Mandel Wins Bass Fishing League Super Tournament at Detroit River

September 23, 2024
Bass Fishing League (BFL) News

TRENTON, Mich. (Sept. 23, 2024) – Boater Nolan Mandel of Harrison Township, Michigan, caught a two-day total of 10 bass weighing 46 pounds, 5 ounces, to win the MLF Bass Fishing League (BFL) Super Tournament on the Detroit River. The tournament, which concluded Sunday, was the fifth and final event of the season for the BFL Michigan Division. Mandel earned $12,077, including the lucrative $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus, for his victory.

It’s been a banner season for Mandel, to put it lightly. He finished in the top 10 in all five Michigan Division events, including wins in the opener and the Super Tournament. Between his regular tournament winnings and Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus dollars, Mandel earned more than $25,000 just in Michigan Division tournaments this season. He also won the Fishing Clash Michigan Division Angler of the Year title in a stacked division of big-water smallmouth anglers. 

Of course, what you don’t see in the stats are the unique challenges tournament anglers face. For Mandel, a bad case of food poisoning derailed most of his plans to dissect the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair during Super Tournament practice. Thankfully, he didn’t need much practice time on Friday to figure out where to start the tournament.

“I was fishing and saw a lot of perch fishermen in this section of the lake called the dumping grounds,” he said. “I thought, I’m just going to go try out there because there’s all these perch fishermen, and that’s a pretty good sign. I went out there and took one cast with a jerkbait on a hump and caught a 5-pounder.”

In the tournament, Mandel ran to his starting area and began trying to put together a bag using live sonar. It became clear very quickly that he needed to make an adjustment.

“I wasn’t seeing anything, so I started using heavier weighted Ned rigs and heavier weighted drop-shots. I used 1/2 and 5/8 ounce to get down in the grass. I started catching them doing that.”

Mandel’s go-to baits were a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent The General and a Z-Man Scented TRD . If he did mark fish on live sonar, he threw a small swimbait at them. But mostly he used the heavy drop-shot and Ned rigs to pitch to holes in the grass or thicker clumps of grass. The clumps were spots where he knew he wouldn’t be able to see fish on live sonar, but where they might be set up. 

“I fished two spots,” Mandel said. “One was anywhere from like 16 to 18 feet deep, and then the other area was around 12 foot but had humps that came up to 8 feet of water. I probably covered two miles of water, but I had like four or five different humps that were either thick grass or bald that I would kind of rotate through.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:

1st:       Nolan Mandel, Harrison Township, Mich., 10 bass, 46-5, $12,077 (includes $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
2nd:        Dan Mittlestat, Woodhaven, Mich., 10 bass, 44-11, $2,839
3rd:         Brayden Federer, Adrian, Mich., 10 bass, 44-3, $1,694
4th:         Cody Kelley, Plainwell, Mich., 10 bass, 43-1, $1,822
5th:         Noah Stauffer, Gowen, Mich., 10 bass, 41-5, $1,015
6th:         Jeff Vizachero, Grosse Ile, Mich., 10 bass, 41-1, $931
7th:         Wilson Burton, Findlay, Ohio, 10 bass, 39-0, $846
8th:         Pat Upthagrove, Monroe, Mich., 10 bass, 38-14, $762
9th:         Matthew Davis, Morenci, Mich., 10 bass, 38-9, $677
10th:       Shane Nelson, Wadsworth, Ohio, 10 bass, 36-13, $592

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Cody Kelley of Plainwell, Michigan, caught a bass that weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $637. Terry Bucciarelli of Ypsilanti, Michigan, won the co-angler division and $3,082 Sunday, after bringing a two-day total of 10 bass to the scale that weighed 39 pounds, 6 ounces.

The top 10 co-anglers finished: 

1st:         Terry Bucciarelli, Ypsilanti, Mich., 10 bass, 39-6, $3,082
2nd:        Tommy Pritchard, Bargersville, Ind., eight bass, 36-14, $1,266
3rd:         Craig Fanning, Elwood, Ill., 10 bass, 36-2, $846
4th:         Dayton Land, Coatesville, Ind., 10 bass, 33-6, $591
5th:         Michael Sitko, Pinckney, Mich., 10 bass, 33-0, $506
6th:         John Wall, Western Springs, Ill., nine bass, 32-13, $464
7th:         Ashten Lynch, Waynesville, Ohio, 10 bass, 32-9, $422
8th:         Brian Townley, Wyoming, Mich., nine bass, 31-4, $380
9th:         Daniel Dumais, Trenton, Mich., 10 bass, 30-5, $338
10th:       Kendra Mueller, Fowlerville, Mich., eight bass, 27-13, $295

Jon Angstmann of St. Marys, Ohio, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $311, catching a bass that weighed in at 5 pounds, 12 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the tournament.

At the conclusion of the tournament, Mandel was crowned the Fishing Clash Michigan Division Angler of the Year (AOY) with 1,364 points to take home the $1,000 payout, while Scott Davis of Morenci, Michigan, won the Fishing Clash Michigan Division Co-angler of the Year race with 1,339 points and earned the $500 prize.