Local Favorite Roy Hawk Wins MLF Toyota Series Western Division Presented at Lake Havasu
LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. (May 4, 2024) – Pro Roy Hawk of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, sparked his professional bass-fishing career with a win on Lake Havasu in 2007. He used the winnings to launch a tournament journey that took him across the country as he competed at the highest levels of the sport, including five years on the Bass Pro Tour . In the 17 years since, the Lake Havasu City native has won three more times, but never again on his home lake.
Until Saturday. Hawk sacked 18 pounds even on the third and final day of the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats event on Lake Havasu. That brought his three-day total to 56-10, enough to edge Cristian Melton by 1-3 and top the 55-angler field in the second stop for the Western Division Presented by Tackle Warehouse.
For the win, Hawk earned $55,859, including a $35,000 Phoenix Bonus. Just as gratifying to him was the reception he got from the sizable contingent of family and friends in attendance at the weigh-in.
“Amazing feeling to be here in front of my friends and family,” Hawk said. “These wins, they don’t come easy, and I’m very thankful.”
Hawk, who chose to take a step back from national competition this year in part because he wanted to be able to fish more events on his home waters, leaned on his voluminous bank of Havasu knowledge to earn the win. With the Toyota Series veering from the historic February/March timing of its Havasu visit, his knowledge of traditional postspawn haunts proved particularly valuable.
“I’ve got a million waypoints marked on this lake, all the pieces of structure,” Hawk said. “Going down a bank, I can see on my graph, on my Lowrance units, I can see exactly where the next cast is going to be. Whether it be a brushpile, (artificial) habitat, I have tons of these things marked, and I spent years marking that stuff.”
Hawk spent all three days in the bowl-shaped portion of the Colorado River reservoir. He flitted between a mixture of deep and shallow offshore spots, focusing on inside grass lines when fishing shallow and brushpiles or artificial habitat when deep.
“I’d fish inside grass and then outside fish habitat, structure out there — a little bit of both, kind of going in and out,” he explained. “Every once in a while, you’d get bit out, then I’d run a bunch of out stuff, get no more bites, go back in, get a bite in, then no more bites. So, I was in and out a lot.”
While Hawk knew where to look for prime bass cover thanks to his encyclopedia of waypoints, he used Lowrance ActiveTarget to make precise presentations — particularly when plying the grass.
“I wasn’t looking at fish, I was looking at structure so I could see where my next cast would be,” he said. “And grass — I was looking at where billows of grass were, and where there were clean spots. So, the ActiveTarget helped out a lot with that.”
Regardless of the area, Hawk triggered most of his bites with a variety of crankbaits. He rotated between six or seven plugs of varying action and depth, throwing them on his Taipan Roy Hawk Signature Series crankbait rods, which he paired with Daiwa reels spooled with Daiwa fluorocarbon. He also mixed in a Yamamoto Speed Senko.
The fact that he earned the win cranking — his favorite technique — made it even more memorable for Hawk … and helped calm his nerves. With the wind picking up and the fish starting to feel the effects of pressure, the bite got a bit tougher on Day 3, and Hawk had to grind to fill his limit. He only caught six keepers all day.
Fortunately for Hawk, they were six of the right ones, enabling him to withstand Melton’s final-day charge and celebrate another victory on the shores of his home lake, 17 years after his first.
“It’s hard not to be nervous, but I just had a good feeling about it,” Hawk said. “I love throwing crankbaits, so to be in that position and knowing that the fish are biting it, I felt really good about it. I really wanted to get it done, for sure. But I leave that up to the Lord. My job is just to go out there and cast and focus and do whatever comes next, and he’ll handle the result.”
The top 10 pros on Lake Havasu finished:
1st: Roy Hawk, Lake Havasu City, Ariz., 15 bass, 56-10, $55,859 (including $35,000 Phoenix MLF Bonus)
2nd: Cristian Melton, Menifee, Calif., 15 bass, 55-7, $8,217
3rd: Mark Lassagne, Dixon, Calif., 15 bass, 51-1, $6,168
4th: Kyle Grover, Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., 15 bass, 50-10, $5,140
5th: Michael Caruso, Peoria, Ariz., 15 bass, 49-0, $4,626
6th: Greg Miser, Santee, Calif., 15 bass, 48-5, $4,112
7th: Zach Verbrugge, Lake Havasu City, Ariz., 15 bass, 47-1, $3,598
8th: Shane Edgar, Glendale, Ariz., 15 bass, 46-9, $3,084
9th: Justin Kerr, Lake Havasu City, Ariz., 13 bass, 46-9, $3,070
10th: Austin Bonjour, Templeton, Calif., 15 bass, 46-3, $2,056
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Pro Justin Kerr of Lake Havasu City earned Thursday’s $500 Berkley Big Bass Award on Day 1 with a largemouth weighing in at 6 pounds, 6 ounces. The Day 2 $500 Berkley Big Bass Award on Friday was split by pros Ken Mah of Elk Grove, California, and Cristian Melton of Menifee, California, as each brought a bass weighing 6 pounds, 3 ounces to the scale.
Larry Rogers of Riverside, California, won the Strike King Co-angler Division Saturday with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 44 pounds, 14 ounces. Rogers took home the top co-angler prize package worth $33,500, including a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower Mercury outboard motor.
The top 10 Strike King co-anglers on Lake Havasu finished:
1st: Larry Rogers, Riverside, Calif., 15 bass, 44-14, Phoenix 518 Pro boat w/115-hp Mercury outboard
2nd: Blaine Christiansen, San Jose, Calif., 15 bass, 41-13, $2,744
3rd: George Fedor, Yucaipa, Calif., 14 bass, 41-6, $2,195
4th: Kirk Marshall, Discovery Bay, Calif., 13 bass, 38-6, $1,921
5th: Tracy Patton, Oakdale, Calif., 13 bass, 35-14, $1,796
6th: Colton Underwood-Garside, Riverside, Calif., 13 bass, 35-10, $1,372
7th: Joe Balistreri, Menifee, Calif., 13 bass, 35-9, $1,098
8th: Scott Bern, San Rafael, Calif., 15 bass, 35-6, $960
9th: Chad Roorda, Palm Desert, Calif., 13 bass, 34-14, $823
10th: Mike Alvarez, Clovis, Calif., 14 bass, 34-12, $686
Thursday’s $150 Berkley Big Bass co-angler award was split by co-anglers Derek Andersen of Meadow Vista, California, and Ken Whalen of Lompoc, California, as each weighed a bass totaling 5 pounds, 5 ounces, while the Day 2 $150 co-angler award on Friday went to Jeremy Montenegro of Auburn, California, who weighed in a bass totaling 5 pounds, 2 ounces.
The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats at Lake Havasu was hosted by Go Lake Havasu. It was the second of three regular-season tournaments for the Toyota Series Western Division Presented by Tackle Warehouse. The next event for the Toyota Series Western Division Presented by Tackle Warehouse anglers will be the Toyota Series at the California Delta, June 5-7, in Oakley, California. For a complete schedule of events, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com.
The 2024 Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats consists of six divisions – Central, Northern, Plains, Southern, Southwestern and the Western Division Presented by Tackle Warehouse – each holding three regular-season events, along with the International and Wild Card divisions. Anglers who fish in any of the six divisions or the Wild Card division and finish in the top 25 will qualify for the no-entry-fee Toyota Series Championship for a shot at winning up to $235,000 and a qualification to REDCREST 2025. The winning Strike King co-angler at the championship earns a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower Mercury outboard. The 2024 Toyota Series Championship will be held Nov. 7-9 on Wheeler Lake in Huntsville, Alabama, and is hosted by the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Madison County Commission, and the Huntsville Sports Commission.
Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Toyota Series include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, E3, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, FX Custom Rods, General Tire, Lew’s, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Onyx, Phoenix, Polaris, Power-Pole, REDCON1, Strike King, Suzuki, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, WIX Filters, YETI.
For complete details and updated information visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular Toyota Series updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the MLF5 social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Tennessee’s Banks Shaw Earns First Career Victory at Toyota Series at Lake Chickamauga
DAYTON, Tenn. (May 4, 2024) – This week, nobody could touch pro Banks Shaw of Harrison, Tennessee, in the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats event on Lake Chickamauga . He finished Day 1 in third with 23 pounds, 11 ounces, then added 26-13 on Day 2 to take a 9-pound lead and slammed the door with 32-4 on the final day.
With a total of 82-12, 20-year-old Shaw won by 24-5, which edged past Alec Morrison’s 24-pound win last summer at Sam Rayburn to set a new record winning margin at the Toyota Series level. For the win, Shaw pocketed $44,000 and locked in a spot in this fall’s Toyota Series Championship on Wheeler Lake.
With a 13th-place finish, Matt O’Connell put the wraps on an impressive campaign to win Fishing Clash Angler of the Year in the Central Division.
A geography major at the University of North Alabama, Shaw calls Chickamauga home and reckons he’s idled about 90 percent of the lake. This week, every time he dipped into his bag of tricks he came up with a winner, and he ended up romping to his first win with MLF.
“It’s unreal. I don’t know what to say right now,” he said. “I’m not really chill at all. I can just hold it in a bit. I had ‘em early; I really didn’t think anybody would have 42 pounds and beat me. I let it set in out on the lake.”
To hear him tell it, the final morning was one for the record books. Though Chickamauga is no stranger to 30-pound bags, doing it on Day 3 of a major tournament with fish scattered between beds and ledges isn’t exactly normal.
“This morning, I ran like four places and only caught one tiny keeper,” Shaw said. “I just had a gut feeling to run back in a creek and hit a place, and I pulled up and caught a 7-pounder and a 6-pounder on back-to-back casts. From then on, I was like, ‘we can do this thing.’
“I started running with my gut. I pulled up on the next place and caught a 5-pounder. Next place, I caught a 7-pounder and two 6-pounders.”
From there, he knew he’d done something special and figured he might have a shot at some history.
“I was thinking about that today,” he admitted. “I was like, ‘I feel like this could be a record, but I really don’t know.’ It’s been insane with the technology. A handful of people are on hot streaks… just because of LiveScope.”
Of course, just strapping a transducer to the trolling motor and a screen to the boat doesn’t make you a winner. It takes a confluence of skills to hit the sort of heights Shaw did this week.
“I would say it’s my knowledge on the lake and my knowledge with technology,” he said of his record-setting week. “There are several guys out here that know the lake like I do, but they don’t really know the technology like I do, and they didn’t really understand what was going on.”
Shaw spent the event targeting offshore fish on hard spots and shell beds, following them out from the spawn to their summer haunts. Chickamauga is known for some extremely smart bass, and Shaw experienced that this week – in order to generate bites well, he really needed some bait in the area and a group of fish.
“I caught a few single fish, but not many at all,” he said. “Most of my bigger ones were out of groups. I probably got 10 or 15 percent of the follows I got to bite. I would have to have a group competing over the bait to get a bite.”
Setting his LiveScope range out to 120 feet, he was winding up big almost every cast.
“I won’t cast unless I see fish. The main key today was casting as far as I could,” he said. “I was staying as far off them as I could, just bombing a cast. That’s really the only way I could get them to bite. I would catch them at like 80 [feet], but most of the time I would hit them when they were at 100 [feet].”
Throwing a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader on a 1/8-ounce head as well as a 3/4-ounce V&M Pacemaker Football Jig on Joe Burns Custom Rods, Shaw fished different places every day of the event.
“It’s been everywhere,” he said. “I’ve caught them in 10 foot and I’ve caught them in 30 foot. I’ve just followed the fish. There are several places where they were earlier in the week, and I knew they’d be moving out as the week [went on]. I basically stayed on the fish as they moved out further and further.”
In the end, he made it look a lot easier than it was, when it really was a historic accomplishment for a 20-year-old college student.
The top 10 pros on Lake Chickamauga finished:
1st: Banks Shaw, Harrison, Tenn., 15 bass, 82-12, $44,000
2nd: Brody Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, 15 bass, 58-7, $18,300 (includes $1,000 Phoenix MLF Bonus)
3rd: Fisher Anaya, Eva, Ala., 15 bass, 56-15, $12,750
4th: Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, 15 bass, 56-8, $10,750
5th: Dillon Falardeau, Hixson, Tenn., 15 bass, 54-1, $9,750
6th: Hayden Marbut, Birmingham, Ala., 15 bass, 53-13, $8,375
7th: Kyle Norsetter, Cottage Grove, Wis., 15 bass, 51-3, $7,300
8th: Ethan Greene, Eufaula, Ala., 15 bass, 50-14, $6,800
9th: Ethan King, Wilsonville, Ala., 15 bass, 50-12, $5,300
10th: David Williams, Newton, N.C., 15 bass, 48-8, $4,700
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Pro Ethan Greene of Eufaula, Alabama, earned Thursday’s $500 Berkley Big Bass Award with a largemouth weighing in at 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Friday’s Day 2 $500 Berkley Big Bass Award went to pro David Williams of Newton, North Carolina, who weighed in a 8-pound, 7-ounce largemouth.
Kendall Parnell of Monticello, Kentucky, won the Strike King Co-angler Division Saturday with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 36 pounds, 7 ounces. Parnell took home the top co-angler prize package worth $34,000, including a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower Mercury outboard motor.
The top 10 Strike King co-anglers on Lake Chickamauga finished:
1st: Kendall Parnell, Monticello, Ky., 15 bass, 36-7, Phoenix 518 Pro boat w/115-hp Mercury outboard
2nd: Nycholas Swanson, Cedar Falls, Iowa, 13 bass, 36-0, $5,375
3rd: Charles Huggins, Jr., Springfield, Ohio, 14 bass, 33-12, $4,300
4th: Kenny Goodman, Apison, Tenn., 11 bass, 28-12, $3,650
5th: Josh Boone, Richmond, Ky., eight bass, 28-6, $3,150
6th: Cooper Jett, Norton Shores, Mich., 11 bass, 28-4, $2,650
7th: Jacob Turner, Abbeville, S.C., 11 bass, 27-13, $2,300
8th: Travis Bowen, Duffield, Va., 10 bass, 27-8, $1,825
9th: Kevin Henderson, Honea Path, S.C., 11 bass, 27-5, $1,680
10th: Michael Miller, Greenville, S.C., 13 bass, 26-11, $1,290
Kevin Henderson of Honea Path, South Carolina, earned the $150 Berkley Big Bass co-angler award on Thursday with a 6-pound, 12-ounce bass, while Friday’s Day 2 $150 co-angler award went to Slick Jones of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, who weighed in an 8-pound, 12-ounce giant.
The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats at Lake Chickamauga was hosted by Fish Dayton and the Rhea Economic & Tourism Council. It was the third and final regular-season tournament for the Toyota Series Central Division. The next event for the Toyota Series Central Division will be the 2024 Toyota Series Championship, Nov. 7-9 on Wheeler Lake in Huntsville, Alabama. For a complete schedule of events, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com.
The 2024 Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats consists of six divisions – Central, Northern, Plains, Southern, Southwestern and the Western Division Presented by Tackle Warehouse – each holding three regular-season events, along with the International and Wild Card divisions. Anglers who fish in any of the six divisions or the Wild Card division and finish in the top 25 will qualify for the no-entry-fee Toyota Series Championship for a shot at winning up to $235,000 and a qualification to REDCREST 2025. The winning Strike King co-angler at the championship earns a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower Mercury outboard. The 2024 Toyota Series Championship is hosted by the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Madison County Commission, and the Huntsville Sports Commission.
Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Toyota Series include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, E3, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, FX Custom Rods, General Tire, Lew’s, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Onyx, Phoenix, Polaris, Power-Pole, REDCON1, Strike King, Suzuki, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, WIX Filters, YETI.
For complete details and updated information visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular Toyota Series updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the MLF5 social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Against the Elements: The Battle for Victory in the 2024 Big Bass Tour Showdown
Day three of the highly anticipated 2024 Big Bass Tour can be best summarized as nothing short of tough. For those following the action, there’s been an unmistakable tension in the air, or rather, a notable lack of it. Yes, we’re talking about dock chatter—or the surprising absence thereof on what many anticipated to be a pivotal day in the competition.
As the morning welcomed us with a drizzle, there was a collective hope among the anglers and spectators alike that the rainy weather would lead to an increase in weights. Rain often brings bigger bass to the surface, making them easier to catch. However, as luck (or perhaps, misfortune) would have it, the wind decided not to cooperate, blowing in a direction that seemed to discourage the “big girls” from making an appearance.
Despite the challenging conditions, the spirit of competition buzzed among the anglers. Everyone’s eyes were on Keith Speece when he managed to weigh in a considerable 7.17-pounder, caught first thing in the morning. His catch injected a much-needed dose of excitement and hope into the day, proving that even under less-than-ideal conditions, the lake still had some surprises left in it.
But, of course, the big question hanging over everyone’s head is whether Thomas Lee’s impressive 7.72-pound catch will remain unbeaten on the final day of the tour. With only seven weigh-ins left before we crown a new champion and hand over the coveted Nitro Z18, tension is escalating. Will someone manage to outdo Lee’s catch under the foreboding promise of more rain?
The forecast for tomorrow does indeed predict more rainfall, adding another layer of unpredictability to what has already been an intense competition. Anglers will have to adjust their strategies, perhaps taking bigger risks to secure a catch that could win them the title and the boat.
As we stand on the brink of the tour’s conclusion, one thing is clear: the 2024 Big Bass Tour is a testament to the unpredictable, challenging, and ultimately thrilling nature of competitive bass fishing. Whether an avid fishing enthusiast or a newcomer to the sport, the excitement of these final moments is undeniable. Will we see a dramatic change in leaderboard standings, or will Lee’s near record-breaking catch secure him the victory and the Nitro Z18? All we can do is wait and watch as the final day unfolds, bringing with it the conclusion of yet another unforgettable chapter in the Big Bass Tour history.
CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL RESULTS