BYRDSTOWN, Tenn. (March 25, 2024) – Boater Christian Nash of Allons, Tennessee, caught a five-bass limit weighing 22 pounds, 8 ounces, Sunday to win the Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on Dale Hollow Lake The tournament was the first event of the season for the BFL Music City Division. Nash earned $10,842, including the lucrative $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus, for his victory. It was a solid weekend of BFL competition all around for Nash. He finished fourth in Saturday’s BFL Mountain Division event on Dale Hollow, then came back Sunday to get the win in the Music City event on the same lake.
“I had two pretty good, solid days. I can’t complain,” Nash said.
A key adjustment proved to make the difference in locking up Sunday’s win. On Saturday, Nash tried to stay out of the wind to make it easier to cast his Damiki rig to fish he spied with his Lowrance ActiveTarget. Sunday, he purposely sought out windblown areas area where baitfish were being pushed in by the wind. His winning limit included four largemouth bass and one smallmouth.
“I caught them all on a Zorro Booza Zonar jighead that I actually designed,” he said. “It’s a ‘scoping’ jighead.”
The Booza Zonar is a Damiki-style jighead designed to stay level in the water column. According to Nash, a common trick anglers use to achieve the same presentation is to use a loop knot to tie on the jighead. He wanted a jighead that would stay level with a more standard Palomar knot. The Booza Zonar is it. He also made sure it had a quality Gamakatsu hook – he carries jigs with 2/0 and 3/0 hook sizes.
“When you’re reeling it over one’s head, it stays horizontal. You don’t want it leaning down,” he explained. “If you get a lethargic fish, you want it looking more natural.”
In addition to staying in the wind, another adjustment from Saturday to Sunday was the type of bank Nash fished. He fished bluff banks on Saturday. On Sunday, he targeted flatter gravelly banks where prespawn bass were feeding on balls of bait. He caught about 15 pounds first thing in the morning while fishing in the back of a creek with his boat in less than 30 feet of water. From there, he upgraded throughout the day by moving to slightly deeper stretches.
“I was sitting in about 50 feet, but the fish were anywhere from 10 to 25 to 30 feet deep,” he said. “You just had to look around the bait and you’d fine one here or there. The fish were coming off the bottom from these flats, and you’d just catch them as they’d come up to eat the bait.
“It (the spot) had to have a little bit of bait. If you weren’t around bait, you weren’t catching any fish.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Christian Nash, Allons, Tenn., five bass, 22-8, $10,842 (includes $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
2nd: Isaac Peavyhouse, Jamestown, Tenn., five bass, 21-15, $1,921
3rd: Lee Sinclair, Albany, Ky., five bass, 21-12, $1,282
4th: Blake Smith, Byrdstown, Tenn., five bass, 21-6, $896
5th: Tanner Rich, Byrdstown, Tenn., five bass, 21-2, $1,703
6th: Chris Halfacre, Cookeville, Tenn., five bass, 19-14, $704
7th: Dylan Wright, Murfreesboro, Tenn., five bass, 19-13, $640
8th: Gavin Cloutier, Jonesboro, Tenn., five bass, 19-8, $576
9th: Jacob Woods, Loudon, Tenn., five bass, 19-5, $512
10th: Grant Adams, Campbellsville, Ky., five bass, 19-4, $448
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Tanner Rich caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 3 ounces, and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $510. Caleb Edgerton of Dayton, Ohio, won the co-angler division and $1,990 Sunday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 14 pounds, 15 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Caleb Edgerton, Dayton, Ohio, five bass, 14-15, $1,990
2nd: David Dickson, Cookeville, Tenn., four bass, 13-10, $920
3rd: Kevin Jones, Fort Campbell, Ky., five bass, 13-2, $612
4th: Wayne Crouch, Jamestown, Tenn., four bass, 11-2, $529
5th: Kevin Barton, Portland, Tenn., three bass, 10-4, $368
6th: Ethan Elliott, East Point, Ky., three bass, 9-15, $337
7th: John Riddle, Erwin, Tenn., four bass, 9-12, $307
8th: James Proffitt, Celina, Tenn., three bass, 9-7, $276
9th: Nathan Nester, Cookeville, Tenn., five bass, 9-0, $245
10th: Johnny Suratt, Lawrenceburg, Tenn, four bass, 8-12, $215
Strike King co-angler Steve Greene of Lebanon, Tennessee, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $240, catching a bass that weighed in at 4 pounds, 13 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.
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