He finished in the Top 10 of all seven Invitationals events in 2025, part of a season in which he set a new MLF record with 15 total Top 10s. Also keep an eye on Jacob Walker, who has shown he can compete in the BPT format by making the Knockout Round at REDCREST last year; and Mitchell Robinson, who will get a home-lake event at Stage 2 on Lake Hartwell and should know what to expect after watching his father and brother compete on the BPT in recent years.
4. Will we see the biggest bass in BPT history caught?
Randy Howell set a high bar with the 12-14 giant he caught from Bussey Brake in 2022. But the 2026 schedule should offer someone a legitimate shot to catch the Bass Pro Tour’s first ever teener.
The BPT will visit arguably the two hottest big-bass lakes in the country this year in O.H. Ivie and Orange Lake. O.H. Ivie’s reputation as a lunker factory is little secret. It has yielded the most 13-plus-pound bass in Texas’ ShareLunker program each of the past five years. While finding those giants amid all the cover in the lake can be challenging, the March timing of Stage 4 should make some of them accessible. Meanwhile, Orange Lake, which will host Heavy Hitters, kicked out a 10-12 and an 11-6 when the 2023 Team Series Championship visited the lake. That event was held in November and featured just nine anglers on the fishery for three days. With Heavy Hitters bringing 32 anglers to the fishery in May for a four-day event with practice allowed, there’s no telling how many double-digit bass will hit the scales.
5. How will Mother Nature impact the season?
Weather is always a factor in how tournaments play out. But the 2026 schedule has several events that could vary wildly based on the conditions.
With the season starting earlier than ever before, both Stage 1 on Guntersville and Stage 2 on Hartwell have the potential to be bitterly cold. At the same time, it could easily be 70 degrees and sunny, which would certainly help the viability of the shallow bite. Later in the season, we have a string of Midwest events in which water level will be critical. Both Table Rock and Beaver Lake have been known to fluctuate as much as 10 to 15 feet in a matter of days. While Grand Lake won’t rise or fall quite that dramatically, wet weather could have the water flooding the bushes in June, which would make for a much different tournament than if it’s low and clear. Wind will also be something to watch, especially at the season finale on Lake Erie. Even with anglers likely allowed to trailer to their launch ramp of choice, windy, rough conditions could prevent anglers from targeting smallmouth on the main lake and turn that into a largemouth derby.
6. What will be this year’s hot bait trends?
The fact that Bass Pro Tour anglers are only allowed to use forward-facing sonar for one of three periods each day ensures that we’ll see bass caught with a wide range of techniques. And while a few staple baits (bladed jigs, finesse worms, now jighead minnows) are always going to play, there usually seems to be a more surprising trend or two that lasts across multiple events. For instance, last year, topwater baits enjoyed a resurgence, with buzzbaits and frogs both factoring into tournament wins.
Time will tell what tackle trends emerge this year. Could it be another renaissance of a traditional technique, or will an innovative bait like fuzzy soft-plastics or something most anglers haven’t even heard of yet take the tour by storm? As always, we’ll break down the top techniques in depth after each event on MajorLeagueFishing.com.