MANCHESTER, Tenn. (Oct. 21, 2026) – A change of venue brought a new set of challenges Wednesday as the Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents moved from Tims Ford Lake to nearby Normandy Lake for the first Knockout Round of the 2026 MLF Starlink Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops. Team Lucas Oil’s Michael Neal of Dayton, Tennessee, and Wesley Strader of Spring City, Tennessee, took the lead just 10 minutes into competition and never relinquished it, finishing the day with a total of 13 bass weighing 23 pounds, 9 ounces to secure their place in Friday’s Championship Round.

While Team Lucas Oil controlled the leaderboard throughout the day, the battle for the second qualifying position came down to the final minutes. Team Star brite’s Bobby and Chris Lane edged Team Lowrance’s Takahiro Omori and Dean Rojas by just 1 pound, 3 ounces, thanks to a clutch 2-5 bass caught by Chris with approximately 10 minutes remaining. The two teams had been tied with just 30 minutes left in competition, then Rojas landed a 1-2 to move ahead, and Lane’s late catch proved to be the difference-maker, sending Team Star brite to the Championship Round with a total of nine bass for 17-15, good for second place. Team Lowrance finished third with nine scorable bass weighing 16-12, falling just short of advancing and bringing their Heritage Cup run to an end.

Link to Hi-Res Photo of Heritage Cup Knockout Round Match 1 Winner Team Lucas Oil
Link to HD Video Clip of Heritage Cup Knockout Round Match 1 Highlights
Link to Morning Photo Gallery: Heritage Cup hits Normandy Lake for Knockout Round Match 1

For Team Lucas Oil, the winning performance was built on versatility and a willingness to adjust as conditions changed. Neal and Strader began the morning targeting fish with forward-facing sonar, using a jighead minnow to pick off bass positioned away from the bank. As the day progressed, however, the duo shifted toward a shallow-water approach, mixing plopper-style topwater baits and buzzbaits to target fish holding in shallow water.

The combination allowed the Tennessee natives to maintain their early advantage, with Neal providing key catches using forward-facing sonar and Strader delivering several quality bass during the final period. Neal was throwing a jighead minnow and Strader found his most productive presentation with a 3/8-ounce Big Daddy’s buzzbait rigged with a Zoom Horny Toad on 50-pound braided line.

“We started the day off good and it really wound up being a one-two punch,” Neal said. “We started out using forward-facing sonar and caught a handful on a jighead minnow. The jerkbait had been bringing them in during our Elimination Round, but we went back to the jighead minnow today and was able to catch some fish. In the last period, Wesley really carried us. We covered a lot of water and got the right bites to make it through to the Championship Round.”

Strader said the shallow-water bite became increasingly productive as the day progressed, although the location of the fish didn’t always follow expectations.

“We figured a little something out in the first period and more so as the day went on,” Strader said. “It wasn’t much of a ‘pattern’, but we figured out they were biting a buzzbait and we’d get into places where a boat had stirred up the water and you’d think that dirty water would make the fishing better, but the ones that were biting were in ankle-deep, clear water. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s where they were.”

The turning point came when Strader abandoned a plopper-style bait in favor of the buzzbait after sensing that the fish were responding better to a different presentation. Although the adjustment didn’t produce a flurry of catches, the quality of the bass proved sufficient to keep Team Lucas Oil comfortably ahead of the field.

“We pulled into a pocket and I caught one on a plopper that wasn’t scorable, then I caught a scorable bass on it, but it still didn’t quite feel right,” Strader said. “I decided to pick up that buzzbait with the Horny Toad, and we got to rolling pretty good. We didn’t catch a ton of fish, but the ones we caught were good ones.”

With Team Star brite and Team Lowrance locked in a close battle behind them, Neal said the primary objective became maintaining their lead without abandoning the areas and techniques that had already produced.

“The object for most of the day was just to keep the wolves at bay and maintain that top spot,” Neal said. “We made the decision to stick with shallow-water fishing and not get too far away from where we started that morning. We went back through some of that same water, and I didn’t feel great about it, but nothing seemed to be working particularly well. We just needed to keep catching fish and staying ahead. Thankfully, it worked out for us.”

The top two teams from Knockout Round Match 1 at the Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^®Deep Woods^® Repellents that now advance to Friday’s Championship Round are:

1st:          Team Lucas Oil, 13 bass, 23-9
Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., five bass, 9-5
Wesley Strader, Spring City, Tenn., eight bass, 14-4

2nd:         Team Star brite, nine bass, 17-15
Bobby Lane, Lakeland, Fla., three bass, 7-5
Chris Lane, Guntersville, Ala., six bass, 10-10

Eliminated from competition are:

3rd:          Team Lowrance, nine bass, 16-12
Takahiro Omori, Tokyo, Japan, six bass, 13-0
Dean Rojas, Lake Havasu City, Ariz., three bass, 3-12

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

Overall, there were 30 bass weighing 57 pounds, 3 ounces caught by the three teams in Knockout Round Match 1 on Normandy Lake Wednesday. Team Star brite pro Bobby Lane caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a 4-pound, 11-ounce bass – the biggest of the event.

The three teams that will compete Thursday in Knockout Round Match 2 at the Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents are:

Team B&W Trailer Hitches
Todd Faircloth, Jasper, Texas
Nick LeBrun, Benton, La.

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

Team MillerTech
Adrian Avena, Marmora, N.J.
Jacob Wheeler, Birchwood, Tenn.

The Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents is hosted by Experience Tennessee, in partnership with Manchester, TN, Winchester, TN, the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, Bill Dance Signature Lakes and Fish Tennessee, and takes place over six days in Manchester, Tennessee. 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 9:15 a.m. CT.

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 4 p.m. CT. MLFNOW!^® is livestreamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and Rumble. The final hour of each day of competition will be broadcast live from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET on RFD-TV.

The Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents features 12 two-man teams divided into three groups as they entered the one-day Elimination Round matches. Each of the three Elimination Round matches featured four new teams, with the top two teams from each match of the Elimination Round now 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 2026 Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents.

The MLF Starlink Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops features four Cup events in 2026 – the Patriot, Heritage, Challenge, 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 2026 Bass Pro Tour season – selected a teammate. Teams will compete throughout the fall of 2026.

The MLF Starlink Team Series Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents will also air on Outdoor Channel as six two-hour original episodes each Saturday afternoon beginning in February 2027. The complete television schedule for the Starlink Team Series on Outdoor Channel will be posted at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Proud sponsors of the MLF Starlink Team Series include: Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Boat Technologies, Bass Pro Shops, Bass Force, Berkley, Black Buffalo, BUBBA, Cigars International, Epic Baits, Ferguson, Grizzly Nicotine Pouches, Kubota, Lowrance, Lucas Oil, Mercury, MillerTech, NITRO Boats, OFF! Deep Woods Repellents, Onyx, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala, Starlink, Toyota, YETI, Yuengling and Zenni.

For complete details and updated information on the MLF Starlink 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, Outdoor Channel, VICE, World Fishing Network, RFD-TV, Game & Fish TV and Rumble, 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.