HUDDLESTON, Va. (April 8, 2024) – Boater Chris Brummett of Lynch Station, Virginia, caught a five-bass limit weighing 27 pounds, 9 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on Smith Mountain Lake. The tournament was the first event of the season for the BFL Shenandoah Division. Brummett earned $7,701 for his victory. After 12 top-10 finishes in BFL competition, Brummett finally earned his first win. And he did it in a very loud way. His impressive 27-pound, 9-ounce limit was nearly 6 pounds better than second place. Not only that, but Brummett didn’t even need the whole day to get it done.
“I put all the rods up at 1:30, and I took my co-angler for a ‘guide trip,’” he joked.
Before the tournament, a wave of bass had moved up to spawn, but then a cold front swept through and pushed most of those fish off the beds.
“There were so many empty beds during practice,” Brummett said. “It pushed them off to isolated cover – anything rock-related.”
Luckily for Brummett, not every bass abandoned the bed. At the very end of his practice, he found a little bit of Smith Mountain gold – a 4 1/2-pounder on a bed, with another fish swimming nearby that he figured was about 7 pounds.
“I was boat 183, and I figured there was no way I would get to that fish first,” he said. “And I rolled up there and my very first cast with the jig was an 8-pounder. My second cast was with a drop-shot, and the 4 1/2-pounder ate the drop-shot. I set the hook but the fish came off. So, I put another worm on and threw it over and he ate it again and came in the boat.”
The 8-pounder was the Big Bass for the day. Brummett spent the rest of the day hitting isolated targets. It was mostly rock under and around boat docks.
“It’s not very big stuff, so not everybody knows where it is,” he said.
Brummett also hit a couple rare isolated patches of hydrilla. It’s all stuff he’s found while fishing the lake over the years.
“I probably fished 25 of those types of spots today for 6 bites,” Brummett added.
To catch his final bass, Brummett pitched a jig up under a dock to a rock vein.
“I actually cast under that dock six times and finally that fish bit,” he said. “But when that fish bit, I put that one in the boat, and it was a 6-pounder. I traded a 6 for a 2.75, and that upgraded me to 27 and change. That’s when I put my rods up.”
The top 11 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Chris Brummett, Lynch Station, Va., five bass, 27-9, $7,701
2nd: Zach Peaslee, Draper, Va., five bass, 21-12, $2,960
3rd: Wyatt Kelley, Altavista, Va., five bass, 20-6, $1,974
4th: Brandon Pritchett, Goode, Va., five bass, 20-0, $1,382
5th: Chris Daves, Spring Grove, Va., five bass, 19-12, $1,184
6th: Todd Langford, Great Falls, Va., five bass, 18-11, $1,585 (includes $500 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
7th: Bryan Elrod, Mechanicsville, Va., five bass, 18-1, $987
8th: Michael Taylor, Sandston, Va., five bass, 17-5, $888
9th: Stefan Ward, Wirtz, Va., five bass, 17-4, $789
10th: Robert Lee, Covington, Va., five bass, 16-15, $656
10th: Brandon Gray, Bullock, N.C., five bass, 16-15, $656
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Brummett caught a bass that weighed 8 pounds even and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $980. Mason Grose of Nettie, West Virginia, won the co-angler division and $3,437 Saturday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 18 pounds, 4 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Mason Grose, Nettie, W.Va., five bass, 18-4, $3,437
2nd: James (Boo) Burtner, Penn Laird, Va., five bass, 15-13, $1,476
3rd: Ben Dacey, Powhatan, Va., five bass, 15-4, $1,134
4th: Cody Howard, Snow Hill, N.C., five bass, 13-8, $689
5th: Konnor Sweet, Abingdon, Va., five bass, 13-3, $590
6th: Richard Williams, Sutherland, Va., five bass, 12-12, $541
7th: Dan Garner, Littleton, N.C., four bass, 12-4, $492
8th: Ryan Lemmon, Mount Pleasant, Pa., four bass, 11-10, $443
9th: Jonathan Ceaser, Maidens, Va., three bass, 11-2, $369
9th: William Lisenby, Centreville, Va., five bass, 11-2, $369
Mason Grose of Nettie, West Virginia, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $485, catching a bass that weighed in at 8 pounds, 11 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.
https://dev.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bfl-smith-mountain-4824.html
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