Alabama Bass Trail Logo

The Alabama Bass Trail (ABT) is a statewide tourism, conservation, and education initiative. Consisting of 13 lakes across the state of Alabama, the Alabama Bass Trail is a cooperative effort between the governor’s office, the Alabama Tourism Department (ATD), the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR), and the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association (AMLA). The ABT is led by one director, two tournament directors, and a board of directors comprised of seven individuals. Major funding for the ABT and the tournament series comes from both state and private entities. ABT’s mission is to promote Alabama as a year-round fishing destination to help increase the number of anglers visiting the state’s lakes. The ABT Tournament Series and the ABT 100 series are team competitions that focus on a five-fish limit for bass. All fish must meet a minimum length requirement to be weighed in. Those lengths vary from lake to lake. There are penalties for fish that don’t meet that minimum length and penalties for weighing in a dead fish.

Alabama Bass Trail Event

Alabama’s mild climate and numerous lakes inhabited by bass and other game fish make the state an ideal site for such a trail. Additionally, most of Alabama’s lakes have marinas and boat ramps. After the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.) moved its headquarters from Celebration, Florida, back to Alabama in 2011, its leaders approached Gov. Robert Bentley to establish a tourism trail similar to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail that focused on the already strong bass-fishing culture in Alabama. The ABT officially opened in 2012 with 11 lakes: Lake Guntersville, Wheeler Lake, Pickwick Lake, Lewis Smith Lake, Neely Henry Lake, Logan Martin Lake, Lay Lake, Lake Jordan, Alabama River, Lake Eufaula, and the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. Weiss Lake and Lake Martin joined the trail in 2015. Bentley and ATD director Lee Sentell selected AMLA to develop and operate the Alabama Bass Trail in association with B.A.S.S.. In 2013, Bentley, Sentell, ADCNR commissioner Gunter Guy, and ABT program director Kay Donaldson, a staff member at AMLA, held a press conference on the steps of the Capitol in Montgomery to announce the launch of a new team-style tournament series for amateur anglers. In February 2014, the ABT Tournament Series held its first event on Lake Guntersville.

Largemouth Bass

Sanctioned by B.A.S.S., the ABT Tournament Series features two divisions: North and South. Each division is made up of five tournaments, each with a $15,000 first-place prize and 40 other paid placements on five different lakes. The maximum number of boats for each tournament is 225. The championship is a 175-boat, two-day event. The 175 boats are comprised of the 10 regular season winners, the top 75 teams in points from both divisions that fished all five events in their respective divisions, along with the top five student teams (12 and up, but not yet in college), top five college teams, and the top five couple’s teams collectively from both divisions that fished all five events in their respective division. 

The first championship tournament occurred in 2014 and took place on Lewis Smith Lake, with the first-place prize being a 2015 Phoenix 619 Pro bass boat and $40,000 in cash and prizes. Today, the championship offers a $100,000 payout with a first-place prize of $50,000. There is also a $5,000 bonus cash prize for Angler of the Year and $2,500 for runner-up Angler of the Year. The ABT 100 Series was added to the tournament in January 2021. Open to professional and amateur anglers, the 100 Series features three tournaments with a maximum of 100 boats for each tournament. Each tournament features a $25,000 guaranteed first-place prize and pays 20 other prizes, including a $1,000 for the heaviest fish. The tournaments are promoted through advertising with three wrapped vehicles that appear throughout the state and at major bass fishing tournaments in the region. The ABT also maintains an informational website and advertises in related print and broadcast media as well as social media.

Lay Lake Fishing

Conservation and education are two additional elements of the ABT’s mission. The Trail partners with the ADCNR and the Alabama Student Angler Bass Fishing Association to educate young men and women about protecting and enhancing Alabama’s natural resources. An annual conservation project at each of the ABT lakes is one of the service projects in which the clubs may participate. In recent years, the ABT has worked with ADCNR and Auburn University to collect gill tissue samples for genetic testing. The organization has also worked with them to provide a sampling of spotted bass and largemouth bass from Lake Neely Henry for genetic testing and has worked with the OGS Tournament organization for three years to tag fish on Lake Martin for their Crank4Bank tagged fish tournament. 

In recent years, bass fishing has brought millions of dollars to Alabama’s economy and supported hundreds of jobs. In 2023, the ABT contracted with the Jacksonville State University Center for Economic Development and Business Research to conduct a third-party economic analysis to explore the economic impact and contributions of the Trail for the 10-year period of 2014-2023. Analysts studied data from 122 tournaments with 9,078 anglers, and the report showed that ABT activities brought in nearly $94.3 million and supported approximately 700 jobs. Participating anglers in the study represented 19 states throughout the eastern half of the United States during this 10-year period.