MARBURY, Md. (Oct. 3, 2022) – Boater Joshua Greenberg of Montpelier, Virginia, caught 10 bass weighing 29 pounds, 2 ounces, to win the two-day MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League tournament on the Potomac River in Marbury, Maryland. The tournament was the fifth and final regular-season event for the Bass Fishing League Shenandoah Division. Greenberg earned $5,137 for his victory.
Greenberg said he began the tournament by relying on past experience as a co-angler and focused on a ditch in the Mattawoman Creek area to catch bass. Greenberg said he threw a topwater frog on the matted grass there.
“I told my co-angler, ‘We going to hunker down here, and if we start catching them here, we’re going to stay here and pick it apart,’” Greenberg said. “We got lucky with some fortunate bites but missed a lot of fish.
“We missed a lot of fish because they would either miss the frog or blow up behind it,” Greenberg said. “I ended up having over 30 blowups on a frog and only caught one of them. It was tough. We tried following it up with a small finesse bait and caught two keepers doing that. I tried flipping as well but didn’t have any luck doing that.”
Greenberg said he returned to his Day 1 spot on Sunday, but the water had dropped overnight, so he relocated to another area nearby. On his first cast there, he landed a 4-pound bass and his luck seemed to change.
“My co-angler had his limit in about 10 minutes, and I was wondering what I was doing wrong,” Greenberg said. “Then I caught two fish right away, and before you know it, in 15 minutes we both had our limit. That’s river fishing. One minute it’s dead, the next minute it’s game on, and everybody is having a good time.
“This win is great. I helped start the College Fishing team at Radford University and fell in love with the sport,” added Greenberg, who made appearances at the College Fishing National Championships in 2019 and 2020. “I fished BFL events as a co-angler, and I fished this year as a boater in the BFLs and put a win in my goals for this year; I’m just blessed.
“My co-angler on Sunday went to Radford as well, and when we both got a limit, we high-fived and he screamed, ‘The Radford boys have a limit.’ That was just awesome.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Joshua Greenberg, Montpelier, Md., 10 bass, 29-2, $5,137
2nd: Todd Langford, Great Falls, Va., 10 bass, 28-10, $3,269 (includes $500 Phoenix MLF5 contingency bonus)
3rd: Brian Gmerek, Frederick, Md., nine bass, 26-6, $1,712
4th: Michael Wilburn, Spotsylvania, Va., 10 bass, 25-12, $1,199
5th: Tom Bateman, Welcome, Md., 10 bass, 24-12, $1,027
6th: Chris Daves, Spring Grove, Va., 10 bass, 21-12, $942
7th: Robert Grike, Dumfries, Va., eight bass, 17-14, $1,056
8th: Wesley Harris, Rustburg, Va., eight bass, 16-15, $771
9th: Chris Brummett, Lynch Station, Va., seven bass, 16-11, $1,285
10th: Richard Hare, King William, Va., eight bass, 16-7, $599
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Christopher Milton of Prince George, Virginia, caught a bass weighing 5 pounds, 2 ounces – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – to earn the Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $645. Wes Dacey of Henrico, Virginia, won the Co-angler Division and $2,669 Sunday after catching a two-day total of 10 bass weighing 26 pounds, 5 ounces.
The top 10 Strike King co-anglers were:
1st: Wes Dacey, Henrico, Va., 10 bass, 26-5, $2,669
2nd: Rodney Coles, Petersburg, Va., eight bass, 20-12, $1,284
3rd: Safulla Rana, Warrenton, Va., nine bass, 17-5, $858
4th: Christopher Mills, Manassas, Va., seven bass, 17-4, $599
5th: James Calhoun, Norfolk, Va., eight bass, 17-3, $514
6th: Robert Wedding, Welcome, Md., six bass, 15-14, $1,143
7th: Matt Hummel, Dillsburg, Pa., six bass, 15-11, $428
8th: Jesse Ketchum, Columbia, Md., six bass, 14-6, $385
9th: Lew Jenkins, Waldorf, Md., five bass, 12-2, $342
10th: Cornell Badra, Clarksburg, Md., six bass, 11-15, $300
Robert Wedding of Welcome, Maryland, caught the largest bass in the Strike King Co-angler Division, a fish weighing in at 5 pounds, 4 ounces. The catch earned him the Berkley Big Bass Co-angler award of $322.