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MLF BIG-5

MISSOURI’S MACY WINS PHOENIX BASS FISHING LEAGUE PRESENTED BY T-H MARINE ALL-AMERICAN ON LAKE HARTWELL PRESENTED BY TINCUP

ANDERSON, S.C. (Nov. 13, 2020) – Boater Chris Macy of Diamond, Missouri, won the 37th annual Phoenix Bass Fishing League presented by T-H Marine All-American on Lake Hartwell presented by TINCUP Friday, bringing a five-bass limit to the scale weighing 13 pounds, 1 ounce. Macy’s three-day total of 15 bass weighing 34-10 was enough to overtake second-place angler Todd Goade of White Pine, Tennessee – who led the event after the second day of competition – by a 2-pound, 4-ounce margin. For the win, Macy earned the top payout of $100,000.

“This is unbelievable – going in to today, I really didn’t think I had a shot at it,” said Macy, who qualified for this tournament through the Bass Fishing League Ozark Division. “I went out this morning and thought that if I could catch 10 pounds, I’d be happy. When you make it to the last day, you kind of look at the payscale and you know that every spot you can hold or move up is another thousand bucks in your pocket. My goal was just to hang in there.

“I stumbled on to something around 1 o’clock this afternoon, and it absolutely went crazy from there,” Macy continued. “On the LiveScope, I would watch my swimbait come across the brush piles and if I could get the fish to follow it, I would kill it and let that swimbait go straight to the bottom. Every one of those fish would nose down on it, and as soon as I popped that swimbait up off the bottom, they would eat it every time.”

Macy said that of the 15 keepers he brought to the weigh-in stage this week, 14 of them came on a Keitech 2.8-inch swimbait in Tennessee Shad and Sexy Shad colors. He credited his electronics as being crucial to his win.

“Every fish that I caught came off of a brush pile,” Macy said. “My Garmin LiveScope was crucial. Every fish that I caught this week, I watched it bite. Most of the water I fished was 20- to 30-feet-deep, and if I could get the fish sitting up on top of the brush piles, it was game on.

“Overall, it has just been a super three days,” Macy went on to say. “I was just so happy to be fishing on the third day of the All-American, and I knew that if I could put a big one in the bag today that anything could happen. When it’s your time, it’s your time and today was just my day.”

The top 10 boaters on Lake Hartwell finished:

            1st:       Chris Macy, Diamond, Mo., 15 bass, 34-10, $100,000
            2nd:      Todd Goade, White Pine, Tenn., 15 bass, 32-6, $20,000
            3rd:       Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio, 15 bass, 31-11, $15,000
            4th:       Jayme Rampey, Liberty, S.C., 15 bass, 31-7, $21,000
            5th:       Bryan Dowdy, Florence, Ala., 15 bass, 30-7, $18,000
            6th:       Roger Fitzpatrick, Eldon, Mo., 15 bass, 28-1, $12,000
            7th:       Randall Allen, Owens Cross Roads, Ala., 15 bass, 27-11, $12,000
            8th:       Kip Carter, Mansfield, Ga., 15 bass, 27-11, $10,000
            9th:       Dustin Lippe, Lampe, Mo., 12 bass, 25-11, $9,000
            10th:     Dennis Berhorst, Holts Summit, Mo., 13 bass, 23-11, $8,000

Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.

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Overall, there were 45 bass weighing 77 pounds, 5 ounces, caught by the final 10 boaters Friday. The catch included eight five-bass limits.

Justin Kimmel of Athens, Georgia, won the co-angler division and $50,000 Friday with a three-day total of 14 bass weighing 26 pounds, 9 ounces, followed by Larry Rothweil of Saint Charles, Missouri, in second place with 12 bass weighing 22-2, good for $10,000.

The top 10 co-anglers finished:

            1st:       Justin Kimmel, Athens, Ga., 14 bass, 26-9, $50,000
            2nd:      Larry Rothweil, St. Charles, Mo., 12 bass, 22-2, $10,000
            3rd:       Kibbee McCoy, Knoxville, Tenn., 12 bass, 19-14, $6,000
            4th:       David Blankinship, Cushing, Okla., 13 bass, 19-6, $5,000
            5th:       Dalton Steele, Cherokee, Ala., 10 bass, 18-5, $4,500
            6th:       Cole Sands, Calhoun, Tenn., 12 bass, 17-11, $4,000
            7th:       Andrew Wiley, Joppa, Md., 13 bass, 17-7, $3,500
            8th:       Leo Reiter, Greenup, Ill., 13 bass, 16-13, $3,000
            9th:       Jeff Rikard, Leesville, S.C., 11 bass, 16-2, $3,000
            10th:     Kerry Harris, Bethel Island, Calif., 11 bass, 16-1, $2,000

Overall, there were 30 bass weighing 40 pounds, 6 ounces, caught by the final 10 co-anglers Friday. The catch included two five-bass limits.

In addition to the cash payouts, the highest-finishing boater and co-angler from each of six Regional Championships, the Wild Card Championship and The Bass Federation (TBF) National Championship at the All-American now advance to the 2020 Toyota Series Championship next month on Lake Cumberland for a shot at winning $235,000 and $33,500, respectively.

The eight boaters and co-anglers that now advance to the 2020 Toyota Series Championship are:

Region 1 (Lake Hartwell) Boater Champion: Todd Goade, White Pine, Tenn.
Region 2 (Lake Seminole) Boater Champion: Randall Allen, Owens Cross Roads, Ala.
Region 3 (Kentucky-Barkley lakes) Boater Champion: Kerry Frey, Middlebury, Ind.
Region 4 (Potomac River) Boater Champion: Bradford Beavers, Summerville, S.C.
Region 5 (Lake Guntersville) Boater Champion: Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio
Region 6 (Grand Lake) Boater Champion: Chris Macy, Diamond, Mo.
WildCard (Kentucky Lake) Boater Champion: Bryan Dowdy, Florence, Ala.
TBF (Kentucky Lake) Boater Champion: Blake Wilson, Benton, Ark.

Region 1 (Lake Hartwell) Boater Champion: Justin Kimmel, Athens, Ga.
Region 2 (Lake Seminole) Boater Champion: Jeff Rikard, Leesville, S.C.
Region 3 (Kentucky-Barkley lakes) Boater Champion: David Blankinship, Cushing, Okla.
Region 4 (Potomac River) Boater Champion: Mark Blankenship, Christiansburg, Va.
Region 5 (Lake Guntersville) Boater Champion: Dalton Steele, Cherokee, Ala.
Region 6 (Grand Lake) Boater Champion: Larry Rothweil, Saint Charles, Mo.
WildCard (Kentucky Lake) Boater Champion: Leo Reiter, Greenup, Ill.
TBF (Kentucky Lake) Boater Champion: Andrew Wiley, Joppa, Md.

Hosted by Visit Anderson, the 2020 Phoenix Bass Fishing League presented by T-H Marine All-American on Lake Hartwell presented by TINCUP featured a field of the top 55 boaters and 55 co-anglers from across the 24-division Bass Fishing League, TBF, Abu Garcia College Fishing presented by YETI and High School Fishing presented by Favorite Fishing.

Television coverage of the 2020 Phoenix Bass Fishing League presented by T-H Marine All-American presented by TINCUP will premiere Jan. 2, 2021, on the Outdoor Channel, Jan. 4, 2021, on the World Fishing Network and be featured in the FLW television series on YouTube.com/FLWFishing. FLW television is also distributed internationally to FLW partner countries, including Canada, China, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Namibia, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Zimbabwe.

Categories
Major League Fishing - Bass Pro Tour/Cup Events

Jordan Lee Wins 2020 General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops – Alabama Superstar Catches 2-Pounder in Final Minutes to Overtake Casey Ashley in Dramatic Finale, Earns Johnny Morris Award and Top Payout of $100,000

GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. (Nov. 16, 2020) – The 29-year-old Alabama superstar did it again. Major League Fishing (MLF) pro Jordan Lee of Cullman, Alabama, caught 37 bass totaling 69 pounds, 4 ounces, to narrowly edge out South Carolina’s Casey Ashley and win the 2020 General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops in Grand Rapids, Minnesota and the top prize of $100,000.

It was a nail-biting finale that came down to the wire in the final day Championship Round that aired Saturday on Discovery. Lee caught his last fish – a 2-pound, 2-ounce largemouth – with just 14 minutes to spare in the final period, overtaking Ashley, who had put together a frantic 17 bass third-period rally to move to the top of the leaderboard. Lee’s last fish came on a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent The General worm.

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“Oh man, what a feeling,” said Lee, who was the 2020 Bass Pro Tour Angler of the Year, winner of the inaugural Heavy Hitters tournament in February, and now the 2020 General Tire World Champion. “Casey was just killing it right there at the end. It seemed like every time I caught one, he would catch two. It was gut-wrenching. I was listening to him bumping up the SCORETRACKER® and he just kept coming and I couldn’t do anything about it. I just had to keep my head down and focus on every single bite. That last fish turned out to be the difference maker. We fished all day long and I won by less than a pound. Unreal.”

Lee started out his day on Spider Lake targeting largemouth with a vibrating jig and a swimjig, before mixing in a frog and eventually the Berkley The General worm (black and black-and-blue) as the day progressed. He keyed on the shallow reeds and lily pads on the 1,392-acre lake.

“It was mostly a fun day of flipping and frogging, and that is what I love to do,” Lee said. “I mixed up a couple of different baits to start with, but the swim jig really got me started. It clued me in that the fish were around the reeds and the pads, and then I started catching some good ones.”

Lee led after Period 1 of competition and had a near 20-pound lead into Period 2 before his bite slowed in Period 3. Meanwhile, Ashley’s pattern caught fire. Ashley took the lead with 40 minutes remaining in the event, and the two anglers battled back and forth before Lee’s last-minute heroics clinched the victory.

“We were so close, I pretty much knew that whoever caught the last scorable bass was going to win,” said Lee. “As the clock ticked down, I kept expecting my boat official to tell me that Casey had caught one at the very end to take it, but luckily for me that didn’t happen.

“To win this event is just the best feeling in the world,” Lee went on to say. “MLF puts us out in the middle of nowhere – down dirt roads, places we’ve never fished before. I love that part of this game. It’s a level playing field, and to come away with a win against this bunch of guys – they’re the best in the world. This has been a special, special week. Nothing comes easy in this sport and I don’t take it for granted. I’ve had a great year. I’m fishing with confidence and I hope I can keep the good vibes going next season.”

The final six anglers at the 2020 General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops in Grand Rapids, Minnesota finished:

                1st:          Jordan Lee of Cullman, Ala., 37 bass, 69-4
                2nd:         Casey Ashley of Donalds, S.C., 35 bass, 68-5
                3rd:         Edwin Evers of Talala, Okla., 28 bass, 48-2
                4th:         Takahiro Omori of Tokyo, Japan, 29 bass, 46-10
                5th:         Jacob Powroznik of Prince George, Va., 20 bass, 43-6
                6th:         Cody Meyer of Star, Idaho, 10 bass, 21-10

Complete results and photos from the event can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Meyer caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a 5-pound, 2-ounce largemouth at the end of Period One that came on an unnamed finesse worm.

Overall, there were 159 bass weighing 297 pounds, 5 ounces caught by the final six pros during the Championship Round of competition on Spider Lake.

The 2020 General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops was hosted by Visit Grand Rapids and premiered on the Discovery Channel as six, two-hour original episodes debuting on Oct. 10, 2020, and running through Nov. 14, 2020. The event, shot over six days in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, showcased 16 MLF pro anglers culminating the 2020 Cup season and competing for the top prize of $100,000.

Categories
Uncategorized

Powroznik Wins Sudden Death Round at General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops

GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. (Nov. 9, 2020) – Major League Fishing (MLF) pro Jacob Powroznik of Prince George, Virginia, caught a 1-pound, 6-ounce smallmouth bass at 11:20 a.m. – his ninth smallmouth of the day – to cross the 20-pound qualifying weight threshold on Turtle Lake and become the first angler to advance to the final day Championship Round at the General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Joining Powroznik will be the 2019 Angler of the Year (AOY) and REDCREST champion Edwin Evers, Casey Ashley, Takahiro Omori, Cody Meyer and Jordan Lee. The final day Championship Round episode premieres this Saturday, Nov. 14, from 7 to 9 a.m. EST, on Discovery.

“During the ride around I was looking and I found one kind of high shoal out in the middle of the lake that had three buoys on it that said ‘ROCK’,” Powroznik said in his post-game press conference. “I know that smallmouth love rock, so I kind of idled around it and I marked a couple of fish on my side scan. I thought it looked good, so I figured I’d fish around it and see if I could figure out what was going on. I ended up catching one on my very first cast, and it was on.

“I threw a little drop-shot worm, in smoke and green-pumpkin, but it really didn’t matter the color,” Powroznik continued. “The smallmouth were very active and if you put any bait in front of them they were going to bite it.”

Despite his fast start and finishing before noon, Powroznik said that he still felt the pressure of the Sudden Death Round.

“The first one and the last one are always the hardest fish to catch in Sudden Death,” Powroznik said. “I had 19-2 or something like that for a while, and I’m just thinking, ‘Come on… one more bite. And don’t lose it…’. It’s the highest of highs at that moment, but the stress level right then is out of this world. Your heart is racing, you’re breathing heavy. Everything is weighing on your shoulders to try to catch one more fish. I was nervous, but I had a pretty good lead so I wasn’t freaking out too bad.”

With just one round to go before the champion is crowned, Powroznik is now ready for his opportunity to take home the Johnny Morris award trophy and the top prize of $100,000.

“It would be unbelievable to win – I’d love to take that trophy back home with me to Virginia,” Powroznik went on to say. “It would make my 22-hour drive back to Prince George so much better.”

The first six anglers that reached the 20-pound Qualifying Weight on Turtle Lake and now advance to the Championship Round finale on Spider Lake are:

                1st (11:20am): Jacob Powroznik of Prince George, Va., nine bass, 20-8
                2nd (11:42am): Edwin Evers of Talala, Okla., 15 bass, 21-5                3rd (1:46pm): Casey Ashley of Donalds, S.C., nine bass, 20-1
                4th (2:07pm): Takahiro Omori of Tokyo, Japan, 13 bass, 20-6
                5th (2:35pm): Cody Meyer of Star, Idaho, 11 bass, 20-11
                6th (2:57pm): Jordan Lee of Cullman, Ala., nine bass, 22-1

Eliminated from competition in the 2020 General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops were:

                7th:         Andy Montgomery of Blacksburg, S.C., 10 bass, 16-15
                8th:         Jeff Sprague of Point, Texas, eight bass, 16-5

Complete results and photos from the day can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

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Lee caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a 4-pound, 3-ounce smallmouth that came offshore on a worm.

Overall, there were 84 bass weighing 158 pounds, 4 ounces caught by the eight pros on the day five Sudden Death Round of competition on Turtle Lake.

The 2020 Major League Fishing General Tire World Championship in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, is hosted by Visit Grand Rapids.

In MLF General Tire World Championship competition, the full field of 16 pro anglers was split into two groups of eight – Group 1 competed in Shotgun Round 1, Group 2 in Shotgun Round 2, with the winners of each day advancing directly to the Sudden Death Round. The remaining seven anglers from each group carried their total weight on to the Elimination Round. The three anglers from each group’s Elimination Round with the highest cumulative two-day weight advanced to the Sudden Death Round – eight anglers total.

During the Sudden Death round, the eight anglers that advanced from the Shotgun and Elimination Rounds competed to become one of the first six to reach a qualifying weight – determined by MLF officials. Now the top six anglers advance to the final day Championship Round – where weights are zeroed and the highest total weight at the end of competition wins and will be declared World Champion.

Next week’s finale episode of the General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops will feature the final six anglers competing in the Championship Round on Spider Lake in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

The General Tire World Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops, hosted by Visit Grand Rapids, airs on the Discovery Channel as six, two-hour original episodes each Saturday morning running through Nov. 14, airing from 7 to 9 a.m. EDT. The full television schedule can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com/tv-schedule.

Categories
BASSMASTER Elite Series/Opens

South Carolina’s Walters Takes Dominant Win On Lake Fork – Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest

QUITMAN, Texas — A late-day decision turned victory into a double-dip of tournament stardom, as Patrick Walters of Summerville, S.C., notched a dominant win at the Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest benefiting Texas Parks & Wildlife Department with a four-day total weight of 104 pounds, 12 ounces.

Walters placed second on Day 1 with 25-14 and took over the Day 2 lead by adding 26-14. On Semifinal Saturday, his limit of 29-6 — the event’s biggest catch — sent him into Championship Sunday with a 25-pound lead.

Today’s limit of 22-10 allowed him to surge across the finish line and secure his spot in the Century Club, which recognizes an angler for catching 100 pounds of fish in a four-day event. Walters won with an all-time Bassmaster Elite record margin of 29-10.

“What a week; it doesn’t seem real,” Walters said. “Everyone wants to catch 100 pounds, and it feels good.”

While his victory was never in serious jeopardy today, Walters found himself a couple pounds shy of his second objective with time running out. A 15-minute flurry in his last hour of fishing delivered three fish that elevated him well past the century mark.

Walters attributes his closing success to a gutsy relocation. All week, he had been targeting suspended bass amid main-lake standing timber in 10 to 20 feet. When he realized his spots weren’t firing, he moved to a small pocket and caught his final three fish around stumps in less than 5 feet of water.

“On Day 2, I caught a 4- and a 5-pounder in there, but I didn’t go back in there on Day 3; I said, ‘I’m going to save it,’” Walters said. “I think it was the wind. We’ve had the same direction wind the last three days and it has blown directly into that pocket.

“All the bait is in there and every single day, it has gotten more loaded. Today, my fish in the treetops would not eat my bait. They’d chase it for 40 to 50 feet and wouldn’t commit.”

Walters’ analysis was more than speculation. All week, he relied heavily on his Garmin LiveScope to monitor fish positioning and adjust his retrieves in an effort to trigger bites.

“I could tell something was not right; they were not eating it,” Walters said. “I said, ‘I gotta leave. I gotta go shallow.’

“I knew I needed 10 pounds to safely win, but I knew I needed 18 pounds to get to the Century Club and that was the goal today; to go get that belt.”

Walters caught his fish on a trio of jerkbaits; a Rapala Shadow Rap, a Megabass Vision 110+1 and a Duo Realis bait. Varying the selection and trying different colors was essential to bite generation.

Walters said he was very particular about the standing timber he targeted. Recognizing when and where fish were positioning to feed was the cornerstone of his pattern. Realizing that the plan was starting to fizzle proved stressful today, but Walters said he focused on maintaining faith in Lake Fork’s potential.

“All year long, it’s been about staying calm and know that it can happen in five casts. Don’t spin out. Stay calm, keep your head in the game and fish 8 hours.”

Keith Combs of Huntington, Texas, finished second with 75-2. A limit of 11-7 on Day 1 left him in 39th place, but Combs added 23-14 on Day 2 and rose to 11th. Catching 21-12 on Saturday, he moved up to third before finishing with 18-1 today.

Most of the week, Combs has fished big ridges with a chartreuse/blue Strike King 6XD. Today, that pattern produced three of his best fish and the other two he caught on a shad color shallow running crankbait fished over a shallow bar.

“Another angler had been starting on that shallow spot; I would start on another spot and then hit that spot second but I’d never catch them,” Combs said. “Today, he didn’t make the cut, so I went there first.”

Jay Yelas of Lincoln City, Ore., placed third with 69-14. Sticking with the pattern that has served him all week, he ran upriver and caught limits of 19-2, 19-2, 14-7 and 17-3 around shallow wood.

“I had a few different special spots; some were docks, some were stumps, one was an isolated laydown,” Yelas said. “Every day, I’d go back and fish these same targets. I cycled through them all four days.

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“Today, I started on that laydown and caught one. I came back at noon and caught one, came back at 2:30 and caught a 6-pounder. I’d caught six or seven fish off that tree the first three days.”

Noting that this spot had a large amount of shad, Yelas said he quickly realized he could leverage this feeding spot each day. He caught his fish on an MGC Tackle spinnerbait with a chartreuse/white skirt and a 3/8-ounce white/chartreuse Z-Man ChatterBait JackHammer with a white Yamamoto Zako trailer.

Clark Wendlandt of Leander, Texas, won the Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year title with 680 points, while David Mullins of Mt. Carmel, Tenn., finished second with 677. Walters was third with 669, Brock Mosley of Collinsville, Miss., was fourth with 669 and Jake Whitaker of Fairview, N.C., was fifth with 663.

Austin Felix of Eden Prairie, Minn., won the Bassmaster Elite Series Rookie of the Year title.

Seth Feider of New Market, Minn., won the Toyota Tundra Big Bass award of a Toyota Tundra with his 9-9.

Combs also took home $3,000 for being the highest-placing entrant in the Toyota Bonus Bucks program, and Mosley earned $2,000 for being the second-highest placing entrant.

Categories
MLF BIG-5

Poche Wins Toyota Series Event on Lake Seminole – Alabama Pro Wins by Nine Ounces to Take Home $31,960

BAINBRIDGE, Ga. (Nov. 8, 2020) – Major League Fishing (MLF) pro Keith Poche of Pike Road, Alabama, brought a five-bass limit to the scale Saturday weighing 15 pounds, 6 ounces to win the three-day Toyota Series at Lake Seminole tournament in Bainbridge, Georgia. Poche’s three-day total of 15 bass weighing 46-6 earned him the win by a 9-ounce margin over second-place angler Mikey Keyso, Jr. of North Port, Florida, and earned Poche the top payout of $31,960 in the third and final regular-season tournament of the 2020 Toyota Series Southern Division.

“I love fishing Lake Seminole and I especially like running up the Flint River in those shoals and catching shoal bass,” Poche said. “I’ve got a 17-foot, 6-inch flat-bottom aluminum boat I use just for fishing such rivers in the southeast, but I only looked into fishing this tournament earlier this week, so I’m shocked at pulling the win.”

As a fulltime professional angler on the MLF Bass Pro Tour, Poche is no stranger to big time bass fishing events. Poche said what stunned him, however, was he had no intention of even fishing the Toyota Series on Seminole until Tuesday of last week. In fact, other than a few Phoenix Bass Fishing League events early in his career, and the recent Tackle Warehouse  Pro Circuit Super Tournaments, Poche had never fished either a Pro Circuit or a Toyota Series event.

Poche said he ran as far as nearly Newton, Georgia, on the first day of the event, but found the Flint to be higher and dirtier than he would like for shoal bass.

 “I realized pretty quickly that because of the fast current, it was a total reaction bite,” Poche said. “I opted to drift down the river with the current, pitching a Berkley PowerBait Pit Boss in green pumpkin, teamed with a 3/8-ounce weight, tied to Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon to any current breaks caused by bank cuts, cypress trees, logs or rocks. The fish were holed up in the current breaks and they would bite as soon as it hit the water and started to fall.”

On day one, Poche weighed in all largemouths for 17 pounds, 14 ounces and settled in third place, behind Jared McMillan and Jason Smith. 

On day two, Poche ran some 35 to 40 miles up the river again, but said his quick pitch program died.

“I went like 3 hours without catching one,” he said. “So I changed up a little bit and started throwing a 3/8-ounce Humdinger Spinnerbait to main river rocks breaking current. That produced a couple of keeper shoal bass.”

Poche said he only had three bass in his livewell when he got back down towards Bainbridge. Needing to make something happen, he bumped over a shallow sandbar to access a backwater slough. Once in the slough, he caught a 4-pound largemouth and a couple more keepers on the spinnerbait.

“Looking back on the tournament, that 4-pounder on Friday is probably what won the tournament for me,” he recalled. “I had struggled all day and that one saved me.”

Poche started the final day some 6 pounds behind the leader and headed far north on the Flint again.

“It was sort of like day one again,” he said. “They were biting the Pit Boss as soon as it hit the water. I started to catch some better ones as the day went on and even added a nice shoal bass to top off my limit. By the end of the day, I was knocking on the door of the 15-pound range.”

Poche said it wasn’t until the final fish was weighed that he learned most of the top-10 had struggled and his consistent limits each day put him on top.

“I was happy to have made the top 10 and fish up there another day,” Poche said. “I figured I might stay in the top five with my catch and get a decent check for the week. But to win this thing? Man, I’m still a little shocked. It’s crazy how it all worked out.”

The top 10 pros on Lake Seminole finished:

            1st:       Keith Poche of Pike Road, Ala., 15 bass, 46-6, $31,960

            2nd:      Mikey Keyso, Jr. of North Port, Fla., 15 bass, 45-9, $12,191

            3rd:       Bryan New of Belmont, N.C., 15 bass, 44-11, $9,438

            4th:       Jared McMillan of Belle Glade, Fla., 15 bass, 44-7, $7,865

            5th:       Dillon McMillan of Belle Glade, Fla., 15 bass, 43-0, $7,179

            6th:       Jim Murray, Jr., Leesburg, Ga., 15 bass, 42-9, $6,292

            7th:       Jason S. Smith of Dawson, Ga., 13 bass, 35-14, $5,505

            8th:       Santos Solis of Vero Beach, Fla., 13 bass, 34-3, $5,719

            9th:       Gary Milicevic of Labelle, Fla., 11 bass, 32-14, $3,932

            10th:     Corey Smith of Clermont, Fla., 10 bass, 29-2, $3,247

A complete list of results can be found at FLWFishing.com.

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Solis took home an extra $1,000 as the highest finishing FLW PHOENIX BONUS member. Boaters are eligible to win up to an extra $35,000 per event in each Toyota Series tournament if all requirements are met. More information on the FLW PHOENIX BONUS contingency program can be found at PhoenixBassBoats.com.

Ricky Grant of Inverness, Florida, won the Co-angler Division Saturday with a three-day total of 14 bass weighing 33 pounds even. Grant took home the top prize package of a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower outboard motor.

The top 10 co-anglers on Lake Seminole finished:

            1st:       Ricky Grant of Inverness, Fla., 14 bass, 33-0, Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat w/115-hp outboard

            2nd:      Spencer Howerton of Melbourne Beach, Fla., 11 bass, 27-9, $3,983

            3rd:       J.P. Sims of Port St. Lucie, Fla., 12 bass, 24-2, $3,186

            4th:       Wyatt Frankens of Corrigan, Texas, nine bass, 23-0, $2,788

            5th:       John Riddling of Melrose, Fla., 13 bass, 22-13, $2,390

            6th:       Todd Beaver of Richland, Ga., nine bass, 21-14, $1,991

            7th:       James Brooks of Inverness, Fla., 10 bass, 21-1, $1,593

            8th:       Aaron Gengler of Lakeland, Fla., 13 bass, 20-10, $1,394

            9th:       Dan Ehmen of Rockford, Ill., 10 bass, 19-14, $1,195

            10th:     Blaine Partee of Oviedo, Fla., eight bass, 16-14, $996

The Toyota Series at Lake Seminole was hosted by the Bainbridge Convention and Visitors Bureau. It was the third and final tournament in 2020 for Southern Division anglers. The next event for Toyota Series anglers will take place on Dec. 3-5 – the 2020 Toyota Series Championship at Lake Cumberland in Burnside, Kentucky. For a complete schedule, visit FLWFishing.com.

The 2020 Toyota Series consists of eight divisions – Central, Eastern, Northern, Plains, Southeastern, Southern, Southwestern and Western – each holding three regular-season events, along with the International division. Anglers who fish all three qualifiers in any of the eight divisions and finish in the top 25 will qualify for the no-entry-fee Toyota Series Championship for a shot at winning $235,000 cash, including a $35,000 FLW PHOENIX Bonus for qualified anglers. The winning co-angler at the championship earns a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower outboard. The 2020 Toyota Series Championship will be held Dec. 3-5 on Lake Cumberland in Burnside, Kentucky, and is hosted by the Somerset Tourist & Convention Commission and the Burnside Tourism Commission.