EUFAULA, Okla. (May 2, 2025) – Drenching overnight rains sent the lake up even more than it already was, which turned the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Southwestern Division event on Lake Eufaula into a one-day tournament. Earning the win, pro River Lee of Diboll, Texas, weighed 13-10 on five fish on Day 1 and edged Wesley Baxley by an ounce. For his win, Lee earned $29,024 and locked in qualification to the Toyota Series Championship this fall on Grand Lake.

In the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race, Dakota Ebare held on to the top spot to earn an extra $5,000. The well-traveled pro managed two fish for 6-5 on Day 1, which put him in 16th and moved him 10 points ahead of runner-up Brody Campbell . Finishing third was Baxley, who put together three Top-25 finishes in an excellent season.

On Day 1 and only, Lee set out with a bit of a plan in mind, and as additional proof of his sound strategy, practice partner Cody Ross also finished in the Top 10. However, the unplanned part of the day turned out to be the key to his win.

“In practice, before the water came up crazy, I was fishing the old bank line, where the bank grass was, and I was catching them,” said Lee. “We were getting a lot of bites on a wacky. So, going into it, I thought with the water still coming up that I still could do that. It would just have more water on it.

“I picked this area, and I put the trolling motor down in the mouth of it. Well, I just fished everything in front of me – flipped, wacky rig and spinnerbait. If I wasn’t flipping, I was doing one of the other two. And my first bite, it came flipping in an isolated bush by a walkway of a dock.”

As Lee eased around his chosen area, he made the decision of the day. Recalling a pond he hadn’t been able to get into a few weeks ago in a BASS Nation event, the Texas pro gave it another go.

“I tried to get in there a few weeks ago, but (the water) wasn’t high enough,” said Lee. “So, I was fishing in that creek and got all the way to the back, and I could hear the water running. I pulled up my phone and I looked at my Google Earth, and I was like, ‘I think we can get back there.’ It just looks like a wall of bushes, and the gap that I went through was probably like 4-foot wide – I had to force my boat in there. But once I got through that first wall of bushes, it was a little easier at that point. I guess that helped to kind of disguise it from everybody else.”

Once in the pond, Lee fished around the newest part of Lake Eufaula and didn’t catch anything until he got to a little spillway in the back. There, he plucked his second keeper of the day.

Then, Lee headed back into the regular lake and caught his third fish on a grass line on a wacky rig before returning eventually to his little pond. There, he caught the bass that pushed him over the top.

“I never caught anything in the pond itself; I caught them all where that spillway was running out,” he explained. “It was so shallow, but there was a little hole washed out in there that had just enough water for them to be there. The second time I went in there, I made 15 casts at it before I had a bite – I was fixing to leave it. I made one last cast up there and caught that fourth keeper. And I poled back down, because I had already picked my poles up – I was fixing to leave. I poled back down and made another cast and caught one the next cast. I don’t know what happened, what triggered it or anything, but they just bit back-to-back.”

For baits, Lee used a Rapala CrushCity Bronco Bug, a Rapala CrushCity Pick Stick and a chartreuse and white, double-willow War Eagle spinnerbait.

The win is Lee’s first at a national level, though he’s been very successful in Texas, especially recently.

“I mean, it’s definitely not how I dreamed of winning my first big one,” he said. “But then again, I’ve also just got to be super thankful that I caught what I caught and just to be in that position, with how it went. So, I’m trying not to let it bother me that it turned into a one-day shootout, and I got the win that way. But I’m super thankful – I did not see it coming at all.”

The top 10 pros at the Toyota Series at Lake Eufaula finished:

1st:        River Lee, Diboll, Texas, five bass, 13-10, $29,024
2nd:       Wesley Baxley, Conroe, Texas, five bass, 13-9, $12,247 (includes $1,000 Phoenix Bonus)
3rd:       Levi Thibodaux, Thibodaux, La., five bass, 12-10, $8,957
4th:        Aaron Johnson, Shreveport, La., two bass, 10-11, $7,756
5th:        Matt Reed, Madisonville, Texas, five bass, 9-15, $6,530
6th:        Shonn Goodwin, Moore, Okla., five bass, 9-10, $5,805
7th:        Corey Calvert, Coldspring, Texas, four bass, 9-4, $5,079
8th:        Paul Browning, Monahans, Texas, three bass, 8-4, $4,354
9th:        Seth Kelm, Canyon Lake, Texas, three bass, 7-4, $3,628
10th:     Cody Ross, Livingston, Texas, three bass, 7-2, $2,902

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Johnson earned the $500 Berkley Big Bass Award on Thursday with a bass weighing 5 pounds, 12 ounces.

Clayton Coppin of Muskogee, Oklahoma, won the co-angler division at Lake Eufaula with a total of two bass weighing 10 pounds, 1 ounce. Coppin earned the top co-angler prize package worth $33,500, including a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower outboard motor.

The top 10 co-anglers at the Toyota Series at Lake Eufaula finished:

1st:        Clayton Coppin, Muskogee, Okla., two bass, 10-1, Phoenix 518 Pro boat w/115-hp Mercury outboard
2nd:       Ben Burk, Norman, Okla., three bass, 9-1, $3,721
3rd:       Michael Zachry, Fairfield, Texas, two bass, 8-1, $2,977
4th:        Stephen Vogel, Muenster, Texas, three bass, 6-15, $2,605
5th:        Justin Swayze, Gurdon, Ark., three bass, 6-11, $2,233
6th:        David Bozarth, Montgomery, Texas, two bass, 6-5, $1,861
7th:        Shawn Clark, Afton, Okla., two bass, 6-4, $1,488
8th:        Mark Sloan, Harrison, Ark., two bass, 5-1, $1,402
9th:        Jimmy Wells Jr., Collinsville, Ill., two bass, 4-15, $1,116
10th:     Mike Casanova, Frisco, Texas, one bass, 4-8, $930

Coppin also earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award with a largemouth weighing 7 pounds even to win the $150 prize.

The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats at Lake Eufaula was hosted by Vision Eufaula. It was the third and
final regular-season tournament for the Toyota Series Southwestern Division. The next event for Toyota Series Southwestern Division anglers will be the Toyota Series Championship, Nov. 6-8, at Grand Lake in Grove, Oklahoma. For a complete schedule of events, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com.

The 2025 Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats consists of five divisions – Central, Northern, Plains, Southern and the Southwestern – each holding three regular-season events, along with the International and Wild Card divisions. Anglers who fish in any of the five divisions or the Wild Card division and finish in the top 25 will qualify for the no-entry-fee Toyota Series Championship for a shot at winning up to $235,000 and a qualification to REDCREST 2026. The winning co-angler at the championship earns a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower outboard. The 2025 Toyota Series Championship will be held Nov. 6-8 on Grand Lake in Grove, Oklahoma, and is hosted by the City of Grove Convention & Tourism Bureau.

Proud sponsors of the 2025 MLF Toyota Series include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, Athletic Brewing, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, Deep Dive App, E3 Sport Apparel, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, Grizzly, Humminbird, Lew’s, Mercury, Minn Kota, Mossy Oak, Onyx, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Phoenix Boats, Polaris, Power-Pole, Precision Sonar, Strike King, Suzuki Marine, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, WIX Filters and YETI.

For complete details and updated information visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular Toyota Series updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the MLF5 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 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.