Fast start carries Lucas to victory and top prize of $125,000 with 25 bass for 98-11 in final-day Championship Round

SANDUSKY, Ohio (Aug. 9, 2026) – After six years and so many high finishes without a tour-level victory, Justin Lucas started to doubt whether he would ever hoist another trophy. Turns out, all he needed to do was return to the site of his last national win.

Prior to Major League Fishing (MLF) Suzuki Marine Stage 7 at Lake Erie Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches, the last time a national MLF trail visited Lake Erie was the 2020 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Super Tournament. That also marked Lucas’ last victory – he edged Jacob Wheeler by 1 ounce.

This week, the final standings once again read Lucas first, Wheeler second. But Lucas didn’t allow for near as much suspense.

Putting together one of the most impressive days of smallmouth fishing you’ll ever see in terms of both quantity and quality, Lucas racked up 98 pounds, 11 ounces on 25 scorable bass during Sunday’s Championship Round. He boated six smallmouth over 5 pounds, including the Berkley Big Bass of the day and the event – a 6-11. He topped SCORETRACKER® for nearly every minute, ultimately besting Wheeler by 19-6.

In the moments after lines out, he struggled to wrap his mind around what had just transpired.

“I feel like I’ve been in a dream for the last hour and a half,” Lucas said. “Just big ones, just biting.”

Prior to this week, Lucas hadn’t launched a boat on Lake Erie since the final day of the 2020 Super Tournament. While some thought the Bass Pro Tour’s every-fish-counts format could favor largemouth, Lucas was all-in on smallmouth from the start of practice, and he liked his chances for a high finish.

“I think the main thing is that I love throwing a drop-shot and they love eating it,” he said of his kinship with Erie. “When I put my boat in the water, I am very confident that if I pick up a drop-shot, I should be able to find some smallmouth bass.”

Indeed, Lucas caught nearly all his weight on drop-shot with a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Flat Worm – the exact setup that carried him to victory six years ago. He also mixed in a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Tube. He threw both baits on 7-foot, medium Abu Garcia Fantasista X spinning rods with 3000-sized Abu Garcia Zenon X reels spooled with 8-pound Berkley X5 braid and a 10-pound Berkley GinClear fluorocarbon leader.

When it comes to Great Lakes smallmouth, the challenge isn’t so much knowing what to throw as it is finding the sweet spots in a massive playing field. None of his spots from six years ago produced this time, so Lucas used strategy to his advantage to cover as much water as possible.

During the two-day Qualifying Round, he topped the 80-pound mark (which he figured would get him into the Knockout Round) with a period left on Day 2, and he used that time to explore new territory. That’s when he found the shipping channel marker that would carry him to victory.

“I saw it in the distance, and I was like, ‘Alright, we’re going,’ because I had gotten bit off the other one,” Lucas explained. “I rolled up with maybe 30 or 45 minutes left in the day, and I made three drops and caught three over 4 pounds. And my 2-D sonar lit up, there was an unbelievable amount of fish. So, I knew it was a pretty special spot.”

Lucas got to see just how special the following morning. Despite battling rough waves, he stacked up 47-5 on 12 scorable bass during the first hour and 15 minutes of the Knockout Round, securing a spot on Championship Sunday.

He thinks the channel markers were so productive because they offered the only structure and shade in miles of open water.

“I think it’s like an oil rig in the ocean,” he said. “When it’s the only piece of cover out there for miles, the bait gravitates toward it, and in turn, the smallmouth gravitate toward it, because the bait goes there. It’s the only place that offers shade for miles. They were definitely keyed on the shade of that thing. They would move around it as the shade moved.”

As he took the water for the Championship Round, Lucas wasn’t sure how many bass he’d left on his best spot or whether new fish would move in. He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Lucas caught three scorable bass, including a 4-6, on his first four casts. He then added his first 5-pounder of the day. About 30 minutes later, he landed the 6-11 tank. All told, he totaled more than 40 pounds in the opening hour. He ran to his other channel marker and added four more scorable bass in the first period, bringing his total to 54-6 and taking a lead of more than 18 pounds over Wheeler.

Then, his bite simply died. Lucas turned on his forward-facing sonar during Period 2, but he caught only two scorable bass during the period. While just about everyone felt the midday lull to some extent, both Wheeler and Floyd pulled within 15 pounds of the lead – and Wheeler conserved his forward-facing sonar for the final frame. He would get as close as 8 pounds early in Period 3.

Lucas admitted he was “a little bit stressed” during the second period. But all day, he’d maintained that he needed his channel marker bite to fire again in the afternoon, and he remained optimistic it would happen.

“The first day, one of them saved me in the afternoon, and then the second day, I found the other one in the afternoon,” he said. “So, I knew that there was an afternoon bite on them.”

At the start of Period 3, Lucas returned to the less productive of the two channel markers – the one he’d fished since Day 1. He found some momentum with a 2-11, then caught a 3-5 and a 5-13 in quick succession. Then, he ventured back to the marker where he’d started each of the past two mornings, hoping it would deliver one more time. Deliver, it did.

Lucas landed six more scorable bass, the final three of which were all over 5 pounds. In all, he tacked on 38-4 on nine smallmouth during Period 3.

That caliber of fish is what separated him from the competition – and why Lucas never wasted time looking for largemouth. Floyd boated the same number of scorable bass as Lucas on the day, and Wheeler caught two more. But Lucas caught all six of the 5-plus-pound bass landed by the field. He caught nine bass over 4 pounds, six over 5 and one over 6. His best five weighed an eye-popping 28-7 – and he caught them all without forward-facing sonar.

“When you’re going up against Wheeler, you need everything going in your favor,” he said. “And the fact that I was on better quality – he is incredible at fishing, but he is even more incredible at our format and just catching fish. So, I knew in my mind, today, I was going to have to catch 20 to 30 fish to have a chance. I kind of bet on a 4-pound average on that offshore stuff.”

Lucas said he’s boated heavier bags of brown bass before on smallmouth meccas like Lake Ontario and Mille Lacs, but certainly never with so much on the line. Based on what he saw this week, he believes Erie once again deserves inclusion alongside those fisheries on the short list of the top northern smallmouth destinations.

“It’s not known to be the best Great Lake for smallmouth fishing,” he said. “It’s gone in cycles. From what I saw this week, I was more than impressed. I feel like Lake Erie is back.”

Both having arrived on the national scene around the same time, Lucas and Wheeler have developed a friendly rivalry through the years. This is far from the first time they’ve locked horns with a trophy on the line. Earlier in 2026, at Stage 4 on O.H. Ivie and Lake Brownwood, Lucas took an early lead during the Championship Round, but Wheeler came back to win.

Avenging that loss and getting the better of the No. 1-ranked angler in the world only added to Lucas’ sense of accomplishment.

“He’s taken my money so many other times, and earlier this year, he got me at Brownwood,” Lucas said. “I felt like I let that one slip through my fingers. So, this one definitely means a lot.”

Even more important, Lucas proved to himself that he’s still capable of getting over the hump and winning at the highest level.

It had been almost exactly six years since his Super Tournament victory. During that time, he’s been in the Top 10 of 18 national events, including four runner-up finishes. After all those near misses, Lucas has a different appreciation for this victory than his first four national wins.

“It’s the longest I’ve gone without a win in my professional career,” Lucas said. “And you start wondering, like, ‘Man, could that have been my last one six years ago?’ You never know. So, it definitely means a ton. And to do it on Lake Erie two different times, that’s pretty special.”

The top 10 pros at Suzuki Marine Stage 7 at Lake Erie Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches finished:

1st:          Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala., 25 bass, 98-11, $125,000
2nd:        Jacob Wheeler, Birchwood, Tenn., 27 bass, 79-7, $45,000
3rd:         Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 24 bass, 68-7, $35,000
4th:         Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio, 25 bass, 64-9, $30,000
5th:         Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., 17 bass, 53-14, $25,000
6th:         Jeff Sprague, Wills Point, Texas, 11 bass, 34-0, $23,000
7th:         Marshall Hughes, Hemphill, Texas, 10 bass, 33-2, $22,000
8th:         Ott DeFoe, Blaine, Tenn., nine bass, 30-0, $21,000
9th:         Jesse Wiggins, Logan, Ala., seven bass, 22-3, $20,500
10th:       Zack Birge, Blanchard, Okla., six bass, 20-12, $20,000

A complete list of results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 161 bass caught weighing 505 pounds, 1 ounce by the 10 Bass Pro Tour anglers on Sunday.

Sunday’s $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award was earned by Lucas who caught a 6-pound, 11-ounce smallmouth – the biggest bass of the event – in the first period on a drop-shot rig. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day.

Hosted by Shores & Islands Ohio, t he four-day tournament featured 51 of the world’s top professional anglers competing for a $125,000 top prize and their share of a $600,000 purse, along with valuable Fishing Clash Angler of the Year (AOY) points in hopes of qualifying for REDCREST 2027 – the Bass Pro Tour championship – and the Kubota Heavy Hitters all-star event.

The 2026 Bass Pro Tour featured a field of 51 of the best professional anglers in the world, competing across seven regular-season tournaments around the country for millions of dollars and valuable points to qualify for the annual Kubota Heavy Hitters all-star event and the REDCREST 2027 championship.

Television coverage of the Suzuki Marine Stage 7 at Lake Erie Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Oct. 3 on Discovery. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel.

Proud sponsors of the MLF Bass Pro Tour include: Abu Garcia, Athletic Brewing Co., B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Force, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, Black Buffalo, BUBBA, Cigars International, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, Grizzly, Lowrance, Mercury, MillerTech, NITRO Boats, OFF! Deep Woods, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala, Star brite, Starlink, Suzuki Marine, Toyota, Yuengling and Zenni.

For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the Bass Pro Tour, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, X,  Instagram, Rumble 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.