Myers Wins Strike King Co-Angler Division

BIRDSEYE, Ind. (May 16, 2022) – Boater Clint Bissonett of Dayton, Ohio, caught five bass Saturday weighing 19 pounds, 14 ounces, to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine on Patoka Lake. The tournament was the second event of the season for the Bass Fishing League Hoosier Division. Bissonett earned $4,435 for his victory.

“I had 140 waypoints marking bed fish that were spawning, so I just ran through them and caught the ones I could,” Bissonett said. “Some you could catch on one cast, and some you’d have to work on a while.

“My last fish I had tried for an hour on Thursday to get it to bite and on Friday for an hour to get it to bite during practice,” Bissonett added. “At the end of the day during the tournament I didn’t have any other big ones located that would help me, so I ran back up the river and went back to that fish and caught it within 10 minutes.”

Bissonett said he relied on “typical” bed-fish baits – creature baits, tubes and finesse worms – manufactured by Bent Rod Baits to load his limit.

“This feels really good,” Bissonett went on to say. “I had a really good chance to win this same event last year, but I ended up coming in fourth. It just wasn’t my day. It was a day where everything went wrong. Every single day since then I have thought about coming back and winning. So, to finally get to go back and win feels great.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:

1st:        Clint Bissonett, Dayton, Ohio, five bass, 19-14, $4,435
2nd:       Chris Klosterman, Dupont, Ind., five bass, 17-10, $2,413
3rd:       Brody Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, five bass, 17-8, $1,413
4th:        Chris Martinkovic, Hamilton, Ohio, five bass, 17-0, $1,688
5th:        Blake Knies, Jasper, Ind., five bass, 16-11, $811
5th:        Sean Mickey, Terre Haute, Ind., five bass, 16-11, $1,311 (includes $500 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
7th:        Nick Uebelhor, Jasper, Ind., five bass, 15-10, $706
8th:        Kevin Meunier, Lamar, Ind., four bass, 15-3, $635
9th:        Mike Quinlin, Mooresville, Ind., five bass, 15-0, $565
10th:     Chris Myers, Madison, Ind., five bass, 14-6, $494

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Klosterman and boater Jamil Abdullah of Indianapolis, Indiana, both caught largemouth that weighed 5 pounds, 10 ounces that were the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division. Klosterman and Abdullah split the day’s Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $590.

Patrick Myers of Lebanon, Indiana, won the Strike King Co-angler Division and $2,082 Saturday after catching three bass weighing 9 pounds, 5 ounces. The Patoka Lake event was Myers’ debut in MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League competition.

The top 10 Strike King co-anglers were:

1st:        Patrick Myers, Lebanon, Ind., three bass, 9-5, $2,082
2nd:       Tobie Ummel, Leitchfield, Ky., three bass, 8-1, $1,041
3rd:       Ryan Sykes, Fairfield, Ohio, three bass, 7-10, $992
4th:        Jeremy Johnson, Austin, Ind., two bass, 7-5, $486
5th:        Troy Gorham, Indianapolis, Ind., three bass, 7-2, $416
6th:        Mark Dehart, Brownstown, Ind., two bass, 7-0, $382
7th:        Shon Smith, Dubois, Ind., three bass, 6-12, $347
8th:        Chris Reynolds, Lewis, Ind., three bass, 6-6, $312
9th:        Collin Hillen, Evansville, Ind., two bass, 6-3, $278
10th:     Daniel Czaja, South Bend, Ind., two bass, 5-15, $243

James McWhorter of Hamilton, Ohio, caught the largest bass in the Co-angler Division, a fish weighing in at 4 pounds, 14 ounces. The catch earned him the day’s Berkley Big Bass Co-angler award of $290.

After two events, Chris Martinkovic of Hamilton, Ohio, leads the Bass Fishing League Hoosier Division Boater Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 496 points, while Ryan Sykes of Fairfield, Ohio, leads the Strike King Co-Angler Division AOY race with 488 points.

The top 45 boaters and co-anglers in the region based on point standings, along with the five winners in each qualifying event, will be entered in the Oct. 13-15 Bass Fishing League Regional Championship on the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Boaters will compete for a top award of $60,000, including a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury outboard and $10,000, while co-anglers will fish for a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury outboard.

The 2022 Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers, with 128 tournaments throughout the season, five qualifying events in each division. The top 45 boaters and Strike King co-anglers from each division, along with the five winners of the qualifying events, will advance to one of six Regional Championships where they are competing to finish in the top six, which then qualifies them for one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the Phoenix Bass Fishing League All-American. The 2022 All-American will be held June 2-4 at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and is hosted by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism and Visit Hot Springs.

The top 45 boaters and Strike King co-anglers plus tournament winners from each Phoenix Bass Fishing League division will also earn priority entry into the MLF Toyota Series, the pathway to the MLF Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit and ultimately the MLF Bass Pro Tour.

Proud sponsors of the 2022 MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine include: 4WP, 13 Fishing, Abu Garcia, AFTCO, A.R.E. Truck Caps, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, Black Rifle Coffee, E3, Epic Baits, Favorite Fishing, Gary Yamamoto Baits, General Tire, Lew’s, Lowrance, Lucas Oil, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Onyx, Phoenix, Polaris, Power-Pole, Revital Outdoors, Strike King, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, Wiley X, YETI and Yo-Zuri.

For complete details and updated tournament information, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular Bass Fishing League updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF5’s social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.