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Business Wire
30-06-2025
- Sport
- Business Wire
Ott DeFoe Wins MLF Bass Pro Tour Zenni Stage 6 at Potomac River Presented by Athletic Brewing Company
CHARLES COUNTY, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--After a week that saw Tennessee pro Ott DeFoe near the top of SCORETRACKER® leaderboard every day he was on the water, the Tennessee pro finally shot to the top when it mattered most, taking down the Zenni Stage 6 Presented by Athletic Brewing Company Championship Round for his fourth Bass Pro Tour regular-season win and fifth BPT win overall. With a dominant final-day performance, DeFoe stacked up 32 bass for 78 pounds, 11 ounces to beat his closest pursuer in Ron Nelson of Berrien Springs, Michigan by nearly 27 pounds. Nelson finished as the runner-up, his best finish on the Bass Pro Tour since joining the ranks last season. DeFoe is one of the winningest anglers in Bass Pro Tour history, behind only Jacob Wheeler and Dustin Connell, but this marks his first individual win since Heavy Hitters in 2022. It's his first regular season win since 2021 on Florida's Harris Chain of Lakes. He did it in typical DeFoe fashion, too, escaping the bulk of the 66-angler field and fishing far up a creek in the Potomac River backwaters. "The place where I caught them today was my first stop on the first day of the tournament,' he said. 'I saw them everywhere in practice and knew it had great potential. I had some other places where I could get bites, but with an early boat number on the first day, I had to go and see if I could get there first because it's not a big area." Fishing the same general area as fellow Championship Round qualifier Keith Carson, both got off to fast starts the first day. "[Carson] was in there with me as well, fishing a little different section, but it was a blistering start on the first day for both of us," he said. "I had 40 pounds by noon, but I had a later boat draw the second day, and I drove there and could see some other competitors idling back in there. I opted to turn around and leave and really struggled most of the day and barely made it to the Knockout Round." DeFoe couldn't make any other areas work but caught enough to advance. He was all-in on the area the final two days and took advantage of the tide schedule to get as far back as possible and reach bass in ultra-shallow water during the high tide, catching many of these fish he visually saw cruising due to the clear water. "In practice, the best bite was mid-to-lower part of the outgoing tide when the water was really moving; kind of that mid-tide zone to the bottom end of the tide,' he said. 'That's when the bite made the most sense. We only got that the first day of the tournament, though. The high tide was the best for my deal because I could get so much further back. That was the most productive for me, especially today with how high the tide was during the final days of the tournament." Getting to ultra-shallow water was helped by the tide schedule, and DeFoe believes the recent excessive heat was also a benefit, pushing bass to the shelter in the cooler creeks. "All of the major tributaries have a lot cooler water because it's flowing, and then you have big pad flats and cover going in for bass to relate to," he said. "With the extreme heat we had here, I believe it was a driving factor in why so many bass were up there. It also seemed like new fish were coming every day." The top 10 at the Zenni Stage 6 Presented by Athletic Brewing Company on the Potomac River finished: 1st: Ott DeFoe, Blaine, Tenn., 32 bass, 78-11, $150,000 2nd: Ron Nelson, Berrien Springs, Mich., 23 bass, 51-13, $45,000 3rd: Bradley Roy, Lancaster, Ky., 20 bass, 44-11, $35,000 4th: Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio, 21 bass, 43-11, $30,000 5th: Zack Birge, Blanchard, Okla., 20 bass, 41-9, $25,000 6th: Adrian Avena, Vineland, N.J., 20 bass, 40-12, $23,000 7th: James Elam, Tulsa, Okla., 18 bass, 36-7, $22,000 8th: Keith Poche, Pike Road, Ala., 15 bass, 35-7, $21,000 9th: Spencer Shuffield, Hot Springs, Ark., 15 bass, 31-1, $20,500 10th: Keith Carson, DeBary, Fla., 14 bass, 30-1, $20,000 A complete list of results can be found at Overall, there were 198 scorable bass caught weighing 434 pounds, 3 ounces, by the final 10 pros on Sunday. Pro Bradley Roy won Sunday's $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award with a 4-pound, 9-ounce largemouth that he caught on a bladed swimjig in Period 2. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day. The four-day Zenni Stage 6 Presented by Athletic Brewing Company at the Potomac River was hosted by the Charles County Government, Dept. of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism, and showcased 66 of the top professional anglers in the world competing for a $150,000 top prize, a share of the $6.49 million season purse, and valuable 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 Zenni Stage 6 at the Potomac River Presented by Athletic Brewing Company will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Nov. 1 on Discovery, with the Championship Round premiering on Saturday, Nov. 8. 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, Rapala, Star brite, Suzuki, Toyota and Zenni. 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.
Associated Press
05-05-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Jake Lawrence Earns First MLF Bass Pro Tour Win at O'Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 Presented by OPTIMA Batteries
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2025-- Thirty hours of competition across four days at the Major League Fishing (MLF) O'Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 Presented by OPTIMA Batteries boiled down to the final 20 seconds. Separated on SCORETRACKER® by just 6 ounces, Jake Lawrence and Jacob Wheeler both set the hook. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: Tennessee rookie Jake Lawrence caught 27 bass weighing 83 pounds, 2 ounces, to win the Bass Pro Tour O'Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 Presented by OPTIMA Batteries at Nickajack Lake and earn the top prize of $150,000. Wheeler and Lawrence had long since distanced themselves from the rest of the field during Sunday's Championship Round on Nickajack Lake. The latter half of the day morphed into a one-on-one prize fight: Wheeler, the winningest Bass Pro Tour angler of all time, who caught all smallmouth in the current beneath Chickamauga Dam, versus Lawrence, a rookie who caught all largemouth roughly 40 miles down the lake. Lawrence had led most of the day, but with 6 minutes left, Wheeler finally passed him. Still, both anglers felt like if they could just muster one more scorable bass, they'd secure the trophy and $150,000 top prize that comes with it. With 45 seconds left before lines out, Lawrence made a bomb cast with his Buckeye Buzzerk buzzbait. About halfway back to the boat – 21 seconds left to be exact – a massive mouth engulfed it. Nine seconds later, Lawrence swung the bass over the gunnel and hung it on the BUBBA scale: a 5-pound, 9-ounce buzzer-beater, easily enough to put him back in the lead. At virtually that exact moment, Wheeler hooked up with another smallmouth, but he couldn't get it in the boat before time expired. It might not have been enough to overcome Lawrence's late lunker anyway. With a total of 83-2 on 27 scorable bass, Lawrence had won his first Bass Pro Tour title in one of, if not the most dramatic finish in the seven-year history of the tour. More than an hour later, he still couldn't come up with a way to describe the ending other than divine intervention. 'The only thing I can say is, man, He wanted me to do it,' Lawrence said. 'Wheeler jumped me there by a couple ounces, and I said out loud, 'Lord, if you want me to do this, you're going to make it happen.' I had 45 seconds left, and I had just gotten my buzzer back to the boat, and I said, alright, you can throw right, which is where I had been catching them, or you can throw somewhere totally new. And I chose to throw somewhere totally new, and it was the deal. Unbelievable.' On his first cast that way, the bass struck so violently, Lawrence initially thought it had missed his bait. He set the hook, flipped it into the boat, grabbed its lower lip and unleashed a guttural scream of celebration. 'She hit it with such force coming at me that it threw a bunch of slack in my line, and I honestly though she missed it,' he said. 'I started to go wind it in fast to make another cast, and when I started winding it down, she was there. I was like, 'oh my goodness. There is no way this is happening.'' Every angler likes to end an outing with a fish. Growing up fishing alongside my dad and brother, we'd always ask for some 'last cast magic' as everyone threw one final time. Of course, the last cast usually doesn't turn out to be the last cast – until you catch one. But with the Bass Pro Tour's live scoreboard, Lawrence almost certainly didn't have time to make another cast and fight a fish before lines out. That 5-9 – the second biggest bass of the day not only for Lawrence but the entire Championship Round field – delivered the ultimate last-cast magic. 'That's God's work right there,' Lawrence said in the seconds after his win became official. 'That's the way to end one.' The top 10 pros at the O'Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 Presented by OPTIMA Batteries on Nickajack Lake finished: 1st: Jake Lawrence, Paris, Tenn., 27 bass, 83-2, $150,000 2nd: Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 27 bass, 77-15, $45,000 3rd: Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio, 17 bass, 48-14, $35,000 4th: Ron Nelson, Berrien Springs, Mich., 15 bass, 42-7, $30,000 5th: Wesley Strader, Spring City, Tenn., 15 bass, 37-14, $25,000 6th: Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 12 bass, 37-4, $23,000 7th: Matt Becker, Ten Mile, Tenn., 12 bass, 29-9, $22,000 8th: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 11 bass, 25-9, $21,000 9th: Justin Cooper, Zwolle, La., seven bass, 21-12, $20,500 10th: Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala., six bass, 15-8, $20,000 A complete list of results can be found at Lawrence won the Berkley Big Bass Award on Sunday with his giant 8-pound, 3-ounce largemouth that he caught in the first period. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day. The O'Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 Presented by OPTIMA Batteries was hosted by Visit Chattanooga and Fish Tennessee and 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 O'Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 at Lake Chickamauga and Nickajack Lake Presented by OPTIMA Batteries will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Oct. 11 on Discovery, with the Championship Round premiering on Saturday, Oct. 18. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel. 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. About Major League Fishing 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. View source version on CONTACT: MEDIA CONTACT: CHARITY MUEHLENWEG SENIOR MANAGER, PR & COMMUNICATIONS p: 405.694.1025 e:[email protected] KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA TENNESSEE INDUSTRY KEYWORD: FISHING SPORTS EXTREME SPORTS OTHER SPORTS GENERAL SPORTS SOURCE: Major League Fishing Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 05/04/2025 10:45 PM/DISC: 05/04/2025 10:44 PM
