Indiana’s Cornelius Tops Co-Angler Division

HENDERSON, N.C. (March 10, 2025) – Boater Tyler Trent of Nathalie, Virginia, caught a five-bass limit weighing 21 pounds, 10 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine on Kerr Lake . The tournament, hosted by Vance County Tourism Development Authority, was the first event of the season for the BFL Piedmont Division. Trent earned $7,748, including the lucrative $5,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus, for his victory.

Trent kept it pretty simple on Saturday. He used his best tool for Kerr Lake – experience.

“It’s been fishing off and on because the lake level got up so high, but it’s getting close to back down to normal level,” he said about Kerr Lake. “I basically just used past experience because it’s my home lake, and I was just able to run a lot of places and just happened to run across the right fish throughout the day.”

Trent figures he made close to 50 stops on Saturday, catching one or two here and there and hitting a variety of targets that he’s marked on his GPS over the years. His go-to lure was a homemade jig with a DNZ Products Agitator crawfish trailer.

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:

1st:        Tyler Trent, Nathalie, Va., five bass, 21-10, $7,748 (includes $5,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
2nd:      Hunter Tibbetts, Centreville, Va., five bass, 19-14, $1,374
3rd:       Thomas Milton, Chester, Va., five bass, 19-8, $1,221
4th:        Shawn Hammack, Gasburg, Va., five bass, 17-12, $766
5th:        Bryson Peed, Clarksville, Va., five bass, 16-11, $550
6th:        Michael (Tony), Eskridge Delmar, Md., five bass, 15-8, $504
7th:        Adam Lester, Huddleston, Va., five bass, 15-7, $458
8th:        Rodney Sorrell, Stokesdale, N.C., five bass, 15-5, $412
9th:        Micah Mitten, Powhatan, Va., five bass, 14-12, $366
10th:     David Wright, Lexington, N.C., five bass, 14-11, $321

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Thomas Milton of Chester, Virginia, caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces, and earned the Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $305.

Casey Cornelius of Indianapolis, Indiana, won the co-angler division and $1,374 Saturday, after bringing three bass to the scale that totaled 7 pounds, 13 ounces.

The top 10 co-anglers finished:

1st:        Casey Cornelius, Indianapolis, Ind., three bass, 7-13, $1,374
2nd:      Derek Stanley, Fuquay Varina, N.C., three bass, 7-7, $687
3rd:       David Deciucis, Chester, Va., three bass, 6-10, $459
4th:        Dalton Marlow, Maiden, N.C., three bass, 6-4, $321
5th:        Collier Clemmons, Wilmington, N.C., two bass, 5-1, $275
6th:        Chad Liptrap, High Point, N.C., two bass, 4-15, $252
7th:        Steve Cannon, Wilkesboro, N.C., two bass, 4-8, $329
8th:        Kieran Packard, Oklahoma City, Okla., two bass, 4-5, $206
9th:        Dwayne Bingman, Julian, N.C., two bass, 3-14, $183
10th:     Morris Mustian, Oxford, N.C., one bass, 3-13, $312

Morris Mustian of Oxford, North Carolina, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $152, catching a bass that weighed in at 3 pounds, 13 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.

In addition to winning the tournament, Tyler Trent of Nathalie, Virginia, has the early lead in the Fishing Clash Piedmont Division Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 250 points, while Casey Cornelius of Indianapolis, Indiana, leads the Fishing Clash Piedmont Division Co-Angler of the Year race with 250 points.

The next event for BFL Piedmont Division anglers will be held March 30, at Smith Mountain Lake in Huddleston, Virginia. To register for the event as a boater or a co-angler, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com or call (270)-252-1000.

The top 60 boaters and co-anglers in the division based on point standings, along with the five tournament winners of each qualifying event, will qualify for the Oct. 3-4 BFL Regional tournament on Lake Norman in Huntersville, North Carolina. Boaters will fish for a top award of a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard worth $50,000, while co-anglers will compete for a top award of $20,000.

The 2025 Phoenix BFL Presented by T-H Marine is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers, with 134 events throughout the season, five qualifying tournaments in each division. The top 60 boaters and co-anglers from each division, along with the five qualifying tournament winners, will advance to one of 12 BFL Regional tournaments where they are competing to finish in the top three, which then qualifies them for one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the BFL All-American. The 2025 BFL All-American will take place May 29-31, 2025, at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and is hosted by hosted by Visit Hot Springs and the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

Proud sponsors of the 2025 MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, Athletic Brewing, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, Deep Dive App, E3 Sports Apparel, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, Grizzly, Humminbird, Lew’s, Li Time Batteries, Mercury, Minn Kota, Mossy Oak, Mystik Lubricants, 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 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 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.