CALVERT CITY, Ky. (Oct. 19, 2026) – Boater Toby Corn of Paducah, Kentucky, caught a three-day total of 14 bass weighing 42 pounds, 3 ounces, to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine Regional on Kentucky-Barkley Lake. The tournament, hosted by Kentucky Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau, concluded Saturday. For his win, Corn earned a prize package valued at $50,000, including a Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard worth $50,000.

The Kentucky-Barkley Lake event served as the Regional championship for the BFL Hoosier, Illini, Music City and Okie divisions. The field included the top 45 boaters and co-anglers in each division based on point standings, plus each division’s tournament winners. The top seven boaters and co-anglers at each regional and the Wild Card qualify for the 2027 Phoenix BFL All-American. The highest-finishing boater and co-angler from each regional and the Wild Card at the 2027 Phoenix BFL All-American qualify for the 2027 Toyota Series Championship. The 2027 Phoenix BFL All-American boater champion qualifies for REDCREST 2028.

“Day 1 was a train wreck for me,” Corn said. “I found some fish out in the middle of Kentucky Lake, and it was a little too windy and I couldn’t fish it just right. I was trying to catch them on topwater, and the waves were just too big. I didn’t have a single fish at 12:30.

“So, I went to a release-fish area, kind of a drop-back-and-punt kind of move,” Corn went on to say. “I caught two really quick there and I had maybe 10 minutes until I had to be back for the weigh-in. I pulled back up where I started and caught two real good ones, lost a really big one and lost another nice one. So, I weighed in four on the first day.”

Overnight, fall came to Kentucky-Barkley Lake in a hurry. The weather changed and the wind was blowing hard for Day 2 of the tournament. Corn went to another release area on Lake Barkley, stayed there all day, and caught almost 17 pounds. Corn headed back to Barkley on the final day to fish his Day 2 area again.

“I didn’t think I had a chance to win,” Corn said. “It seemed the safest bet to just get through the day and make the All-American.”

Corn said a key to his win was his relationship with Zoom Bait Company, particularly general manager Eddie Wortham.

“I reached out to Eddie and asked him if he could make a production run of a specific bait in a specific color, and he did,” Corn said. “It was a spinnerbait trailer.”

Corn said he caught his bass on an Accent Fishing Products spinnerbait with the Zoom trailer as well as a Bass Pro Shops XPS Chatterbomb with a Zoom Shimmer Shad behind it. He targeted “anything he could see” in the Kuttawa area such as offshore ledges and roadbeds.

Corn weighed all largemouth during the three days of the tournament and noted that the lake is coming back, and with it a healthy population of largemouth.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Corn said. “I have won nine boats through the years. I’m 52 and the wins are getting a lot harder to come by. I didn’t know if I’d ever have a chance to win on Kentucky Lake again. Six of the boats I’ve won have come from Kentucky Lake. So, to get another win on Kentucky Lake and win boat number 10, that’s really fulfilling.”

The top seven boaters who qualified for the 2027 Phoenix BFL All-American finished:

1st:          Toby Corn, Paducah, Ky, 14 bass, 42-3, $50,000
2nd:        Mike Ward, Paris, Tenn., 14 bass, 40-2, $9,320
3rd:         Kelly Woodruff, Portland, Tenn., 13 bass, 37-14, $3,320
4th:         Justin Berger, Murray, Ky., 12 bass, 37-7, $2,090
5th:         Brady Bickers, Carrollton, Ky., 14 bass, 35-6, $1,330
6th:         Scott Bateman, Jasper, Ind., 13 bass, 31-10, $1,190
7th:         Mark Condron, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 10 bass, 27-6, $1,560 (includes $500 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)

The remaining top 10 finished:

8th:         Michael Black, Toledo, Ill., nine bass, 25-15, $1,105
9th:         Drew Boggs, Lebanon, Tenn., 10 bass, 24-6, $790
10th:       Frank McClain, Scottsburg, Ind., nine bass, 21-1, $660

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Michael Black of Toledo, Illinois, and Larry Turner Jr. of Marion, Indiana, split the Berkley Big Bass Boater award and $350 for each landing a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces, the biggest of the tournament.

Patrick Weir of Park Hill, Oklahoma, won the co-angler division Saturday after bringing a three-day total of nine bass weighing 25 pounds, 6 ounces, to the scale. Weir earned the top co-angler award of a Phoenix 518 pro with a 115-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard, worth $33,500.

The top seven co-anglers who qualified for the 2027 Phoenix BFL All-American finished:

1st:          Patrick Weir, Park Hill, Okla., nine bass, 25-6, $33,500
2nd:        Brandon Depew, Odin, Ill., eight bass, 22-2, $4,660
3rd:         Dennis Spell, Bonne Terre, Mo., eight bass, 18-13, $1,660
4th:         Thad Hewitt, Delaware, Okla., six bass, 17-5, $1,145
5th:         Dale Walton, Greenwood, Ind., six bass, 14-6, $665
6th:         Daniel Douglas, Meridianville, Ala., four bass, 13-8, $595
7th:         Grant Frazier, Manchester, Tenn., six bass, 13-4, $530

The remaining top 10 finished:

8th:         Alan Bernicky, Dardanelle, Ark., five bass, 12-8, $465
9th:         Andy Hille, Effingham, Ill., three bass, 10-1, $400
10th:       Arturo Mariscal, Madison, Tenn., three bass, 9-10, $330

Michael Harvel of Jonesboro, Illinois, caught a bass that weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce, to win the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award worth $175.

The 2026 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 co-anglers from each division, along with the five qualifying tournament winners, will advance to one of six BFL Regional tournaments where they are competing to finish in the top seven, which then qualifies them for one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the BFL All-American. The 2027 BFL All-American will take place June 5-7, at the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in Kissimmee, Florida, and is hosted by Experience Kissimmee.

Proud sponsors of the 2026 MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine include: 7 Brew, Abu Garcia, Athletic Brewing, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, Black Buffalo, BUBBA, Cigars International, Epic Baits, Grizzly Nicotine Pouches, Mercury, MillerTech, Mystik Lubricants, OFF! Deep Woods, Onyx, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Phoenix Boats, PiranhO2, Power-Pole, Precision Sonar, Suzuki Marine, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, VOSKER, YETI and Yuengling.

For complete details and updated tournament information, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular BFL 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, 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.