Special Feature: By Jody White
Last fall, Drew Gill passed $1 million in earnings to supplant Michael Bennett as the youngest bass-fishing millionaire with MLF/FLW. He’s now been passed for the record by Banks Shaw, who hit the $1 million mark when he finished third in Stop 6 Presented by VOSKER at Lake Champlain, and also banked $50,000 for his 7 Brew Angler of the Year win. Just five months younger than Gill was when he set the bar, Shaw is in the midst of his second truly superb year in a row, still taking classes at the University of North Alabama, and he shows no signs of slowing down.
Youngest anglers to reach $1 million in career earnings with MLF
- Banks Shaw, 23 years old
- Drew Gill, 23
- Michael Bennett, 24
- Jacob Wheeler, 25
- David Dudley, 26
- Michael Neal, 29
- Luke Clausen, 30
- Dakota Ebare, 30
- Anthony Gagliardi, 31
- Brent Ehrler, 32
For the time being, Shaw has probably set the age bar as low as it can reasonably go – he’s won $100,000 or more four times in under two years now. Still, Jack Story just won $100,000 and became the youngest Phoenix Bass Fishing League All-American champion at 18 years old. Depending on what Story does the next few years, he’s got about as good a start as it’s possible to have.
In all likelihood, we’ll be talking about the Banks Shaw era decades from now, as the stats he’s piled up the last few years are truly incredible. This year alone, before any post-season events, Shaw has won $608,740, which is the seventh-most lucrative season on record with MLF or FLW. The only season ahead of him, without a Forrest Wood Cup win, was David Dudley’s 2002 campaign, when he won the Ranger M1 for $700,000 , which was “the single largest tournament check ever handed out in the history of professional bass fishing” at the time.
The impossible continues to come easy for Shaw
To say that Shaw isn’t putting in the work to have success would be ridiculous, as the hours he puts on motors and his time on the water are the stuff of legends. But, since embarking on national trails – on the Invitationals in 2025 and the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit and Bass Pro Tour in 2026 – he’s made success look far easier than it typically is. When Shaw says he’s on Top 10 fish, he makes the Top 10, and if he thinks he could win, you’d better watch out.
“Three years ago, I won a Toyota Series, but most of my damage, it hasn’t even been two years yet,” Shaw said. “It’s crazy how quick it happened. I’m about to sign up for classes this fall, and hopefully polish off a degree in two more semesters. For it to happen that quick, it doesn’t feel real at all.”
Shaw’s pursuit of the $1 million mark was on the table for 2026, but he hardly considered it seriously, and it wasn’t the season goal when he launched his boat at Guntersville in January for the first Bass Pro Tour event of the season.
“I was joking around with some of my buddies about what if I hit a million dollars,” he said. “I knew I would have to do even better than last year. I didn’t think I was really going to have a chance to do it, but now that we’re here, it’s something that makes you feel pretty good. I thought I would have to win one of the bigger tournaments towards the fall, I didn’t think it was going to happen this soon.”
This fall continues to hold some serious potential for Shaw, but having banked more than $500,000 in the BPT and Pro Circuit regular seasons, he’ll be gliding into it with only self-inflicted pressure.
“If I could do this for another 15 or 20 years, we’d be just fine; I’d never have to make a cast again,” he said. “To have two years like I’ve had for multiple, multiple years is kind of unheard of. I’m going to continue to raise the bar, but it gets to the point where you can’t top a season. But, I’m going to keep raising the goal.”
Shaw doesn’t plan to slow down
Though he does like the idea of the “Shaw Show” for a future outside of tournament fishing, for the time being, he’s as focused as he’s ever been on casting for cash. With a very full schedule, he’s taking full advantage of online classes and the unique number of opportunities to fish for big money that MLF presents.
“I’m definitely going to do it ‘till I can’t,” Shaw said. “I like it too much. I’ll fish four or five tournaments in a row and want to take it easy, and then I’ll sit at the house for a day and want to go fishin’. When I go out fun fishing and find something, I’m like ‘Gosh, I wish I was in a tournament.’ I love tournament fishing; I don’t think I’m going to get tired of it anytime soon.”
Shaw’s secret has been that he’s able to beat people doing basically anything. A superlative offshore angler, he mastered dice baits and urchin baits ahead of the crowd, and this year he’s weighed fish on everything from minnows to ChatterBaits and football jigs.
But, he thinks there’s room to improve, and two bad finishes on the BPT in Texas proved that he’s not entirely unbeatable.
“I feel super comfortable with about every technique out there – I’m comfortable no matter what I pick up and go do,” Shaw said. “I could get better at adjusting; I’m really good at it, but I feel like you can always do better. I still feel like I can do better at the on-the-fly adjustments during a tournament.
“I definitely learned a lot from those two bad ones,” he added. “I made super small mistakes, and didn’t adjust in time and got behind the fish. Then, I went and tried to look for something a lot better than what I had, and should have stuck with what I knew, and got the bites I could have. It wasn’t enough to win, but I wanted to stumble on something that would be good enough to win. I took the gamble, and looked for more than what I should have.”
This fall, with the Pro Circuit Championship, the Toyota Series Championship and World Bass Enterprises’ The Champions, he has a chance to wrap up the year in suitably incredible style.
“The rest of the season, all I’m looking forward to is the World Bass Enterprises’ The Champions,” Shaw said. “It’s such an important tournament, and there are only 50 guys in it, and it’s worth a ton of money.”
Of course, he also figures to be hard to handle in the last big event of the year, on Pickwick in November.
“My second focus is that Toyota Series Championship,” he said. “It’s on my second home lake, I’ve spent a ton of time out there that time of year, and man, I think I could have a really, really good shot at winning that tournament. I know exactly what it’ll probably be won doing – I think I’ll have a good shot. And, that’s a super big tournament; you don’t fish for $200,000 very often.”
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About Major League Fishing (MLF)
Major League Fishing is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, producing more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America’s living rooms on CBS, Discovery, Outdoor Channel, VICE, World Fishing Network, RFD-TV, Game & Fish TV and Rumble, and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world’s top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 20 countries. Since its founding in 2011, MLF has advanced the sport of competitive fishing through its premier television broadcasts and livestreams and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.
