Latest news with #Pickwick
Business Wire
09-06-2025
- Sport
- Business Wire
Jacob Wheeler Notches Ninth MLF Bass Pro Tour Win at Lowrance Stage 5 at Kentucky Lake Presented by Mercury
CALVERT CITY, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At each of the past two Bass Pro Tour regular-season events, Jacob Wheeler has finished in second place, one bite short of the win. He fell 2-3 shy of Drew Gill on Lake Murray, then lost a heartbreaker to Jake Lawrence on Chickamauga and Nickajack, when Lawrence caught a 5-9 in the final seconds before lines out. At Lowrance Stage 5 Presented by Mercury on Kentucky Lake, Wheeler made sure no one else even got a chance to steal the trophy. Wheeler rallied after a slow morning and stacked up 110 pounds, 13 ounces on 46 scorable bass during Sunday's Championship Round. He turned what looked like it would be another slugfest with Lawrence, the home-lake favorite, into a rout, topping Lawrence by 32-7. The win is Wheeler's first of 2025 and ninth overall on the Bass Pro Tour, adding to his tour-best trophy count. This one carried special significance, not just because he was able to flip the script and get revenge on Lawrence, but because he grew up traveling to Kentucky Lake to compete in tournaments alongside his father, Curtis, who passed away from cancer in April. 'I just felt like he was with me all week,' Wheeler said through tears shortly after the victory became official. 'It's the first tournament that I've fished on a lake that we fished together, and this one had a lot of meaning to it. Obviously, he was a big part of my life, and I wouldn't be here without him. I just wanted to win it for him.' Link to Hi-Res Photo of Lowrance Stage 5 Presented by Mercury Winner Jacob Wheeler Link to Photo Gallery: Kentucky Lake Delivers During Stage 5 Championship Round Link to Photo Gallery: Championship Round Underway on Kentucky Lake Link to HD Video of Livestream from Day 4 Championship Round Competition Not only did Wheeler take home the trophy and $150,000 top prize at Stage 5, he put himself in an excellent position to win another title (and $100,000 paycheck). Wheeler now has a 38-point lead in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race over Lawrence, who moved up from fourth to second. As long as Wheeler makes the Knockout Round at each of the final two events of the regular season, he's virtually assured of his fourth AOY crown in the past five years. At this point, the better question might not be whether Wheeler will win Angler of the Year but whether he can break his own Bass Pro Tour record. Through five events, he's averaging a finish of 3.2. That's well ahead of the mark he set when he won his second points title in 2022 (5.4) for the best average finish in the seven-year history of the Bass Pro Tour. Given all he's achieved over the past seven years, it's natural to wonder whether the wins still mean as much. Wheeler's reaction after lines out erased any doubt that this victory is special. For one thing, he completed the unofficial Tennessee River Grand Slam – he's now won on Chickamauga, Guntersville, Pickwick and Kentucky. And Kentucky Lake has a particularly special place in Wheeler's heart. Growing up in Indianapolis, it was the closest venue that regularly hosted national-level events, and Wheeler's father drove him to the fishery to compete throughout his teenage years. As focused as he was on earning the win, every time he came across a familiar landmark, Wheeler couldn't help but think back to those times in the boat with his dad. 'I stopped at a point that my dad caught a 6 1/2-pounder on in March in a club tournament in practice just to reminisce,' he said. 'Stuff like that, as you're running down the lake, it just brings back insane memories at such a young age. That's what made it even so much sweeter.' The top 10 pros at the Lowrance Stage 5 Presented by Mercury on Kentucky Lake finished: 1st: Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn. 46 bass, 110-13, $150,000 2nd: Jake Lawrence, Paris, Tenn., 30 bass, 78-6, $45,000 3rd: Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., 32 bass, 69-8, $35,000 4th: Jacob Wall, New Hope, Ala., 27 bass, 62-13, $30,000 5th: John Hunter, Shelbyville, Ky., 26 bass, 62-10, $25,000 6th: Adrian Avena, Vineland, N.J., 22 bass, 53-11, $23,000 7th: Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio, 18 bass, 51-11, $22,000 8th: Spencer Shuffield, Hot Springs, Ark., 16 bass, 44-11, $21,000 9th: Andy Montgomery, Blacksburg, S.C., 16 bass, 35-15, $20,500 10th: Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 12 bass, 29-10, $20,000 A complete list of results can be found at Cole Floyd won the Berkley Big Bass Award Sunday with a 5-pound, 12-ounce largemouth that he caught on a crankbait early in the first period. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day. The four-day tournament, hosted by the Kentucky Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Calloway County Tourism Commission, showcased 66 of the top professional anglers in the world, competing for a purse of $650,000, including a top payout of $150,000 and valuable Angler of the Year (AOY) points in hopes of qualifying for the General Tire Heavy Hitters all-star event and REDCREST 2026, the Bass Pro Tour championship. Television coverage of the Lowrance Stage 5 at Kentucky Lake Presented by Mercury will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Oct. 25 on Discovery, with the Championship Round premiering on Saturday, Nov. 1. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel. The 2025 Bass Pro Tour features a field of 66 of the top professional anglers in the world, competing across seven regular-season tournaments around the country, for millions of dollars and valuable points to qualify for the annual Heavy Hitters all-star event and the REDCREST 2026 championship. Proud sponsors of the 2025 MLF Bass Pro Tour include: 7Brew Coffee, Abu Garcia, Athletic Brewing, Bass Force, B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, E3 Sport Apparel, Fishing Clash, Grizzly, Lowrance, Mercury, MillerTech, Mossy Oak Fishing, NITRO, O'Reilly Auto Parts, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala, Star brite, Suzuki Marine and Toyota. For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the Bass Pro Tour, visit For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF's social media outlets at Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube. Major League Fishing (MLF) is the world's largest tournament-fishing organization, producing more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America's living rooms on CBS, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Channel, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world's top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 20 countries. Since its founding in 2011, MLF has advanced the sport of competitive fishing through its premier television broadcasts and livestreams and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.
NBC Sports
19-02-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Cory Thiesse, Korey Dropkin almost won Olympic curling trials apart. Can they win it together?
In April 2022, Korey Dropkin asked good friend Cory Thiesse to share a drink at Pickwick Restaurant & Pub overlooking the southwest corner of Lake Superior. The setting in Duluth, Minnesota, was fitting for the occasion. Pickwick is owned by retired national champion curlers. Over beverages, Dropkin asked Thiesse: Will you be my mixed doubles curling partner? 'Not to be overly confident by any means, but I thought I had a pretty darn good chance that it was a slam dunk (yes answer),' Dropkin says now. 'Our styles of play match each other very well.' Thiesse was a little bit surprised by his offer. But it quickly made a lot of sense. Thiesse and Dropkin came up through the sport together, albeit playing in separate women's and men's tournaments. Each won their first junior national title in 2012. They got to know each other at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Östersund, Sweden. When Thiesse's women's team played Canada, Dropkin's men's team of five attended with their bodies painted to spell out 'U-S-E-H-?' to lighten the mood. They each won their first senior national title in 2021. Each skipped a runner-up team at the trials for the 2022 Olympics. 'It just seems like we're the perfect fit to be playing mixed doubles together,' Thiesse said. 'We've been friends forever. We get along super well. I guess I'd never really thought about it (playing together), honestly, and after he brought it up, I was kind of like, oh yeah, I think this would actually be really good. Like, let's give it a try.' A year after Pickwick, Thiesse and Dropkin became the first U.S. mixed doubles team to win a world championship. They were the first U.S. curlers in 20 years to win a world title in any event that's on the Olympic program. Olympic men's and women's curling tournaments have been held continuously since 1998. A mixed doubles event was added starting with the 2018 PyeongChang Games. This week's Olympic Mixed Doubles Trials are the first U.S. trials for any sport for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games. The team that wins the tournament in Lafayette, Colorado, on Sunday can later this year clinch their Olympic spot through international competition. Nick Zaccardi, Thiesse and Dropkin, born six months apart in 1994 and 1995, each trace their Olympic curling ambitions to the 2006 Torino Games. Dropkin watched from his family's Massachusetts basement as a group skipped by Pete Fenson became the first American team to win Olympic curling medals (bronze). Thiesse held one of those unique 2006 medals when team member John Shuster came home to Duluth. 'This is somebody from our club, from Minnesota, that went to the Olympics and did this, that's really cool,' Thiesse said. 'Then it started to kind of be more of, I guess, an achievable type dream.' Thiesse later partnered with Shuster in mixed doubles. They were runners-up at the first U.S. Olympic Trials in the event for the 2018 PyeongChang Games. Shuster later skipped the U.S. men's team in South Korea, winning the program's first Olympic title. Thiesse also made it to the 2018 Olympics as an alternate for the women's team. Though alternates are sometimes called up to compete during the Games, an opportunity never arose for Thiesse over that week. 'It just gave me a little bit of a taste of what it could be like,' she said, 'and definitely motivated me to want to go back and actually be playing and be on the ice.' Dropkin was part of men's teams that were runners-up at the Olympic Trials for 2018 and 2022. In fact, his team won the first game of each best-of-three championship series, but each time Shuster's team rallied to take the last two. 'It's gut-wrenching for the most part,' Dropkin said in 2018 of his first Olympic Trials runner-up. 'The most common thing that people say to me is, 'You're still young. You'll have plenty of years.' As true as it is, it's still frustrating because you're given the opportunity just there and then. I don't want to be the future. I want to be the present.' In April 2022, five months after each lost in Olympic Trials finals, Dropkin asked Thiesse to be his mixed doubles partner. Thiesse was technically still partnered with Shuster (a former Pickwick manager) at the time, but it was the offseason and the start of a new Olympic cycle. 'I called John shortly after that, and was kind of like, Korey asked me, I think I want to give it a try,' Thiesse said. "(Shuster) was like, 'You have to. You should do it. All good.'' Team Cory and Korey was born. Thiesse, also a lab technician in mercury analysis, and Dropkin, also a realtor, have since trained together at the Duluth Curling Club. Dropkin has been there since moving from Massachusetts in 2013. For Thiesse, it has long been a second home. 'People have told me stories about me being in my car seat down at the curling club, watching my mom practice,' she said. Now Thiesse and Dropkin practice under a red banner commemorating their title from the 2023 Worlds (where Dropkin's mom also competed in the senior 50-and-older women's division). Dropkin will sometimes pass by Thiesse's backyard — 2.75 miles away — on runs by Lake Superior. 'Our whole goal when we formed this team, three years ago now, was to go to the Olympics in 2026,' Thiesse said.
