MADISON, Wis. — In sporting competitions, rules are fundamentally written to keep the game fair and square. The ESPN Great Outdoor Games Freshwater Doubles takes the concept a step farther. The rules are not only intended to be followed. They are to be applied toward striking the gold, silver and bronze medals.

The Freshwater Doubles is a contest melding traditional professional bass and walleye tournaments into one competition. New to the Great Outdoor Games, the event pairs six top BASS pros with their Professional Walleye Trail counterparts. Their mission is to outwit the walleye and bass cohabitating the lakes while leveraging the rules to their favor.

The caveat of the rules is a no-cull stipulation prohibiting athletes from releasing a bass or walleye once placed inside the livewell of the competition boat. The strategic side of the rule is deciding between keeping a newly caught fish or betting on the come and releasing it in favor of landing a bigger prize.

To keep or release? That is the question begging for an answer with each catch. At the end of the day, only three fish of each species can be weighed and all must measure at least 14 inches.

"There are so many more variables to contend with than you have in a standard BASS tournament," notes Shaw Grigsby who along with fellow pro Gary Klein is a defending gold medalist. "Normally, the rules are the least of your worries because they are cut and dry. Here, they are part of every fish that you catch."

As for the catching, reports from the practice rounds indicate that bass are the easier of the two species to catch.

"That makes the walleye a key part of the fishing strategy," predicts Klein. "They are a bonus at this point because they aren't biting as well."

"Everyone will catch bass but the teams catching the walleye will win the gold," adds his partner Perry Good, a veteran PWT angler.

"We could have three good bass in the livewell but still need the three walleyes to make the day," confirms Klein.

Grigsby is paired with National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame inductee Gary Parsons. The BASS pro says the team has set a quota weight for bass while leaving the walleye side of the angling equation open to chance and opportunity.

"We've got a target weight in mind for the bass but the first three caught will be a big key," he says. "We'll need a good size fish to anchor the string and set the course for the remainder of the day."

He continues, "What is really neat about the walleye bite is the fish are everywhere —they can be anywhere from three to thirty feet."

One constant remains regardless of which species bites best. It takes six fish — three of each species — to fill the scorecard.

And that will beg the question over and over again on Friday and Saturday: "To keep or release?"

The competition starts at dawn and concludes at 4:30 p.m. when the scoring begins at the Willow Island venue of the Alliant Energy Center in downtown Madison.