Franklin’s Prater Tops Strike King Co-Angler Division

CORTLAND, Ohio (June 10, 2024) – Boater Benjamin Quisno of Oakwood, Ohio, caught a five-bass limit weighing 19 pounds, 3 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine on Mosquito Lake. The tournament was the second event of the season for the BFL Buckeye Division. Quisno earned $4,244 for his victory.

Mosquito Lake is one of the hotter inland bass fisheries in Ohio right now, and it’s stacked with fish. For Quisno, the key was getting dialed in on the right bass to win a tournament against the best anglers in the Buckeye State.

“Catching fish was not a problem, and that’s not a problem most of the time there,” he said. “It’s just catching better quality fish. In practice, I started out marking bluegill beds and crappie beds in grass in 8 to 12 foot of water. And that’s not really my strength.

“I started out (the tournament) fishing shallow around the pads. And if you could find hydrilla and milfoil that was still there, that was like a magic combo. If you could find hydrilla or milfoil the amount of bites you would get would go through the roof.”

Quisno sorted out the right grass combo by throwing a topwater in practice, but in the tournament, he changed it up.

He ran to his starting area and caught a limit within about 45 minutes on a ChatterBait. Quisno then bounced around to areas with sparse grass until ultimately circling back to a key stretch of lily pads – a move that ultimately led to his win.

“It wasn’t until probably the middle of the morning that the sun came out and it actually stayed out; it wasn’t partly cloudy,” Quisno said. “The fish just started munching in the pads. I don’t think those fish were there in the morning.”

The lily pad bite got hot quickly, with Quisno “intercepting” fish that were moving in from scattered grass through the pads to shallower cover.

“There were three pad fields that I would say are probably average size for there, and I know those pad fields were a little clearer,” he said. “There were two of them that had other boats that were fishing them. For some strange reason the one pad field I was catching them in – it was crazy – I don’t think another boat came within 400 yards from noon to the time I came in.”

Most of the pad fish bit a Yamamoto Senko.

“It seemed like the bigger fish just wanted something slow and dragging,” said Quisno, who relied on past experience fishing in Florida to know that he’d have to slow way down and occasionally dead-stick his worm on bottom to get bit. “I was fishing it weightless or Texas-rigged. It depended on how thick the pads were. Sometimes the wind would be blowing. Then other times it would be gusting for 20 to 30 minutes to where I would use a small sinker.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:

1st:        Benjamin Quisno, Oakwood, Ohio, five bass, 19-3, $4,244
2nd:       Sean Wieda, Alexandria, Ky., five bass, 18-12, $2,122
3rd:       Nathan Digiacobbe, Girard, Ohio, five bass, 17-7, $2,013
4th:        Donald Sibley, Strasburg, Ohio, five bass, 16-10, $990
5th:        Brian Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, five bass, 16-1, $1,149
6th:        Tim Snively, Trenton, Ohio, five bass, 15-7, $778
7th:        Jeremy Tenwalde, Ft. Jennings, Ohio, five bass, 15-5, $707
8th:        Mike Blake, Carrollton, Ohio, five bass, 14-9, $1,137 (includes $500 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
9th:        Brandon Freer, Youngstown, Ohio, five bass, 14-8, $566
10th:     Randy Dustin, Falconer, N.Y., five bass, 14-5, $495

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Nathan Digiacobbe of Girard, Ohio, caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 1 ounce, and earned the Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $600.

David Prater of Franklin, Ohio, won the Strike King co-angler division and $2,122 Saturday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 16 pounds, 11 ounces.

The top 10 Strike King co-anglers finished:

1st:        David Prater, Franklin, Ohio, five bass, 16-11, $2,122
2nd:       James Anderson, Valley City, Ohio, five bass, 15-3, $1,061
3rd:       Jason Stock, Maineville, Ohio, five bass, 15-0, $707
4th:        Brett Warrick, Powell, Ohio, five bass, 13-11, $495
5th:        Dan Minor, Norwalk, Ohio, five bass, 12-1, $424
6th:        Douglas Shope, Arcanum, Ohio, five bass, 11-10, $389
7th:        Ryan Kriegel, Delphos, Ohio, five bass, 10-11, $354
8th:        John C. Miller, Washington, Pa., four bass, 10-8, $318
9th:        Anthony Bell Jr., Cincinnati, Ohio, five bass, 10-7, $283
10th:     Brent Jones, Okeana, Ohio, four bass, 10-3, $248

Donnie Phillips of Albany, Ohio, and Kenneth Wessel of Fayetteville, Ohio, tied for the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award by each catching a bass that weighed in at 4 pounds, 8 ounces. They each took home $150 for their share of the prize.

After two events, Sean Wieda of Alexandria, Kentucky, leads the Fishing Clash Buckeye Division Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 499 points, while Douglas Shope of Arcanum, Ohio, leads the Fishing Clash Buckeye Division Co-Angler of the Year race with 491 points.

The next event for BFL Buckeye Division anglers will be held June 29, at Ohio River-Tanners Creek in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. 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. 3-5 BFL Regional tournament on Kerr Lake in Henderson, North Carolina. 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, REDCON1, Strike King, Suzuki, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, WIX Filters 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.