Farris, of Lily, Kentucky, Tops Strike King Co-Angler Division

ANDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (March 11, 2024) – Boater Jimmy Neece, Jr., of Bristol, Tennessee, caught a five-bass limit weighing 17 pounds, 2 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine on Norris Lake. The tournament was the first event of the season for the BFL Volunteer Division. Neece earned $4,720 for his victory.

Early spring in East Tennessee is Damiki rig season. It’s the perfect time to finesse big prespawn smallmouth bass with a small minnow-shaped soft plastic in deep, clear water. And that’s exactly how Neece caught his winning limit of smallmouths.

“The fish that I was catching are prespawn and suspended out at the mouths of pockets and spawning areas,” said Neece, who owns a construction company.

“I really looked for the shad and looked for the stripers,” he added. “There’s a ton of stripers in that lake. And if I found the stripers, the smallmouth were somewhere close by. You’d into some areas and there wouldn’t be anything – no trash fish and nothing swimming around. If you got into an area with a lot of stripers congregated around, the smallmouth would be somewhere close.”

Neece said the fish on his best spot had actually slid out a few hundred yards from where he found them on Friday. He was able to relocate them with Garmin LiveScope, which he used to catch all of the fish he weighed in.

“(It was) one at a time casting a Damiki at them,” he said. “That’s basically it. You have to spend a lot of time on the trolling motor.”

Neece used a Damiki Armor Shad on a homemade jighead. He fished the rig with a 6-foot, 8-inch, medium-action G. Loomis IMX Pro spinning rod, a 2500-size Shimano Vanford spinning reel, 10-pound-test braided line and a 7-pound-test Sunline Super FC Sniper Fluorocarbon leader. He kept three identical combos on his deck, each rigged with a different color soft plastic.

“I varied between lighter and darker colors, and my fish were anywhere from the surface down to 20 feet of water,” Need said. “If you got it near one, he was coming for it.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:

1st:        Jimmy Neece, Jr., Bristol Tenn., five bass, 17-2, $4,720
2nd:       Joseph Tallent, Knoxville, Tenn., five bass, 16-2, $2,360
3rd:       Seth Barton, Middlesboro, Ky., five bass, 15-13, $1,574
4th:        Trent Adkins, East Bernstadt, Ky., five bass, 15-10, $1,101
5th:        Hunter McClaskey, Elizabethton, Tenn., five bass, 15-7, $944
6th:        Zack Long, Clinton, Tenn., five bass, 15-6, $865
7th:        John Napier, Middlesboro, Ky., five bass, 15-0, $747
7th:        Riley Faulkner, Jacksboro, Tenn., five bass, 15-0, $747
9th:        Seth Fricke, Oxford, Ohio, five bass, 14-12, $629
10th:     Tim Saylor, Johnson City, Tenn., five bass, 14-11, $551

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Dalton Noble of Hazard, Kentucky, caught a bass that weighed 4 pounds, 5 ounces, and earned the Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $695.

Steve Farris of Lily, Kentucky, won the Strike King co-angler division and $1,088 Saturday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 14 pounds, 2 ounces.

The top 10 Strike King co-anglers finished:

1st:        Steve Farris, Lily, Ky., five bass, 15-1, $2,175
2nd:       Scott Pittman, Powell, Tenn., five bass, 14-2, $1,088
3rd:       Travis Malone, Wartburg, Tenn., five bass, 13-10, $976
4th:        Cody Stokes, Ooltewah, Tenn., five bass, 12-14, $507
5th:        Josh Smith, Siler, Ky., five bass, 11-13, $435
6th:        Konnor Sweet, Abingdon, Va., five bass, 11-10, $399
7th:        John Henley, Kingston, Tenn., five bass, 11-8, $344
7th:        Ransom Boone, Marshall, N.C., five bass, 11-8, $344
9th:        T.J. Blakely, Kingsport, Tenn., five bass, 11-5, $290
10th:     Shane Bowman, Caryville, Tenn., five bass, 11-2, $254

Rob Welsh of Berea, Kentucky, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $307, catching a bass that weighed in at 3 pounds, 11 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.

The next event for BFL Volunteer Division anglers will be held April 20, at South Holston Lake in Bristol, Tennessee. To register for the event as a boater or a co-angler, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com or call (270)-252-1000.

The top 45 boaters and co-anglers in the region based on point standings, along with the five tournament winners of each qualifying event, will qualify for the Oct. 17-19 BFL Regional tournament on Clarks Hill Lake in Appling, Georgia. Boaters will fish for a top award of $60,000, including a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard and $10,000, while co-anglers will compete for a top award of $50,000, including a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard.

The 2024 Phoenix BFL Presented by T-H Marine is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers, with 128 events throughout the season, five qualifying tournaments in each division. The top 45 boaters and Strike King co-anglers from each division, along with the five qualifying event winners, will advance to one of six BFL Regional tournaments 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 BFL All-American.

Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, E3, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, General Tire, GSM Outdoors, Lew’s, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Onyx, Phoenix, Polaris, Power-Pole, Strike King, Suzuki, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota and YETI.

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.

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 Channel, Outdoor Channel, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network 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 17 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.