Summer 2019
®
time with Dee that I was a very competitive angler when it came to flipping; so that was my competitive edge.
Once I was out there fishing B.A.S.S., I realized you had to be very versatile. So, I won my first bass tournament flipping and my next two wins were fishing offshore structure with a spinning rod and 6-pound-test line.
Think about how appropriate that is, because that is just the roots of a western angler. That was the type of fishing that west coast anglers were introduced to and we continue to be introduced to - shallow water fishing of Clear Lake and the Delta and the clear, deep water fishing of the desert lakes and a lot of the other man-made lakes like Oroville, Pedro Shasta New Melones. So, that’s kind of how I was brought up.
WB: As a co-founder of Major League Fishing (MLF), how do you feel about its evolution?
KLEIN: I’ve been involved in MLF now for 10 years. It is just in its very early stages, but our vision is much grander then where we are today. MLF is on a real steep path to success. The numbers are phenomenal. I feel we have changed the sport of competitive bass fishing, which is what we always wanted to do. We wanted to create a league of professional bass fisherman. It is a game- changer in the industry and I’m pretty excited about being around a bunch of guys that are gosh darn enthusiastic about competitive angling.
WB: What more is to come from MLF?
KLEIN: My vision has always been grand from the conception of the format, from creating the rules to developing the team that we have.
The partnerships that we have with everybody that has contributed to the success of major-league fishing this has truly been a team effort.
I had the format in my head for a long, long time.
The other part of what we are doing cannot be successful without a powerful team behind us. We
have the strongest most powerful team assembled
that I have ever seen in the fishing
industry and it’s
pretty extraordinary and to think that it all came from a conversation that Boyd Duckett and I had in the parking lot at the 2009 Bassmaster Classic in Shreveport, La.
It was just a couple of guys talking fishing, trying to come up with a better deal and today that conversation continues. It’s never changed. We have never wavered, and we have stayed the course since 2009.
I know Boyd has said it in many interviews and I have said it in many interviews – this is just the beginning of a lot more to come. We are already several years ahead of ourselves in our planning stages. It just takes time because what we are doing is not an overnight deal. We are creating a league and a sport that will be around forever.
WB: What gave you the guts to take a run at the big guys this past year?
KLEIN: We have never made a decision to take on anybody. What we have done is just stayed our course, stayed on our path, stayed focus on what we are about. We were never in competition with anybody.
Yes, we are competing in the space, for the same dollars; so, there is competition there, but then also with the real expansion of the sport, we are also bringing new dollars into the space. These new sponsors that have never been introduced to competitive angling. And that is the true growth. But as far as doing battle, I’ve never looked at it that way.
In September (2018), when we invited our field of anglers. It was a pretty impressive group and then when we made the announcement of the 80 anglers that we had involved and that was even more impressive.
If anybody on the outside was looking at this and looking at the anglers, they would tell them that we are doing something right.
We did not ask anglers to become a part of MLF as a tournament organization. MLF is not a tournament organization. MLF is a league and we have fishing competitions; but in the future there’s going to be so much more than angling.
When you look at the anglers that decided to put their careers with MLF it says a lot and that is what I am so proud of. We represented to the anglers where we are in
the vision, where we want to go, and we gave
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