DeBary, Florida pro catches final-day limit of 22 pounds, 8 ounces to win by 10-ounce margin and take home the top prize of $80,000
DETROIT (July 28, 2024) – The Major League Fishing (MLF) Tackle Warehouse Invitational Stop 6 Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches at the Detroit River was a wild one from start to finish, with big weights, lots of movement in the points standings, and a tightly contested chase for the win. In the end, pro Keith Carson of DeBary, Florida, put it all together for three days to earn his first MLF win as a pro with a three-day total of 67 pounds, 6 ounces. For the win, Carson earned $80,000 and a ticket to REDCREST 2025. Finishing runner-up, rookie pro Alec Morrison of Peru, New York, weighed 66-12, and though he could not clinch the win, he did earn both the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year and Polaris Rookie of the Year titles.
Link to Photo Gallery of Day 3 On-the-Water Highlights
Link to Video of Fish-Catch Highlights of Day 3 on the Detroit River
A childhood friend of fellow pro John Cox, who is noted for eschewing forward-facing sonar and remining quite successful, you wouldn’t exactly peg Carson as a player on St. Clair. At home cruising the shallows, hood up and shades on, Carson prefers to look at the bass with his eyes, not a transducer. But this week, he bucked the theory that only young kids are good with a screen and proved that he could use his dedication and fishing skills to win at all angles of the game.
“I started Scopin’ in ’21, and I was fair with it, but my rule was I would always use it for smallmouth, and largemouth I wouldn’t use it at all,” Carson said. “I started learning that you kind of have to use it all the time.”
This winter at Toledo Bend, Carson finished 67th in the BPT season-opener, which was an inauspicious start to a lackluster rookie campaign on MLF’s top tour. Fast forward six months or so, and that event may have been responsible for this win.
“I found the same fish [Jacob] Wheeler did,” Carson recalled. “So, we both start there Day 1. Before lines-in, I see Wheeler racing around in his boat, and I know he’s looking for one. So, I start racing around, I figured that was what you do. I didn’t even own a jighead minnow at Toledo Bend, so, I was throwing a drop-shot to suspended fish. I was racing a drop-shot to them and they wouldn’t eat it. Wheeler caught like 96 pounds, and I caught 15 pounds. I took that day as a lesson. I watched him most of the day, because I knew it would help in the future. I’ve been practicing it, learning it. It’s a hell of a tool, to be honest.”
At St. Clair, Carson fished like a minnow veteran, adjusting his presentations, reading fish with Lowrance ActiveTarget and maintaining a level of consistency that nobody else matched. His primary setup was a 7-foot, 2-inch Fenwick World Class walleye rod, a 3000-size Abu Garcia Zenon reel, 8-pound Berkley FireLine, a 10-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon leader, and a 5.3-gram jighead with a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Jerk Shad.
“The best thing was actually to cast past them and bring it up to them in a natural presentation, but it got really hard because they wouldn’t stay in the frame – like they’d be swimming to the side,” Carson explained. “So, the best thing turned out to be to hit them on the head, and the splash of the water would call them up – it was so shallow, like 10 or 12 feet.
“A lot of times, it would splash the water, and they would eat it off the top, only a foot or two deep, when they were really feeding. If they didn’t eat it, I’d start swimming it, and I’d keep it four to five feet above their head and they’d come up and eat it. I noticed if I let it get too close to their head, they didn’t want to bite it, I had to keep it way above them, and they’d come, and I’d start going a little bit faster and they’d eat it.”
From the sounds of it, Carson may have won just about any tournament on the system this week. His practice was so good that his roommate, fellow pro Alex Davis said “hands down, you’re going to win,” after the report.
“Everywhere I went, every day of practice, I caught like 25 pounds,” Carson said. “I went to Erie, I caught like 26, I went to Anchor Bay the next day, I caught 25, and my next five after 25 weighed almost 24 – everything was huge, anywhere I went. It wasn’t one spot, I’d try over here, catch a 5, try over there, catch a 5. Every now and then, you just can’t make a wrong decision.”
In the tournament, he even got some bites that he shouldn’t have, with fish following his minnow boatside and then miraculously eating.
“The 4-12 I caught today, I made a perfect cast, and it followed my minnow all the way to the trolling motor and it swam down – I dropped it on its head, and it swam up and ate it under the trolling motor,” Carson said. “All week, they’d follow it to the trolling motor and I couldn’t get them to bite. I had another, it followed it to the boat, and I flipped it to him and let it sit on the bottom, and it ate it off the bottom like a worm.”
Fishing in Anchor Bay, which was crowded in general, Carson stayed out of the crowds, and sometimes went 20 minutes or so without seeing a fish – he was chasing fewer, but better-quality bass. When the two sand areas he had focused his efforts at on Day 1 and Day 2 failed to produce on Day 3, he relocated his fish with relative ease.
“I had two general areas that were really good, and neither of them were producing,” he explained. “So, I just trolled around them, maybe they’re swimming around them, you know? And I ran into a stretch – I caught a 5, a 4, one almost 5 and then a 4-7 in a 50-yard stretch – they had moved there and I found it.”
Running to Anchor Bay every day and taking his time getting back, Carson fished a nearly perfect event, even down to the decision he didn’t make on the final morning.
“I almost went to Erie today, but something told me not to, so I went back,” he said. “I almost went to Erie to try to catch 25 or 26 pounds, but something told me not to, to go back to where I was and stay steady. So, I did, and it turned out.”
With a baby on the way in October, and having bought a new house last week, the win really couldn’t have come at a better time for Carson.
The top 30 pros at the Tackle Warehouse Invitational Stop 6 on the Detroit River Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches finished:
1st: Keith Carson, DeBary, Fla., 15 bass, 67-6, $80,000
2nd: Alec Morrison, Peru, N.Y., 15 bass, 66-12, $50,000
3rd: Adrian Avena, Marmora, N.J., 15 bass, 66-10, $20,000
4th: Kyle Hall, Granbury, Texas, 15 bass, 64-13, $18,000
5th: Jon Canada, Helena, Ala., 15 bass, 64-8, $17,000
6th: Nick LeBrun, Bossier City, La., 15 bass, 64-6, $16,000
7th: Jaden Parrish, Liberty, Texas, 15 bass, 64-3, $15,000
8th: Cory Johnston, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, 15 bass, 63-15, $14,000
9th: Jack Daniel Williams, Kingsport, Tenn., 15 bass, 62-10, $13,000
10th: Robby Lefere, Jackson, Mich., 15 bass, 62-5, $12,000
11th: Brad Jelinek, Lincoln, Mo., 15 bass, 62-3, $11,000
12th: Colby Dark, West Monroe, La., 15 bass, 62-3, $10,250
13th: Mitchell Robinson, Landrum, S.C., 15 bass, 61-12, $10,000
14th: Lane Olson, Jackson, Mich., 15 bass, 61-10, $10,000
15th: Colby Miller, Elmer, La., 15 bass, 61-5, $10,000
16th: Andrew Nordbye, Guntersville, Ala., 15 bass, 60-13, $10,000
17th: Cameron Mattison, Benton, La., 15 bass, 60-7, $10,000
18th: John Cox, DeBary, Fla., 15 bass, 60-5, $10,000
19th: John Hunter, Shelbyville, Ky., 15 bass, 60-2, $10,000
20th: Scott Dobson, Clarkston, Mich., 15 bass, 59-14, $10,000
21st: Mark Condron, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 15 bass, 59-6, $10,000
22nd: Chase Serafin, White Lake, Mich., 15 bass, 59-6, $10,000
23rd: Jeremy Gordon, Rutledge, Tenn., 15 bass, 59-1, $10,000
24th: Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 15 bass, 59-0, $10,000
25th: Jake Lawrence, Buchanan, Tenn., 15 bass, 58-8, $10,000
26th: Jordan Wiggins, Cullman, Ala., 15 bass, 58-5, $10,000
27th: Jesse Wiggins, Logan, Ala., 15 bass, 57-13, $10,000
28th: Terry Olinger, Louisa, Va., 15 bass, 57-9, $10,000
29th: Connor Cunningham, Springfield, Mo., 14 bass, 55-14, $10,000
30th: Chris Groh, Spring Grove, Ill., 14 bass, 54-5, $10,000
Complete results for the entire field can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 148 bass weighing 585 pounds, 7 ounces caught by the final 30 pros Sunday. Of the 30 final day competitors, 28 brought a five-bass limit to the scale.
While rookie pro Alec Morrison came up 10 ounces short of winning Stop 6 Presented by B&W Hitches on the Detroit River, he’ll return to New York with an impressive hardware haul. After besting Jake Lawrence by 17 points in the season-long AOY competition, Morrison received the $50,000 AOY prize from Fishing Clash as well as a berth to REDCREST 2025 on Lake Guntersville. For winning Polaris Rookie of the Year, Morrison will also receive a new Polaris UTV plus an invitation to join the Bass Pro Tour — Major League Fishing’s top circuit — in 2025.
With all six Tackle Warehouse Invitational tournaments now complete, the top five pros based on AOY rank now will receive invitations to compete in the 2025 Bass Pro Tour. The five pros that qualify are:
1st: Alec Morrison, Peru Springs, N.Y.
2nd: Jake Lawrence, Buchanan, Tenn.
3rd: Colby Miller, Elmer, La.
4th: Jaden Parrish, Liberty, Texas
5th: Marshall Hughes, Hemphill, Texas
The three-day tournament, hosted by the Detroit Sports Commission, featured a field of professional anglers competing for a top prize of up to $115,000 and an invitation to compete at REDCREST 2025. The full field of anglers competed in the two-day opening round on Friday and Saturday in a five-fish, weigh-in format. Only the top 30 pros, based on their two-day cumulative weight, advanced to the final round on Championship Sunday, where they competed for the grand prize of up to $115,000.
The winner of the Tackle Warehouse Invitational Stop 6 at the Detroit River Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches was determined by the heaviest three-day cumulative weight and now receives an invitation to compete at REDCREST 2025 on Lake Guntersville in Huntsville, Alabama.
Television coverage of the MLF Tackle Warehouse Invitationals Stop 6 at the Detroit River Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches will air as a two-hour episode, premiering at 9 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Nov. 9 on CBS Sports Network.
Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Tackle Warehouse Invitationals include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, E3 Sports Apparel, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, General Tire, Lew’s, Mercury, Mossy Oak Fishing, Onyx, Phoenix Boats, Polaris, Power-Pole, PowerStop Brakes, REDCON1, Strike King, Suzuki, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, WIX Filters and YETI.
For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular Tackle Warehouse Invitational updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the MLF5 social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
