Jimmy Bass of Ocala, Florida, won the $10,000 grand prize playing FLW Fantasy Fishing and being named the top-scoring player in the seven-event Walmart FLW Tour season. Bass correctly picked two tournament winners and numerous top-10 finishers over the course of the 2015 season. The season concluded last week with the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita presented by Walmart, the world-championship of bass-fishing. Bass beat out thousands of Fantasy Fishing players from around the globe.
“To win $10,000 by playing Fantasy Fishing feels absolutely fantastic,” said Bass. “Most fantasy-type games are pay-to-play, but not FLW Fantasy Fishing. I signed up and played for absolutely nothing, and still won $10,000. This is amazing.
“I definitely do my homework – I put in nearly 20 hours of research before every event,” continued Bass. “I use the Member’s Advantage tools provided by FLW, FLW Bass Fishing Magazine and the FLW website – anything that gives me good insight about the professional anglers. After that, I search as many sources as I can for information about the lake’s conditions when the event takes place, like past winning weights and previous tournament-winners.”
Bass said it doesn’t take much effort for him to usually pick his top-20 favorites for each event, but narrowing his team down to 10 and picking a winner is much more difficult.
“Occasionally I’ll have to pick from anglers out of my original top 20 to stay under the salary cap,” said Bass. “But usually I can formulate a good combination of top-tier anglers and budget picks.”
Finishing in second place for the 2015 Fantasy Fishing season was Stanley Socha Jr. of Tolland, Connecticut, who won $2,000, and in third place was Corey Alexander of Carbon Hill, Alabama, who won $1,000. Several other winners from across the globe took home up to $500 in cash prizes.
The 2015 Fantasy Fishing season consisted of seven tournaments surrounding the Walmart FLW Tour regular season as well as the season-ending Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of bass fishing. Fans competed for more than $7,000 in cash and prizes from each of the six tournaments and a top prize of $5,000. The cumulative grand prize for the highest ranked player at the end of the season is $10,000.
To begin playing, visit FantasyFishing.com to sign up. Select a team of 10 anglers against an allocated $200 salary cap and select your guess for the tournament winning weight as a tiebreaker. Create a league to play against your friends and compete for bragging rights. Player’s modifications to their teams must be finalized by 11:59 p.m. ET the night prior to the tournament.
ABOUT FLW
FLW is the industry’s premier tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money nationwide in 2015 over the course of 240 tournaments across five tournament circuits, four of which provide an avenue to the sport’s richest payday and most coveted championship trophy – the Forrest Wood Cup. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show and is broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoors-sports television show in the world.
By: Brian Johnson, FLW
