If you are a tournament angler, you always get excited about the next couple of months. All of the bass tournament trails start releasing their next year's schedule causing anglers across Texas to pull out their calendar and start looking at dates. Then the same question always comes up...which trails do I fish this year? 2014 has as many choices as we have ever seen in the tournament industry. Some trails have been around for many years while some have come on the scene the past couple of years, but just when we thought the market was saturated, up pops the Platinum Team Trail. Up until now, tournaments have basically been the same format across the board. Most of the team tournament trails have $150 - $280 entry fees. They fish one day, and the team with the heaviest weight wins. The Platinum Team Trail is a format never seen or heard of before on any waters near us. It is designed for the serious fisherman, but welcomes anyone that ponies up the $1,000 entry fee and wants to fish for the big bucks. What makes it even more unique? They limit the field to only 100 teams. Who are these 100 teams? Here is another twist never seen before in tournament fishing. The crew at PTT knew the demand was going to be high for the 100 spots. There are 4 of these tournaments scheduled, so they came up with a unique entry system. They established a call in date of August 1, and if you wanted to enter, you had to be one of the first 100 teams to call in. Here is the catch - you had to commit to fishing all 4 of the scheduled tournaments and pay a deposit. The entry list is published on their website (www.platinumteamtrail.com) under the registration section. You will see guys entered that range from Bassmaster Elite anglers to local recreational fishermen. They all want a piece of the pie in this new tournament format. Where else have you ever only had to beat 99 other teams to win $30,000? As with all other industries in this country, fishing tournaments have to keep up with the times and make changes as they see fit. There is no doubt The Platinum Team Trail has stepped up and is giving the tournament angler something he has never seen before. Will it work? As with anything else, only time will tell, but based on the gossip on the water, it is going to be a big hit with the anglers. *To learn more about The Platinum Team Trail, visit www.platinumteamtrail.com