PORT HURON, Mich. (Aug. 24, 2025) – The first day of the 2025 Major League Fishing (MLF) Fishing Clash Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops launched in style Sunday at the B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by 5-hour ENERGY® at Port Huron on Michigan’s Thumbcoast. Warm, sunny skies and a light breeze made for near-perfect fishing conditions, and by the time the BUBBA scales stopped running at the end of three periods, it was a familiar family duo who stole the show on Day 1.

Representing Team 7Brew Coffee, Alton Jones Sr. and Alton Jones Jr. turned in a solid performance, boating 27 scorable bass weighing 65 pounds, 5 ounces to secure the first Elimination Round victory of the season. The father-and-son pairing, who fished together last year and finished runner-up at the Heritage Cup in Neenah, Wisconsin, wasted little time finding their rhythm on the southern half of the St. Clair River, where competitors were restricted to Sunday. Their smallmouth bite set the pace for much of the day and carried them to the top of the leaderboard, becoming the very first team to punch through to the Knockout Round.

Joining them in advancement was Team Star Tron, the tandem of Florida veteran Bobby Lane and rising pro Jacob Wall, who connected with 20 scorable bass weighing 39 pounds, 14 ounces. Like the Joneses, Lane and Wall worked steadily through the Elimination Round, piecing together enough quality bites to comfortably secure the second and final advancing spot of the day.

That meant the end of the road for the Lucas Oil duo of Michael Neal and Brent Chapman and Team BUBBA’s John Hunter and Justin Cooper, who were eliminated from the Challenge Cup after finishing third and fourth, respectively.

Team 7Brew Coffee wasted little time taking control of the match, jumping out to an early lead in Period 1 and never letting go. Their edge came from experience and execution – Alton Jones Sr. has competed on these waters many times over his career, and that knowledge helped the duo lock in on today’s winning pattern almost immediately.

“We’ve continued to dial down and dial in the pattern,” Jones Sr. said. “The key today was finding the current – finding where it really roars. Anytime you can dial in a good pattern in the first period it really helps you. You don’t have to spend half the day trying to figure out what you need to be doing.”

Fishing almost exclusively for smallmouth – 25 of their 27 scorable bass came from brown fish – the Joneses spent the day targeting current seams in 12 to 25 feet of water. Both anglers leaned heavily on the new 2.8-inch Geecrack Bellows Shad, a size that has yet to hit the U.S. market but proved to be the difference-maker.

“It was a really good day,” Jones Jr. said. “We caught them really well on the Bellows Shad, but we weren’t even throwing it at the end of the day because we’re trying to save the few packs of Bellows Shads we’ve got left. They’re not even out, yet, and we’ve only got three packs. So we’re going to be making some phone calls to see if we can get some stuff overnighted to us in time for the Knockout Round.”

For Jones Sr., it was his first time ever tying on the bait, and he was impressed.

“The Bellows Shad, the little 2.8, looks as much like a goby or baitfish as anything I’ve ever seen,” he said. “After Jr. caught a couple on it this morning I went straight to it, and I started getting bit. I’m pretty pumped about that little bait.”

The father-son duo alternated between different color patterns – Jr. with green pumpkin, Sr. with electric shad – and both produced equally well. The combination of a unique presentation and knowledge of where to apply it made all the difference.

“These fish are pressured, they’re seeing a lot of the same stuff,” Jones Jr. added. “Showing them a bait they’ve never seen before was the ticket today.”

Though Alton Jr. was quick to credit his father’s decision-making, Sr. pointed out that the learning now goes both ways.

“There are not many times where we fish together and I call the shots and run the show,” he admitted. “He’s already heads and tails beyond what I’ve ever known, and I learn from him way more than he learns from me now. But he might have learned a thing or two today.”

“I did,” Jones Jr. replied with a grin.

The top two teams from Elimination Round Match 1 at the B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by 5-hour ENERGY® that now advance to the Knockout Round are:

1st:        7Brew Coffee, 27 bass, 65-5
Alton Jones Sr., Lorena, Texas, 13 bass, 29-4
Alton Jones Jr., Waco, Texas, 14 bass, 36-1
2nd:       Team Star Tron, 20 bass, 39-14
Jacob Wall, New Hope, Ala., nine bass, 18-4
Bobby Lane, Lakeland, Fla., 11 bass, 21-10

Eliminated from competition are:

3rd:       Team Lucas Oil, 14 bass, 26-11
Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 10 bass, 18-10
Brent Chapman, Lake Quivira, Kan., four bass, 8-1
4th:        Team BUBBA, eight bass, 16-5
John Hunter, Shelbyville, Ky., five bass, 10-8
Justin Cooper, Zwolle, La., three bass, 5-13

Complete results from throughout the week can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 69 bass weighing 148 pounds, 3 ounces caught by the four teams in Elimination Round Match 1 on the southern half of the St. Clair River. Team 7 Brew Coffee pro Alton Jones Jr. caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a smallmouth weighing 4 pounds, 13 ounces.

The four teams that will compete Monday in Elimination Round Match 2 at the B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by 5-hour ENERGY® are:

Team B&W Trailer Hitches:
Mark Davis, Mount Ida, Ark.
Gary Klein, Mingus, Texas

Team Ferguson:
Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif.
Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala.

Team O’Reilly Auto Parts:
Ron Nelson, Berrien Springs, Mich.
Martin Villa, Charlottesville, Va.

Team Smokey Mountain:
Dean Rojas, Lake Havasu City, Ariz.
Josh Bertrand, Queen Creek, Ariz.

The B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Presented by 5-hour ENERGY® is hosted by Discover the Blue Michigan’s Thumbcoast and takes place over six days in Port Huron, Michigan. The competition water for each day is top-secret and is only revealed to the anglers when they arrive at the boat ramp each morning. Anglers are driven directly to the day’s competition area launch ramp by their officials. Competition begins on the water at 8:45 a.m.

The MLFNOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live every day of competition from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. MLFNOW!® is live streamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps, RFD-TV Now, Game & Fish TV and Rumble. The final period of every day of competition of the 2025 Fishing Clash Team Series is broadcast live on RFD-TV, from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET.

The Challenge Cup features 12 two-man teams divided into three groups as they enter the one-day Elimination Round matches. Each of the three Elimination Round matches will feature four new teams, with the top two teams from each match of the Elimination Round advancing to the Knockout Round on Days 4 & 5. In the Knockout Rounds, three teams compete each day, with the top two teams from each Knockout Round match moving on to the Championship Round on Day 6. In Friday’s Day 6 Championship Round, the final four teams will compete in a one-day shootout to determine which team will win the 2025 B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Presented by 5-hour ENERGY®.

The MLF Fishing Clash Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops will feature four Cup events in 2025 – the Challenge, Heritage, Patriot, and Summit Cups – with 12 two-man teams of Bass Pro Tour anglers competing for a share of  $560,000 in prize money. Teams were formed through a selection process, where 48 team captains – based on Fishing Clash Angler of the Year (AOY) standings throughout the 2025 Bass Pro Tour season – selected a teammate. Teams will compete throughout the fall of 2025.

Television coverage of the MLF Fishing Clash Team Series B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by 5-hour ENERGY® will premiere on Outdoor Channel as six two-hour original episodes each Saturday afternoon starting January 3, 2026. The complete television schedule for the Fishing Clash Team Series on Outdoor Channel will be posted at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Proud sponsors of the MLF Fishing Clash Team Series include: 7Brew Coffee, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Boat Technologies, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, E3 Sport Apparel, Epic Baits, Ferguson, Fishing Clash, Knighten Industries, Kubota, Lowrance, Lucas Oil, Mercury, NITRO Boats, Onyx, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala, Smokey Mountain Caffeinated Pouches, Star brite, Toyota, YETI and Zenni.

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

About Major League Fishing
Major League Fishing (MLF) is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, producing more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America’s living rooms on CBS, Discovery, Discovery+, Discovery GO, Animal Planet, Outdoor Channel, VICE, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network, RFD-TV and Game & Fish TV, and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world’s top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 20 countries. Since its founding in 2011, MLF has advanced the sport of competitive fishing through its premier television broadcasts and livestreams and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.