Dayton, Tennessee pro catches 27 bass weighing 83-11 to lead Saturday’s Knockout Round, 10 Anglers Set for Sunday’s Final Day Championship Round

MASSENA, N.Y. (Aug. 10, 2024) – The 20 anglers contesting the Knockout Round at the Major League Fishing (MLF) Bass Pro Tour Minn Kota Stage Seven Presented by Humminbird got the full St. Lawrence River experience on Saturday — gusty wind, turbulent waters and smallmouth bass by the bunches.

With the vast majority of the field targeting the smallmouth synonymous with the fishery and the bass eager to oblige, anglers lit up SCORETRACKER® early and often. After a handful of competitors traded the top spots throughout the afternoon, Michael Neal wound up atop the leaderboard with 83 pounds, 11 ounces on 27 scorable bass. He finished 15 ounces clear of John Hunter, with Matt Becker just 1-6 back of him.

While Saturday ended with Neal atop SCORETRACKER®, his day got off to a disastrous start long before he thought about making a cast.

Shortly after midnight, a rescue squad knocked on the door of his rental house. Due to the torrential rain from Hurricane Debby, a nearby river had risen 6 to 8 feet, its waters starting to lap on the front porch of the house. The rescue squad told Neal and roommate, fellow Dayton, Tennessee, pro Andy Morgan that it might be wise to seek shelter elsewhere.

With nowhere else to stay, Neal drove to the Massena Intake Boat Launch, where anglers check in and pick up their boat officials each morning before driving to their launch ramp of choice. He tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep in his truck.

“I slept about 30 minutes, maybe,” Neal said.

While he didn’t blame the lack of sleep, once his competition day finally started, Neal struggled to get into a groove. However, he made a move in the second period and caught fire. In the span of 1 hour, 15 minutes, he stacked nine smallmouth totaling 27-10 onto SCORETRACKER®, taking the lead for the first time.

Neal’s key adjustment was focusing more on structure that created current breaks, as the wind blowing in the same direction of the current made it stronger.

“Once I started focusing on the more current-driven areas, I started getting bit a lot more consistently,” he said.

While quite a few anglers have had success targeting smallmouth in water shallow enough to see the bottom, Neal is plying deeper habitat, fishing rock anywhere from 30 to 60 feet deep. Wielding a Big Bite Baits Quarantine Craw on 7-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon, he said he’s rigging the soft plastic “a little bit different.”

“I’ll get into that a little bit more tomorrow, but it seems to make a difference,” Neal said. “I’ve fished around several guys this week, seemed like I’m getting a few more bites.”

As the wind increased in strength throughout the day, Neal said it actually helped his bite — to an extent. When blowing with the current, it positions the fish more predictably. That said, it can also make for an uncomfortable day on the water and cause challenges in accurately presenting a bait, especially on light line. With winds once again forecast to blow out of the southwest and reach the teens on Championship Sunday, conditions should be similar.

Neal thinks he could have continued to fish all his spots amid Saturday’s conditions, but once he’d built a safe advantage over the cut line, he looked for some more protected water. Turns out, he found the bite just as good there, too.

“It got easy this afternoon,” Neal said. “Like, I could call my shot. When I ran back to the American side, I caught four, I think, in the last 30 minutes, and it was the first drift every time.”

Set to compete in his fifth Championship Round of 2024 and third in as many events, Neal will finish in the Top 10 for the 20th time in his Bass Pro Tour career — second only to Jacob Wheeler. He feels overdue to add a second career victory. He believes he’ll be around the fish to win, but given the number of strong smallmouth anglers in the remaining field and the number of bass in the fishery, he knows it’ll take a nearly flawless day to hoist the trophy.

“I’ll definitely be around enough, 100 percent,” he said. “How many of them I’ll get to bite, I don’t know. Where I really started catching them in the second period, I think I’ve just made two drifts there and caught them really good, and there’s way more fish there than what I’ve caught.

“The whole Top 10, anybody can win it. All it takes is landing on one stretch, one current seam that’s just loaded up that you can go back and forth all day on.”

The top 10 pros from Saturday’s Knockout Round that now advance to the final day of competition on the St. Lawrence River are:

1st:        Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 27 bass, 83-11
2nd:       John Hunter, Shelbyville, Ky., 26 bass, 81-12
3rd:       Matt Becker, Ten Mile, Tenn., 26 bass, 80-6
4th:        Nick Hatfield, Greeneville, Tenn., 24 bass, 74-5
5th:        Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 22 bass, 69-7
6th:        Chris Lane, Guntersville, Ala., 23 bass, 66-12
7th:        Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., 19 bass, 60-11
8th:        Marty Robinson, Lyman, S.C., 19 bass, 59-5
9th:        Spencer Shuffield, Hot Springs, Ark., 18 bass, 57-14
10th:     Bryan Thrift, Shelby, N.C., 19 bass, 55-10

Eliminated from competition are:

11th:     Bradley Roy, Lancaster, Ky., 17 bass, 51-8, $10,000
12th:     Josh Bertrand, Queen Creek, Ariz., 16 bass, 49-14, $10,000
13th:     Mark Daniels, Jr., Tuskegee, Ala., 17 bass, 47-6, $10,000
14th:     Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 15 bass, 42-14, $10,000
15th:     Justin Cooper, Zwolle, La., 13 bass, 40-7, $10,000
16th:     Jesse Wiggins, Addison, Ala., 13 bass, 38-12, $10,000
17th:     Jason Vance, Battle Ground, Ind., 11 bass, 36-3, $10,000
18th:     Jared Lintner, Covington, Ga., 10 bass, 31-11, $10,000
19th:     Marshall Robinson, Landrum, S.C., nine bass, 26-8, $10,000
20th:     Jonathon VanDam, Kalamazoo, Mich., nine bass, 25-10, $10,000

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 353 bass weighing 1,080 pounds even caught by the 20 pros Saturday. The catch included 10 5-pounders, 37 4-pounders and 115 3-pounders.

Pro Justin Cooper earned Saturday’s $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award with a largemouth weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day, and a $3,000 bonus to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass of the tournament.

The six-day tournament, hosted by the Town of Massena, showcases 78 of the best professional anglers in the world competing for a purse of more than $805,000, with a top prize of $100,000 going to the winner.

The 39 Anglers in Group A competed in their two-day Qualifying Round on Tuesday and Thursday – the 39 anglers in Group B on Wednesday and Friday. After the two-day Qualifying Round was complete, the anglers that finished first through 10^th from both groups advanced to Saturday’s Knockout Round. In the Knockout Round, weights were zeroed, and the remaining 20 anglers competed to finish in the top 10 to advance to Sunday’s Championship Round. Sunday, in the final-day Championship Round, weights are zeroed, and the highest one-day total wins the top prize of $100,000.

The final 10 anglers will depart at 6:45 a.m. ET Sunday from the Massena Intake Boat Launch, located at 1415 State Highway 131 in Massena. Anglers are allowed to trailer to any ramp of their choosing within the fishing boundaries, and competition will begin on the water at 7:30 a.m. The General Tire Takeout will be held at Massena Intake Boat Launch, beginning at 4 p.m. Fans are welcome to attend all launch and takeout events and also encouraged to follow the event online throughout the day on the MLFNOW!® live stream and SCORETRACKER® coverage at MajorLeagueFishing.com .

The MLFNOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live on Championship Sunday from 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. MLFNOW!® will be live streamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app and Rumble.

On Sunday, Aug. 11, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. MLF welcomes fans of all ages to visit the Massena Intake Boat Launch for the MLF Watch Party. Fans can watch the pros live on the MLFNOW! big screen, enjoy free food, enter to win hourly giveaways and cheer on their favorite pros. Live music will begin at 4 p.m. The first 50 kids 14 and under will receive a free rod and reel from Pure Fishing, and the final 10 Bass Pro Tour anglers competing in the Championship Round will be on hand to meet and greet fans, sign autographs and take selfies.

The Minn Kota Stage Seven at the St. Lawrence River Presented by Humminbird features anglers competing with a 2-pound 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 2024 Bass Pro Tour features a field of 78 of the top 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 General Tire Heavy Hitters all-star event and REDCREST 2025, the Bass Pro Tour championship, set for April 3-6, 2025, on Lake Guntersville in Huntsville, Alabama.

Fishing Clash, an interactive 3D fishing simulation game that’s played by more than 80 million people worldwide, is the official AOY sponsor of the Bass Pro Tour, Tackle Warehouse Invitationals, Toyota Series and Phoenix Bass Fishing League. You can download Fishing Clash for free in the App Store and on Google Play or log on to www.fishingclash.game for more information.

Television coverage of the Minn Kota Stage Seven at the St. Lawrence River Presented by Humminbird will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Nov. 16 on Discovery. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel.

Proud sponsors of the 2024 MLF Bass Pro Tour include: Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, Garmin, General Tire, Humminbird, Lowrance, Mercury, MillerTech, Minn Kota, Mossy Oak Fishing, NITRO, Onyx, Plano, Power-Pole, PowerStop Brakes, Rapala, REDCON1, Star brite, Suzuki, Toyota, WIX Filters and U.S. Air Force.

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 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.