Skeet Reese Wins MLF Bass Pro Tour Stage Six

Jeff Sprague made a furious rally at the end of the Championship Round and nearly caught up to Reese in the closing moments. While he came up short, he secured his 12th Top-10 finish in six seasons on the Bass Pro Tour. His primary bait was a 3/8-ounce green pumpkin swim jig with a sun perch-colored Lake Fork Boot Tail Live Magic Shad. "I threw a swim jig a lot, especially when the tide was lower and you didn't need a bunch of vibration," he said. "My secondary bait was a black-and-blue vibrating jig with the regular Lake Fork Live Magic Shad in the same color."

The last time Nick LeBrun fished the James River, he won a Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit event in 2022. He nearly pulled off another win this time around. LeBrun mixed it up with a 1/4-ounce chrome-and-blue Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap and a 1/2-ounce white-and-chartreuse Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait with a white Yamamoto Zako on the back. He also used a wacky rig as a clean-up bait when the action subsided. Another key was a bone Whopper Plopper 110 that he fished around hard cover. "I was fishing 16-pound Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon for the Rat-L-Trap, which kept that small bait up higher in the water column," he said. "It still casts great but had the power to rip it free from grass. I swapped out the treble hooks for Size 5 Hayabusa TBL 930s on the Rat-L-Trap and added a Hayabusa trailer hook on the Jack Hammer as a stinger."

Bryan Thrift rotated through three different baits throughout the week depending on the cover and tide in his areas. "I fished the Chickahominy mostly and had three main baits," he said. "I was flipping a Texas-rigged worm around and casting a Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait in black and blue when the tide was low. When the tide was higher, I could get bit on a white Damiki Armor Shad swimbait on a 3/0 Owner Flashy Swimmer weighted hook. I was mainly targeting grass lines at both high and low tide."

Neal kept things simple, cranking with a SPRO Little John MD in clear chartreuse and mixing in a Big Bite Baits Scentsation Skinny Stick on a 3/16-ounce Big Bite Baits Limit Maker jighead. "I fished inside the Chick and down on that end because I knew that the tide was going to make things harder to catch fish further up the James," he added. "The shorter tide window would have made that stuff harder to get bites as the tournament went on."

Gerald Spohrer posted his best finish of the season. He kept it simple with a vibrating jig around cypress trees in practice, and then switched to boat docks as the week went on. "It was pretty simple and pretty much 100% on a 1/2-ounce chartreuse-and-white Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait with a white Missile Baits Spunk Shad on the back," he said. "One adjustment I made was switching from 17-pound Seaguar Tatsu, like I always use, to 20-pound test. I had some fish break me off around the pilings and sharp barnacles, so beefing up my line and locking my drag all the way down let me control those fish away from them and land those fish."

Dylan Hays scored his second Top-10 finish of the season after winning the Knockout Round on the James River. His main approach was to chase moving water in and near the Chickahominy River. A 1/2-ounce white Brazalo Custom Lures Strutter bladed jig with a matching Zoom Z-Craw was one of his top producers, and a buzzbait also played a key role. The buzzbait was a Brazalo Custom Lures Bushwacker Pro Elite with a black Zoom Horny Toad on the back. "The buzzbait and bladed jig catch quality fish," he said. "I stuck with those and tried to cover a lot of water while also chasing that low tide bite."

Spencer Shuffield utilized his forward-facing sonar but also mixed in a shallow-water power fishing approach during high tide. During low tide, he leaned on a jerkbait with his Garmin LiveScope. "My main two baits were a ghost pearl shad and black and gold Yo-Zuri 3DB Jerkbait 110, and I was throwing that on 14 and 16-pound Yo-Zuri T7 fluorocarbon," he said. "I did best around isolated pieces of cover and grass clumps where the fish would get sucked out with the low tide. I could still see those fish roaming around in the high tide, but they would suspend and go dormant and wouldn't eat; it was really weird. Then the tide would drop, and they would turn on like their timer turned on and told them to go eat." When the tide was higher, Shuffield was able to catch fish around hard cover with a 3/8-ounce white Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait and a 3/8-ounce BOOYAH Covert Finesse spinnerbait in white and chartreuse with a pearl Zoom Split Tail trailer on the back.

Andy Montgomery secured his first Knockout and Championship Round appearances of the season with the help of a vibrating jig and a creature bait that he pitched to shallow cover. "The 3/8-ounce Strike King Tungsten Thunder Cricket did 90% of the work, both in white and black and blue," Montgomery said. "I used a white Strike King Swim-N-Shiner on the white one and a blue craw Strike King Baby Rage Bug on the black and blue one. I was mainly fishing them around wood cover like laydowns, cypress trees and duck blinds - some in the creeks and some out of them on the Chickahominy." Montgomery also pitched a blue craw Strike King Baby Rage Bug with a 5/16-ounce Strike King Tour Grade tungsten weight and 2/O straight shank hook.

VanDam threw a Rapala DT-6 in citrus shad and a flashy chrome Megabass Vision 110 jerkbait when the fish were active and slowed down with a drop-shot when the fish were less aggressive. His drop-shot bait was a 6-inch Roboworm straight tail worm in margarita mutilator fished with a 1/4-ounce weight and 2/O Mustad Grip-Pin finesse hook. "As the tournament progressed, the drop-shot became the main deal," he said. "The last two days of the tournament, the current was a lot slower, and the tide didn't fall out as quickly, so it didn't set the fish up as well. The main thing all week was fishing somewhere where the water was moving."