Bass Pro Shops pro catches 34 bass totaling 78-5 in final day Championship Round to earn top prize of $150,000

CONROE, Texas (Feb. 2, 2025) – For about 3 hours and 40 minutes Sunday afternoon, Bass Pro Shops angler Justin Cooper sat atop SCORETRACKER® at B&W Trailer Hitches Stage 1 Presented by Power-Pole. The Louisiana pro’s lead had been threatened repeatedly – including, at one point, pro Jacob Wall tying him in weight – but every time, he mustered an answer.

So, when Cooper boated a 1-pound, 10-ounce Lake Conroe largemouth with about a minute left before lines out, he thought he’d simply added a little insurance to his cushion. He didn’t realize the fish, one of the smallest of the 34 scorable bass he caught on the day, would be worth $150,000.

A few seconds earlier, pro Colby Miller – one of Cooper’s closest friends who’d been steadily gaining ground on him since the first period – landed a 2-10. That fish finally unseated Cooper, giving Miller a 9-ounce lead. All of 22 seconds later, Cooper’s 1-10 hit SCORETRACKER®. Another 68 seconds after that, time ran out on an epic first Championship Round of the 2025 Bass Pro Tour season.

The final tallies: 78-5 for Cooper, 77-4 for Miller. Cooper had his first professional win.

“It’s indescribable,” Cooper said. “I never thought that I could win one. I’ve always been a bridesmaid and never a bride. I just never thought it was in the cards for me to win a big event like that. I thought I could have a good, solid career but always missed that part. So, to get that win and have my family here, it means everything.”

Link to Photo Gallery: A suspenseful home stretch at Stage 1
Link to Photo Gallery: Cooper and Wall go toe-to-toe in battle for Stage 1 trophy
Link to HD Video of Highlights from Day 4 Championship Round Competition

Anytime the margin of victory is that narrow, it’s impossible to pinpoint a single winning moment. Indeed, without any one of the 34 scorable bass he caught during the Championship Round (including another 1-10 that narrowly beat the buzzer at the end of Period 1), Cooper would have fallen short of Miller.

But one could make the argument that Cooper’s most important catch came three days earlier, on the first day of the event.

Cooper started Day 1 slowly. He opted to use his one allotted period with forward-facing sonar in Period 1 – a strategy he’d replicate all four days – and he went more than 90 minutes before cracking SCORETRACKER®. Finally, he caught his first scorable bass of the season (once again, a 1-10), then added five more before the end of the frame. He finished the day in 33rd place, well below the 20th-place Elimination Line to qualify for the Knockout Round following Day 2, but that flurry at the end of the first period had provided a clue: The offshore, bait-chasing bass he’d found during practice had moved shallower.

So, Cooper started Day 2 in that shallower zone. He landed on the mother lode. Cooper stacked up 72-4 during the first period alone. By far the best single period of any angler all week, it not only rocketed him well above the cut line, but it also gave him confidence for the first time since joining the BPT last year that he could contend for the win.

“When I had that big period on Day 2 and I saw what was swimming around, I was like, wow, the fish are here to win it,” Cooper said.

Fast-forward to Sunday’s Championship Round, and Cooper started his day in the same 100-yard stretch. Once again utilizing a jighead minnow in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope, he rocketed out of the gates, boating 19 scorable bass for more than 40 pounds in the opening hour and a half.

This time, though, he couldn’t quite keep up the torrid pace. As his bite slowed, Wall – who fished the entire opening period less than a cast away – got hot. Wall ended up finishing Period 1 in first place with nearly 50 pounds. Cooper sat in third, a little more than 5 pounds behind. While the two coexisted amicably, their literal head-to-head battle would set the stage for the rest of the day.

With the bulk of Lake Conroe’s bass still in their winter patterns, chasing shad offshore, anglers figured forward-facing sonar would play an outsized role in determining who earned the first trophy of the year. However, the Bass Pro Tour’s new restrictions forced the competitors to find other ways to catch them, too.

For Cooper, that meant swimming moving baits over submerged hydrilla, a technique near and dear to the Toledo Bend local. So, when he found himself within striking distance after the first period, he felt confident he could catch up.

“I knew that I could get the bites,” Cooper said. “The wind was picking up, which was what I needed. … I knew the fish were there. They were swimming to me from where I was ‘Scoping; I knew they were swimming to that grass. I knew the grass has been replenishing every night, and if that wind would blow, I could catch them on my moving baits.”

During the first two hours of Period 2, Cooper added eight bass for nearly 20 pounds to his tally, taking the lead in the process. After that, though, his bite slowed. Primarily wielding a lipless crankbait, Cooper kept generating strikes, but it seemed like the fish were knocking or nipping at the bait rather than engulfing it. Multiple times, he dropped to his knees on the front deck in anguish after feeling a fish load up on his bait and then pull free.

Cooper attributed that to the heavy fishing pressure in Caney Creek, where he (like most of the field) spent the entire event. One wrinkle he used to trigger a few extra bites was burning his lipless crankbaits on an 8.3:1 gear ratio Johnny Morris Platinum Signature reel, forcing the bass to react. Still, he said, “it was a grind.”

“I had a lot of bites that would just knock slack in my line, foul my lipless up,” Cooper said. “It was frustrating to say the least. I lost a couple that just pulled off, and I hit my knees two, three, four, five times. Fish locked it up, and I leaned into them, and they just pulled off, and I knew that they were solid fish that would have helped big time.”

Meanwhile, Miller – one of the few competitors to catch more weight with his forward-facing sonar turned off (44-2) than on (33-2) during the Championship Round – kept gaining ground. A fellow Louisiana native and Toledo Bend regular, the BPT rookie pulled within 14 ounces about midway through Period 3. Cooper promptly answered with his biggest bass of the day, a 5-3.

“I’ve kissed two bass in my life now, and it was that 5-3 and the 1-10 that gave me the win,” Cooper said. “I think those two fish are deserving.”

Cooper followed it up with a 2-1 a few minutes later, but that lead still wasn’t safe. Wall made a late move to an isolated boat dock and was rewarded with three keepers, including a 4-15. The third fish, a 3-3, tied him with Cooper at 74-2 apiece with 40 minutes left. Miller continued to lurk 2 pounds back.

Cooper resisted the urge to panic, instead keeping the lipless crankbait locked in his hands. Three minutes later, he caught a 2-9 that broke his tie with Wall.

“I stayed the course,” Cooper said. “I continued to throw what I was getting bites on. I knew if I was going to do it, I was going to do it with one or two baits. And that’s what I did.”

Then, 35 agonizing minutes later, he had another bass swipe at his bait but miss it. He cast back to the same spot and hooked the 1-10 that would seal his victory. It wasn’t until after his official called lines out that Cooper realized the magnitude of that catch.

“When (the boat official) said zero, I asked if (the result) was official, and he said, ‘So far; Colby needs a 1-8,’” Cooper recalled. “I said, ‘He caught one?’ And he said, ‘Yes, he took the lead, and then that one you weighed took the lead back.’ And so I waited for a few seconds to see if he caught another one, because I know how it is – you can catch them back-to-back casts.

“But I would expect nothing less from a battle of me and Colby, being good friends and old travel partners. And if I was going to go back and forth with anybody, I’m glad it was him.”

There’s a long list of reasons why this victory means so much to Cooper, not the least of which is the boosted $150,000 top prize for Bass Pro Tour winners. He also took the early lead in the 2025 Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race.

Most important to him, though, was giving the family members that have supported his fishing career something to celebrate. The fact that his parents; his wife, Anna; and his one-year-old daughter, Stormi, made the short drive to watch the win in-person made it even sweeter.

“To have my family here, it’s everything,” Cooper said. “Luckily, we’re three hours away from home, and it’s close enough that my parents could be here. To get to see them and my wife and my little girl – they get to travel with me a lot. So, to have that group of family that has been with me through all of this, it’s special.”

The top 10 pros at the B&W Trailer Hitches Stage 1 Presented by Power-Pole on Lake Conroe finished:

1st:        Justin Cooper, Zwolle, La., 34 bass, 78-5, $150,000
2nd:       Colby Miller, Elmer, La., 35 bass, 77-4, $45,000
3rd:       Jacob Wall, New Hope, Ala., 32 bass, 74-2, $35,000
4th:        Alton Jones Jr., Waco, Texas, 26 bass, 69-7, $30,000
5th:        Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 29 bass, 63-11, $25,000
6th:        Jake Lawrence, Paris, Tenn., 25 bass, 60-10, $23,000
7th:        Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Illinois, 23 bass, 58-9, $22,000
8th:        Zack Birge, Blanchard, Okla., 24 bass, 46-15, $21,000
9th:        Nick LeBrun, Bossier City, La., 18 bass, 40-3, $20,500
10th:     Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala., 12 bass, 26-12, $20,000

For a full list of results visit MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 258 scorable bass weighing 595 pounds, 14 ounces caught by the final 10 pros on Sunday.

Pro Drew Gill of Mount Carmel, Illinois, won the Berkley Big Bass Award on Sunday with an 8-pound, 2-ounce largemouth that he boated on a lipless crankbait in Period 3. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day.

The four-day tournament, hosted by Visit Conroe, 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 B&W Trailer Hitches Stage 1 at Lake Conroe Presented by Power-Pole will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Aug. 30 on Discovery, with the Championship Round premiering the following Saturday on Sept. 6. 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 General Tire 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 Sports Apparel, Fishing Clash, Grizzly, Lowrance, Mercury, MillerTech, Mossy Oak Fishing, NITRO, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Power-Pole, Rapala, Star brite, Suzuki Marine and Toyota.

For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the Bass Pro Tour, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, X , Instagram and  YouTube.