| Boater winner Jimmy Neece, Jr., of Bristol, Tennessee, and Strike-King co-angler winner Steve Farris of Lily, Kentucky. |
| Farris, of Lily, Kentucky, Tops Strike King Co-Angler Division ANDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (March 11, 2024) – Boater Jimmy Neece, Jr., of Bristol, Tennessee, caught a five-bass limit weighing 17 pounds, 2 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine on Norris Lake. The tournament was the first event of the season for the BFL Volunteer Division. Neece earned $4,720 for his victory. Early spring in East Tennessee is Damiki rig season. It’s the perfect time to finesse big prespawn smallmouth bass with a small minnow-shaped soft plastic in deep, clear water. And that’s exactly how Neece caught his winning limit of smallmouths. “The fish that I was catching are prespawn and suspended out at the mouths of pockets and spawning areas,” said Neece, who owns a construction company. “I really looked for the shad and looked for the stripers,” he added. “There’s a ton of stripers in that lake. And if I found the stripers, the smallmouth were somewhere close by. You’d into some areas and there wouldn’t be anything – no trash fish and nothing swimming around. If you got into an area with a lot of stripers congregated around, the smallmouth would be somewhere close.” Neece said the fish on his best spot had actually slid out a few hundred yards from where he found them on Friday. He was able to relocate them with Garmin LiveScope, which he used to catch all of the fish he weighed in. “(It was) one at a time casting a Damiki at them,” he said. “That’s basically it. You have to spend a lot of time on the trolling motor.” Neece used a Damiki Armor Shad on a homemade jighead. He fished the rig with a 6-foot, 8-inch, medium-action G. Loomis IMX Pro spinning rod, a 2500-size Shimano Vanford spinning reel, 10-pound-test braided line and a 7-pound-test Sunline Super FC Sniper Fluorocarbon leader. He kept three identical combos on his deck, each rigged with a different color soft plastic. “I varied between lighter and darker colors, and my fish were anywhere from the surface down to 20 feet of water,” Need said. “If you got it near one, he was coming for it.” The top 10 boaters finished the tournament: 1st: Jimmy Neece, Jr., Bristol Tenn., five bass, 17-2, $4,720 2nd: Joseph Tallent, Knoxville, Tenn., five bass, 16-2, $2,360 3rd: Seth Barton, Middlesboro, Ky., five bass, 15-13, $1,574 4th: Trent Adkins, East Bernstadt, Ky., five bass, 15-10, $1,101 5th: Hunter McClaskey, Elizabethton, Tenn., five bass, 15-7, $944 6th: Zack Long, Clinton, Tenn., five bass, 15-6, $865 7th: John Napier, Middlesboro, Ky., five bass, 15-0, $747 7th: Riley Faulkner, Jacksboro, Tenn., five bass, 15-0, $747 9th: Seth Fricke, Oxford, Ohio, five bass, 14-12, $629 10th: Tim Saylor, Johnson City, Tenn., five bass, 14-11, $551 Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com. Dalton Noble of Hazard, Kentucky, caught a bass that weighed 4 pounds, 5 ounces, and earned the Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $695.  Steve Farris of Lily, Kentucky, won the Strike King co-angler division and $1,088 Saturday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 14 pounds, 2 ounces. The top 10 Strike King co-anglers finished: 1st: Steve Farris, Lily, Ky., five bass, 15-1, $2,175 2nd: Scott Pittman, Powell, Tenn., five bass, 14-2, $1,088 3rd: Travis Malone, Wartburg, Tenn., five bass, 13-10, $976 4th: Cody Stokes, Ooltewah, Tenn., five bass, 12-14, $507 5th: Josh Smith, Siler, Ky., five bass, 11-13, $435 6th: Konnor Sweet, Abingdon, Va., five bass, 11-10, $399 7th: John Henley, Kingston, Tenn., five bass, 11-8, $344 7th: Ransom Boone, Marshall, N.C., five bass, 11-8, $344 9th: T.J. Blakely, Kingsport, Tenn., five bass, 11-5, $290 10th: Shane Bowman, Caryville, Tenn., five bass, 11-2, $254 Rob Welsh of Berea, Kentucky, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $307, catching a bass that weighed in at 3 pounds, 11 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day. The next event for BFL Volunteer Division anglers will be held April 20, at South Holston Lake in Bristol, Tennessee. To register for the event as a boater or a co-angler, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com or call (270)-252-1000. The top 45 boaters and co-anglers in the region based on point standings, along with the five tournament winners of each qualifying event, will qualify for the Oct. 17-19 BFL Regional tournament on Clarks Hill Lake in Appling, Georgia. Boaters will fish for a top award of $60,000, including a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard and $10,000, while co-anglers will compete for a top award of $50,000, including a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard. The 2024 Phoenix BFL Presented by T-H Marine is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers, with 128 events throughout the season, five qualifying tournaments in each division. The top 45 boaters and Strike King co-anglers from each division, along with the five qualifying event winners, will advance to one of six BFL Regional tournaments where they are competing to finish in the top six, which then qualifies them for one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the BFL All-American. Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, E3, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, General Tire, GSM Outdoors, Lew’s, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Onyx, Phoenix, Polaris, Power-Pole, Strike King, Suzuki, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota and YETI. For complete details and updated tournament information, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular Bass Fishing League updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF5’s social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. |
