CALVERT CITY, Ky. (Sept. 25, 2023) – Boater Dustin Vaal of Farmington, Kentucky, caught 10 bass weighing 32 pounds, 1 ounce, to win the two-day MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes in Calvert City, Kentucky. The tournament was the fifth and final regular-season event for the Bass Fishing League Illini Division. Vaal earned $6,137 for the win, his first career BFL victory.
“This feels really good. I’ve been close a lot of times in these September tournaments, and this time around I finally kept enough on to win, so it feels great,” Vaal said.
“The lake is in a hardcore fall transition right now,” Vaal continued. “The shad are anywhere from 22-feet-deep all the way up to 2-feet. So, you can find them deep, you can find them shallow, and they’re all in the mix. We had a little bit of warm weather over the weekend that had them kind of funky. In the morning it was pretty good, but then you’d have to grind to get the remainder of your bites the rest of the day.”
Vaal said that he mainly threw moving baits but was forced to slow things down later in the day.
“It was pretty much like it used to be ledge fishing – you had to alternate through the baits to get them to bite,” Vaal said. “I caught them on topwater, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits – a wide variety of things. Once you got them fired up, you could keep catching them for a little bit, and then you’d have to move spots after you wore them out.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Dustin Vaal, Farmington, Ky., 10 bass, 32-1, $6,137
2nd: Garrett McDowell, Windsor, Ill., 10 bass, 29-0, $2,899
3rd: Levi Kohl, Edinburg, Ill., 10 bass, 26-6, $1,712
4th: Billy Schroeder, Paducah, Ky., nine bass, 26-5, $1,199
5th: Jeff Defew, Benton, Ky., 10 bass, 25-11, $1,027
6th: Bobby McMullin, Pevely, Mo., eight bass, 23-8, $942
7th: Jerry Hall, Ledbetter, Ky., 10 bass, 21-8, $856
8th: Brennon McCord, Thompsonville, Ill., eight bass, 20-11, $1,271 (includes $500 Phoenix Bonus)
9th: David Carroll, Manitou, Ky., nine bass, 20-7, $685
10th: Keith Amerson, Selmer, Tenn., six bass, 19-15, $599
Kevin Meunier of Lamar, Indiana, caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 5 ounces – the heaviest bass weighed in the boater division – and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $645. Jordan Bowlin of Benton, Illinois, won the Co-angler Division and $2,891 Sunday after catching a two-day total of six bass weighing 20 pounds, 2 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers were:
1st: Jordan Bowlin, Benton, Ill., six bass, 20-2, $2,891
2nd: Aaron Arning, Walnut Hill, Ill., seven bass, 18-8, $1,284
3rd: Jason Gosnell, Paris, Ill., six bass, 14-4, $858
4th: Bill Kissinger, Obion, Tenn., four bass, 10-6, $599
5th: Mike Swetland, Tamaroa, Ill., four bass, 10-3, $864
6th: Brady Kendall, Paducah, Ky., four bass, 9-2, $471
7th: Brad Thacher, Hardin, Ky., four bass, 8-13, $428
8th: Jimmy Null, Bethalto, Ill., four bass, 8-12, $385
9th: Joe Andres, Effingham, Ill., four bass, 8-11, $342
10th: Brandon Depew, Odin, Ill., three bass, 7-7, $300
Bowlin also caught the largest bass in the Co-angler Division, a fish weighing 4 pounds, 7 ounces. The catch earned him the Big Bass Co-angler award of $322.
https://dev.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bfl-kentucky-92523.html
BFL News Archive