Guntersville, Alabama pro weighs 97 pounds even on 36 scorable bass to pace top 25 that advance, Knockout Round set for Saturday

WACO, Texas (March 6, 2026) – Guntersville, Alabama, pro Chris Lane has a knack for beating the buzzer – or, as is the case on the Bass Pro Tour , the “lines out” call. Lane’s one BPT victory came when he caught a 5-pounder in the final minute at the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in 2023. While that moment will forever be tough to top, he at least came close during Day 2 of the Qualifying Round at Champion Teamwear Stage 3 Presented by MillerTech.

Battling pro Jeff Sprague of Wills Point, Texas, for the top spot on SCORETRACKER®, Lane hooked a big bass as his boat official was counting down the final 10 seconds in Period 2. He wound up grabbing his line and hoisting the fish over the gunnel with no more than a second to spare. The lunker largemouth weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces – Lane’s biggest across two days on Lake Whitney. It turned a 2-pound lead over Sprague into an 8½-pound advantage, which Sprague never really threatened to erase.

“That second-period buzzer-beater, that was about as good as the one I got at Kissimmee when I won there,” Lane said.

Lane finished the Qualifying Round with a two-day total of 97 pounds even on 36 scorable bass, 40-4 of which came Friday. That topped Sprague by 13-7 and earned Lane an automatic trip to Sunday’s Championship Round.

Aside from him, the rest of the Top 25 finishers will head about 50 miles south to Lake Waco for Saturday’s Knockout Round. Lake Waco will also host the final-day Championship Round on Sunday. With zeroed weights and a fresh fishery, it’ll truly be anyone’s event to win.

Lane, who led by more than 5 pounds entering Friday, started the morning in the spot where he’d closed Day 1 strong, but the school of bass didn’t materialize like it had the prior afternoon. He caught just one scorable bass in the first 1 hour and 20 minutes, allowing both Sprague and Logan, Alabama’s Jesse Wiggins to pass him.

Rather than revisit the other areas where he’d caught his Day 1 weight, Lane decided to run up Lake Whitney to a zone he hadn’t visited since practice. He knew of three pockets that would be protected from the strong winds strafing the fishery, and he was hopeful they hadn’t been fished as hard as the shallow creeks and coves on the lower end of the lake.

When Lane arrived and didn’t see any competitors in the three pockets, he got excited. Catching three scorable bass in the first one further buoyed his confidence. In the next one, he caught fire, catching six scorable bass for 15-14 in less than an hour to retake the lead.

“I had a game plan to run all new water,” Lane said. “A lot of the pockets were getting fished by the same guys. I kind of noticed that as I was fishing and watching guys go in and out. That’s why I was like, man, I’m going to run up there, and if nobody’s been in there, then I’m going to go in there. And lo and behold, it worked out.”

Aside from the lack of pressure, Lane thinks the dirtier water farther up the lake also made those pockets more productive.

“I know a lot of guys were catching fish on wacky worms, and I went and practiced some of that stuff,” Lane said. “But the water was so clear, I just didn’t like it. And the bites that I would get in the dirty water would score. That was the difference between catching little ones and catching ones that would score.”

Lane methodically picked apart shallow wood cover. He thinks he caught bass in all three phases of the spawn but mostly bedding fish or those about to spawn. He did it with an old-school bait that has taken a backseat to a lot of newer plastics in recent years – a red-shad colored Bass Pro Shops Ribbontail Worm.

Lane also mixed in creature baits and a stickworm on Whitney, but he found that the tried-and-true ribbontail got more bites. As for the red shad color selection?

“You’re in Texas, buddy,” he said. “Throw red.”

Lane’s bait choice also allowed him to use heavier tackle than those anglers throwing finesse worms or fuzzy baits, which was important. Viewers on MLFNOW! saw an unusual number of pros lose or break off fish amid the wood cover lining Whitney’s banks. That included Lane, who estimated he lost “20 to 30 pounds” of bass on Day 1. He fished much cleaner on Day 2, which he attributed to being more patient and positioning his boat so that he had a lane to quickly wrench bass out of the cover should he get bit.

“You’re going to lose some in that stuff,” he said. “But I had the mindset today to make sure when I pitch somewhere, when I think there’s a target that’s got a fish on it, I’m going to make sure I position my boat, Power-Pole down, and sometimes I had to make that pitch two or three times before I got it to where if I got a bite, then I could get him out.”

Winning the Qualifying Round was especially important for Lane because he’s never launched a boat on Lake Waco. He missed one of the three official practice days prior to Stage 3, and he spent the other two on Whitney.
Now that he’s guaranteed a Top 10 finish, Lane feels like he has nothing to lose during the Championship Round.

“I’m going to go fish as free as a bird,” he said. “Making this Top 10 was awesome. I’m going to go there with an open mind, clear mind, and give it everything I got.”

The top 25 pros that now advance in competition at the Champion Teamwear Stage 3 Presented by MillerTech are:

*1st:      Chris Lane, Guntersville, Ala., 36 bass, 97-0 – ADVANCES TO CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND
2nd:      Jeff Sprague, Wills Point, Texas, 42 bass, 83-9
3rd:       Mark Daniels Jr., Tuskegee, Ala., 28 bass, 75-8
4th:       Mark Davis, Mount Ida, Ark., 32 bass, 73-10
5th:       Zack Birge, Blanchard, Okla., 32 bass, 73-4
6th:       Takahiro Omori, Tokyo, Japan, 27 bass, 72-15
7th:       Jesse Wiggins, Logan, Ala., 32 bass, 72-7
8th:       Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala., 28 bass, 70-10
9th:       Bradley Roy, Lancaster, Ky., 28 bass, 69-6
10th:     Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 35 bass, 69-3
11th:     Dustin Connell, Clanton, Ala., 31 bass, 64-14
12th:     Dean Rojas, Lake Havasu City, Ariz., 25 bass, 63-0
13th:     Cole Floyd, Leesburg, Ohio, 23 bass, 62-4
14th:     Adrian Avena, Vineland, N.J., 31 bass, 61-12
15th:     Alton Jones Jr., Lorena, Texas, 23 bass, 61-1
16th:     Keith Carson, DeBary, Fla., 21 bass, 60-5
17th:     Greg Vinson, Wetumpka, Ala., 21 bass, 60-0
18th:     Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 22 bass, 59-11
19th:     Spencer Shuffield, Hot Springs, Ark., 22 bass, 57-15
20th:     Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 24 bass, 56-8
21st:     Edwin Evers, Talala, Okla., 24 bass, 55-11
22nd:    David Dudley, Lynchburg, Va., 22 bass, 55-0
23rd:     Bryan Thrift, Shelby, N.C., 26 bass, 53-10
24th:     Nick LeBrun, Bossier City, La., 23 bass, 52-1
25th:     Casey Ashley, Donalds, S.C., 22 bass, 50-8

Full results for the remaining field can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 493 bass weighing 1,187 pounds, 3 ounces, caught by the 51 Bass Pro Tour anglers on Friday.

Pros Takahiro Omori and Greg Vinson split Friday’s $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award, as each caught a largemouth weighing 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Omori caught his in Period 2 on a vibrating jig, while Vinson’s also bit in Period 2, although his came on a spinnerbait. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day.

Hosted by the City of Waco, the Greater Waco Sports Commission and the Waco Tourism Public Improvement District (TPID) , the four-day event features a field of 51 of the top professional anglers in the world competing for a $125,000 top prize and their share of the $600,000 purse, along with valuable Fishing Clash Angler of the Year (AOY) points in hopes of qualifying for the MLF Heavy Hitters all-star event and REDCREST 2027, the Bass Pro Tour championship.

The full field of 51 anglers competed in the two-day Qualifying Round on Thursday and Friday. With the two-day Qualifying Round now complete, the pro with the heaviest two-day total – Chris Lane – advances directly to Sunday’s Championship Round. The anglers that finished 2nd through 25th now advance to Saturday’s Knockout Round. In the Knockout Round, weights are zeroed, and the remaining anglers compete to finish in the top nine to advance to Sunday’s Championship Round. In the final-day Championship Round, weights are zeroed, and the highest one-day total wins the top prize of $125,000.

On Day 3 (Saturday) and Day 4 (Sunday), anglers will arrive at 6:15 a.m. to Twin Bridges Park (Lake Waco), located at 3201 N. State Hwy. 6 in Waco, Texas. Anglers will return to Twin Bridges Park each evening following the end of competition at 3:45 p.m. Fans are welcome to attend all launch and takeout events and also encouraged to watch the event live online throughout the day on the MLFNOW!® livestream and follow along with SCORETRACKER® coverage at  MajorLeagueFishing.com.

The MLFNOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live on all four days of competition from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT. MLFNOW!® will be livestreamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app and Rumble.

On Saturday and Sunday, March 7 and 8, from 3 to 6 p.m., MLF invites fans of all ages to Twin Bridges Park, located at 3201 N. State Hwy. 6 in Waco, Texas, for the MLF Fan Experience & Watch Party. Fans can watch the Bass Pro Tour pros live on the MLFNOW!® big screen, enjoy free food for the first 100 fans each day, enter hourly giveaways, browse MLF merchandise and the bargain bait bin, and cheer on their favorite anglers. Youth of all ages can take part in a fishing derby (gear and bait provided, weather permitting) and a casting contest. Top 10 angler interviews and the trophy presentation begins at 5 p.m., including autographs and photos with Bass Pro Tour finalists. The first 50 kids ages 14 and under will receive a free rod and reel each day.

The Champion Teamwear Stage 3 at Lake Whitney and Lake Waco Presented by MillerTech will feature anglers competing with a 1-pound, 8-ounce minimum weight requirement for a bass to be deemed scorable. The MLF Fisheries Management Division determines minimum weights for each body of water that the Bass Pro Tour visits, based on the productivity, bass population and anticipated average size of fish in each fishery.

The 2026 Bass Pro Tour features 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 Heavy Hitters all-star event and the REDCREST 2027 championship.

Television coverage of the Champion Teamwear Stage 3 at Lake Whitney and Lake Waco Presented by MillerTech will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET Saturday, Sept. 5, 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., Bass Force, B&W Trailer Hitches, 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, 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 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, CBS Sports Network, 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.