Tokyo, Japan pro advances directly to Championship Round with two-day total of 31 bass weighing 88-3, 2nd through 25th advance to Saturday’s Knockout Round
SENECA, S.C. (Feb. 20, 2026) – It’s not every Bass Pro Tour event that we see a true fight for the Qualifying Round win. Often, one angler builds a sizable lead, and the other contenders concede the automatic trip to the Championship Round; or, the top Day 1 performers decide it’s more advantageous to explore new water instead of burning bass.
But all the pros who got near the top of SCORETRACKER® during Day 2 at the Major League Fishing (MLF) O’Reilly Auto Parts Stage 2 at Lake Hartwell Presented by Lowrance vocalized a desire to win the round. Ultimately, it turned into a two-man showdown between Tokyo, Japan’s Takahiro Omori and Guntersville, Alabama’s Justin Lucas . Seemingly every time Lucas caught a scorable bass to get close to the lead, Omori answered with one of his own. Omori wound up with one more scorable bass and 9 more ounces, finishing with a two-day total of 88 pounds, 3 ounces on 31 scorable bass compared to 87-10 for Lucas.
As a result, Omori will advance straight to Sunday’s Championship Round, where he’ll hope to claim his first career Bass Pro Tour trophy. Lucas and the rest of the Top 25 finishers will return to the water with weights zeroed for Saturday’s Knockout Round.
Link to Hi-Res Photo of Day 2 Leader Takahiro Omori
Link to Day 2 Photo Gallery: Bass Pro Tour Stage 2 moving day underway on Lake Hartwell
Link to Day 2 Photo Gallery: BPT anglers make hay on Lake Hartwell in race for Stage 2 Knockout Round
Link to HD Video of Highlights from Day 2 Competition
Getting official confirmation that he’d won the round prompted a fist pump from the normally stoic Omori. The dyed-in-the-wool power fisherman understands that opportunities for him to win while fishing his way don’t come around too often. This marks his first Top 10 in almost two years, since REDCREST 2024 on Lay Lake.
“This is the only time of the year I might get to out-fish those guys (who use forward-facing sonar),” said Omori, who hasn’t bothered unlocking his forward-facing sonar transducers through two days of competition. “Because the prespawn fish are coming back to the shallows.”
Hartwell is best known for its prolific spotted bass population, but 30 of Omori’s 31 scorable bass have been largemouth. He’s looking for dirty water in shallow pockets way up a river and using his trademark casting accuracy to pick apart any cover he can find – the exact type doesn’t seem to matter.
“Shallow stuff, whatever I see,” Omori said when asked what he’s been targeting. “Boat docks, laydown trees, brushpiles, whatever. Just power-fishing shallow.”
Omori, who started the day about 4 1/2 pounds back of Day 1 leader Ott DeFoe , slipped to sixth after a slow first period. But as the near-80-degree air temperatures warmed the shallow water, his bite kept getting better. Around the midpoint of Period 2, Omori caught a 6-1 largemouth – easily his biggest of the event so far – to take the lead. He would only relinquish it for a few seconds the rest of the way.
“I was expecting to catch them all day,” Omori said. “For some reason this morning I had a couple of missed bites, and I only caught two in the first period. All those forward-facing sonar guys catch them so good, so I had to catch up later.”
As he kept getting updates that Lucas was closing in, Omori found himself away from his best area. There are only so many places that have the ingredients he’s looking for, and they’re spread apart, so he didn’t want to waste time running there. Still, he managed to catch three key scorable bass in the last 35 minutes. After totaling 40-12 Friday, Omori is the only angler in the field to top 40 pounds on both Days 1 and 2.
“I was not in the best area,” he said. “I kind of ran out of places to fish. But I made it up all right.”
Omori seems pretty committed to his game plan. He told MLFNOW! viewers that he’d rigged up eight identical rods Friday. But he left open the possibility that he could tweak his strategy a bit on Championship Sunday, when it’s supposed to get colder and windier.
“Who knows?” he said. “I’ve got all day tomorrow to think about it.”
Lucas didn’t start Friday with any aspirations of contending for the Qualifying Round win. His Day 1 total of 26-0 had him inside the Lucas Oil cut line, but not by much, so his primary objective was just to ensure his spot in the Knockout Round.
It didn’t take him long to check that box. Like most of the field, Lucas opted to use his forward-facing sonar during Period 1 and caught nine scorable bass for 25-5. He didn’t make any strategic shift from Day 1, when he caught four for 10-4 during his ‘Scope period. Lucas said he “just fished better.” That gave him a lot more breathing room over the cut and allowed him to run new water in Periods 2 and 3.
“I caught so much weight, I felt like I was good,” Lucas said. “And so I just went practicing and started catching a lot of fish.”
Despite changing tactics after locking up his transducers, Lucas kept his momentum rolling. A five-fish flurry late in Period 2 put him just 1 ounce back of Omori entering the final period. He wound up totaling 12 scorable bass for more than 35 pounds without forward-facing sonar. His Day 2 total of 61-10 is the best by any angler so far during the event.
Lucas attributed his big day to continuing to fine-tune his pattern. He said it’s impossible to break down a fishery the size of Hartwell in just two days of practice. Over the course of the Qualifying Round, he’s slowly zeroed in on the right areas of the lake, the right cover and the right baits.
“I’m just eliminating a lot of water, getting dialed in on what the exact pattern is with the fish,” he explained.
While Lucas would have loved to skip the Knockout Round, his grasp of that pattern has him excited entering the weekend. He said he “feels a lot better about the tournament right now than I did this morning.” He’s also not concerned about a potential weather shift hurting his bite, although he knows the bass swimming in Hartwell’s clear water can be fickle.
“My confidence is very high right now,” he said. “I feel good about it. But I also know how quickly things can change. I still have to go out there and catch their freakin’ butts tomorrow.”
Pro Keith Carson made the biggest rally, catching 15 bass weighing 42-2 to end the day in 12th after starting in 40th place, but he wasn’t the only angler to start the day below the Lucas Oil Cut Line and move into the Top 25. Six anglers did so in total, including pros Nick Hatfield and Fletcher Shryock, both of whom caught 4-pounders in the final 30 minutes to seal their spots in the Knockout Round.
The top 25 pros that now advance in competition on Lake Hartwell are:
*1st: Takahiro Omori, Tokyo, Japan, 31 bass, 88-3 – ADVANCES TO CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND
2nd: Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala.,30 bass, 87-10
3rd: Mitchell Robinson, Landrum, S.C., 24 bass, 68-10
4th: Adrian Avena, Vineland, N.J., 21 bass, 68-8
5th: Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., 24 bass, 68-5
6th: Dustin Connell, Clanton, Ala., 23 bass, 65-14
7th: Justin Cooper, Zwolle, La., 23 bass, 65-9
8th: Zack Birge, Blanchard, Okla., 22 bass, 63-6
9th: Ott DeFoe, Blaine, Tenn., 23 bass, 62-15
10th: Mark Daniels Jr., Tuskegee, Ala., 21 bass, 61-10
11th: Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 24 bass, 61-7
12th: Keith Carson, DeBary, Fla., 21 bass, 59-9
13th: Matt Becker, Ten Mile, Tenn., 21 bass, 59-2
14th: Jacob Wall, New Hope, Ala., 22 bass, 58-1
15th: Jesse Wiggins, Addison, Ala., 20 bass, 56-8
16th: Brent Chapman, Lake Quivira, Kan., 21 bass, 56-4
17th: Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 19 bass, 56-2
18th: Jacob Walker, Springville, Ala., 18 bass, 54-6
19th: Banks Shaw, Harrison, Tenn., 19 bass, 53-10
20th: Nick LeBrun, Bossier City, La., 17 bass, 52-3
21st: Todd Faircloth, Jasper, Texas, 17 bass, 50-4
22nd: Nick Hatfield, Greeneville, Tenn., 17 bass, 48-10
23rd: Spencer Shuffield, Hot Springs, Ark., 20 bass, 48-7
24th: Fletcher Shryock, Guntersville, Ala., 15 bass, 46-15
25th: Jeff Sprague, Wills Point, Texas, 16 bass, 46-9
A complete list of results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 393 bass caught weighing 1,107 pounds, 10 ounces, caught by the 51 Bass Pro Tour anglers on Friday.
Friday’s $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award was earned by Keith Carson of DeBary, Florida, who caught a 7-pound, 3-ounce largemouth in the first period on a jighead minnow. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day.
Hosted by Visit Oconee SC , the four-day event features a roster of 51 of the top professional anglers in the world competing for a $125,000 top prize and their share of the $600,000 purse, along with valuable Angler of the Year (AOY) points in hopes of qualifying for the MLF Heavy Hitters all-star event and REDCREST 2027, the Bass Pro Tour championship.
The full field of 51 anglers competed in the two-day Qualifying Round on Thursday and Friday. With the two-day Qualifying Round now complete, the pro with the heaviest two-day total – Takahiro Omori – now advances directly to Sunday’s Championship Round. Anglers that finished 2nd through 25th now advance to Saturday’s Knockout Round. In the Knockout Round, weights are zeroed, and the remaining anglers compete to finish in the top nine to advance to Sunday’s Championship Round. In the final-day Championship Round, weights are again zeroed, and the highest one-day total wins the top prize of $125,000.
Anglers will arrive each morning at 6:15 a.m. ET to Seneca Creek County Park, located at 270 Seneca Creek Road in Seneca, South Carolina. Anglers will return to Seneca Creek County Park each evening following the end of competition at 3:45 p.m. Fans are welcome to attend all launch and takeout events and also encouraged to watch the event live online throughout the day on the MLFNOW!® livestream and follow along with SCORETRACKER® coverage at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
The MLFNOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live on all four days of competition from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. MLFNOW!® will be livestreamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com , the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app and Rumble.
On Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 21-22, from 3–6 p.m., MLF invites fans of all ages to Seneca Creek County Park, located at 270 Seneca Creek Road in Seneca, for the MLF Fan Experience & Watch Party. Fans can watch the Bass Pro Tour pros live on the MLFNOW!® big screen, enjoy free food for the first 100 fans each day, enter hourly giveaways, browse MLF merchandise and the bargain bait bin, and cheer on their favorite anglers. Youth of all ages can take part in a fishing derby (gear and bait provided, weather permitting) and a casting contest. Live music begins at 4 p.m., followed by Top 10 angler interviews and the trophy presentation at 5 p.m., including autographs and photos with Bass Pro Tour finalists. The first 50 kids ages 14 and under will receive a free rod and reel each day.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Stage 2 at Lake Hartwell Presented by Lowrance features anglers competing with a 2-pound minimum weight requirement for a bass to be deemed scorable. The MLF Fisheries Management Division determines minimum weights for each body of water that the Bass Pro Tour visits, based on the productivity, bass population and anticipated average size of fish in each fishery.
The 2026 Bass Pro Tour features a field of 51 of the best 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 2027 championship.
Television coverage of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Stage 2 at Lake Hartwell Presented by Lowrance will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Aug. 22, on Discovery. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel.