IUKA, Miss. (April 3, 2023) – Boater Trent Suratt of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, caught a five-bass limit weighing 20 pounds, 14 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on Pickwick Lake. The tournament was the second event of the season for the BFL Mississippi Division. Suratt earned $4,702 for his victory.
“I didn’t catch much until about 10 or 11 o’clock,” said Surratt, who notched his third BFL win on Lake Pickwick since 2019. “We had a pretty rough day with the wind, and I had run about 40 miles upriver to where I wanted to fish.
“After I found them, they were all in a 20-yard stretch,” Surrat added.
Suratt said he was targeting spawning smallmouth with a 3/16-ounce Johnston Lures shaky head with a green pumpkin Zoom Trick Worm. He said he fished around chunk rock in four to six feet of water to catch nine keepers during the tournament.
“At 1 o’clock I told myself I was going to leave because I knew it was going to be rough going back,” Suratt said. “I had just caught a smallmouth that was the big fish of the tournament (5-10), so I knew I probably needed to be going back after that one.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Trent Suratt, Lawrenceburg, Tenn., five bass, 20-14, $4,702
2nd: Taurian Parks, Clinton, Miss., five bass, 20-7, $2,064
3rd: Blake Fritts, Florence, Ala., five bass, 19-5, $1,377
4th: Matt Ferguson, Pontotoc, Miss., five bass, 18-10, $963
5th: Hunter Brewer, Lawrenceburg, Tenn., five bass, 17-12, $791
5th: Mike Foster, Terre Haute, Ind., five bass, 17-12, $791
7th: Michael Wooley, Booneville, Miss., five bass, 16-9, $688
8th: Doug Taylor, Booneville, Miss., five bass, 16-5, $619
9th: Thomas Bridges, Newhebron, Miss., five bass, 16-0, $550
10th: William Camp, Blytheville, Ark., five bass, 15-8, $482
Suratt’s smallmouth that weighed 5 pounds, 10 ounces, earned him the Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $575. Jesse Turner of Danville, Alabama, won the co-angler division and a total of $2,059 Saturday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 17 pounds, 11 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Jesse Turner, Danville, Ala., five bass, 17-11, $2,059
2nd: Jacob Littrell, Waynesboro, Tenn., five bass, 15-14, $1,030
3rd: Jason Henson, Rome, Ga., five bass, 14-11, $1,237
4th: Todd South, Florence, Ala., five bass, 14-10, $480
5th: Tanner Plumlee, Wildersville, Tenn., four bass, 13-3, $412
6th: Brian Dodd, Florence, Ala., four bass, 11-10, $378
7th: Clint Horton, Falkner, Miss., five bass, 11-4, $343
8th: Brice Cohea, Booneville, Miss., three bass, 11-1, $309
9th: Ryan Lecompte, Picayune, Miss., three bass, 9-15, $257
9th: Grey Holland, Guntown, Miss., three bass, 9-15, $257
Randy Holman of Columbus, Mississippi, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $282, catching a bass that weighed in at 6 pounds, 4 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.
After two events, Taurian Parks of Clinton, Mississippi, leads the BFL Mississippi Division Boater Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 480 points, while Hunter Averett of Carriere, Mississippi, leads the Strike King Co-Angler Division AOY race with 479 points.