Jake Lawrence Wins MLF BPT Stage Four - Chickamauga
Shop Jake's Winning Pattern, Baits & Gear
Unlike the offshore ledge fishing he employed on Chickamauga, Lawrence went shallow on Nickajack to target bass feeding on bluegill in the Mullins Creek area of the lake. To target these bass, he went with a 3/8-ounce Buckeye Lures Buzzerk buzzbait with a Frog Factory Ribbit Frog in American bullfrog on the back. He also utilized a green pumpkin Yamamoto D-Shad or 5-inch Yamamoto Senko. Lawrence targeted roaming fish and some guarding fry during his allotted forward-facing sonar period each day on Nickajack.
"I was using a jerkbait, Big Bite Baits Nekorama on a Neko Rig, and a 3-inch Yamamoto Scope Shad on a 1/4-ounce head," he said. "The key there seemed to be speed. They wanted things working fast, so the Scope Shad on the heavier head allowed me to fish quickly."
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MLF Bass Pro Tour - Stage 4 - Top 10
2nd Place - Jacob Wheeler - 77lb - 15oz - $45,000
Wheeler looked for traditional moving water clues like current seams and breaks from rocks. He caught them on several lures, including two massive Tennessee River smallmouth on a Rapala PXR Jowler 127 in matte shad. That 6-2 and 4-7 came two minutes apart during the morning of the Knockout Round.
Besides the topwater flurry, Wheeler primarily employed a Rapala Crush City Freeloader in electric shad on a 1/4-ounce VMC Hybrid jighead and 1/2-ounce scrounger head.
3rd Place - Cole Floyd - 48lb - 14oz - $35,000
Cole's top baits were all shad imitators: a Strike King Sexy Dawg in bone, a 1/2-ounce white Strike King Thunder Cricket with a Strike King Z-Too as a trailer, and a Strike King Red Eye Shad lipless in the oyster color.
4th Place - Ron Nelson - 42lb - 7oz - $30,000
Nelson kept it simple for baits with a shad colored 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait with a matching Yamamoto Zako as a trailer.
5th Place - Wesley Strader - 37lb - 14oz - $25,000
Strader's primary smallmouth bait was a 5-inch Zoom Winged Fluke in Tennessee Shad on a 1/8-ounce Big Daddy's Baits Spotlighter Tungsten jighead. For the largemouth, it was a green pumpkin 3/8-ounce Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait with a Zoom Z-Craw Jr. in tilapia on the back. Strader also caught fish in the grass on a redbug Zoom Mag Ultravibe Speed Worm rigged on a 3/0 TroKar TK130 hook with a 1/16- or 1/4-ounce Epic Baits Tungsten weight depending on the depth he was fishing.
6th Place - Michael Neal - 37lb - 4oz - $23,000
The first two days, Neal primarily caught them cranking with a SPRO Fat Papa 70 in nasty herring. He also caught some on a 6-inch Roboworm in red crawler on a drop-shot rig. At Nickajack, it was a dirty shad or green pumpkin shad 1/2-ounce vibrating jig with a Big Bite Baits Kamikaze Swimon trailer.
7th Place - Matt Becker - 29lb - 9oz - $22,000
Matt Becker, another Chickamauga Lake area pro, had limited prior knowledge of Nickajack but spent the final day of practice on the lake. This gave him a clue and two patterns to work with. He caught shallow fish with a bluegill colored OSP Louder popper as well as 5-inch Yamamoto Senko in various green pumpkin and watermelon colors Texas-rigged on a 3/O TroKar Pro-V Worm Hook.
8th Place - Drew Gill - 25lb - 9oz - $21,000
Gill used a Big Bite Baits Nekorama worm in the morning dawn and green pumpkin and rigged it on a drop-shot with a Size 1 Roboworm Rebarb hook and either a 1/8- or 1/4-ounce. A jerkbait also came into play during his forward-facing sonar time.
9th Place - Justin Cooper - 21lb - 12oz - $20,500
Cooper's top bait on Nickajack came on a 1/2-ounce ChatterBomb in the flamingo color with a white Super Shad on the back.
Cooper also employed a Neko Rig with a Cut Tail worm in watermelon candy with red flake rigged on a Size 1 Owner Stinger hook with a 3/32-ounce Epic Tungsten nail weight inserted into the bait.
10th Place - Justin Lucas - 15lb - 8oz - $20,000
Fo Wheeler it was standard Tennessee River ledge fishing, targeting 12 to 18 feet of water with a deep diving crankbait and a Neko Rig. He fished the Neko with a green pumpkin Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Magnum Hit Worm. When he was fishing for bedding fish, it was a wacky-rigged Berkley MaxScent The General in green pumpkin, and I was also throwing a Berkley Powerbait Maxscent Creature Hawg in sprayed grass on a Texas rig.
