MARBURY, Md. (June 19, 2023) – Pro Nick Hatfield of Greeneville, Tennessee, caught a five-bass limit Monday weighing 20 pounds, 11 ounces – the largest limit weighed throughout the three-day tournament – to win the MLF Invitational Stop 5 tournament at the Potomac River . Hatfield’s three-day total of 15 bass weighing 53 pounds, 12 ounces, earned him the win by a 5-pound, 3-ounce margin over Bass Pro Tour angler Cody Meyer of Star, Idaho, who finished second with a three day total of 15 bass weighing 48-9, good for the $50,000 runner-up payout.
After a Polaris Rookie of the Year win in 2021 on the Pro Circuit, Hatfield signed on to the new-look Invitationals for another go-round. After finishing 101st at Lake of the Ozarks in May, it looked like his Bass Pro Tour dreams may have gone by the wayside; but winning the Potomac vaulted him back into the Top 10 in points and may prove to be a key moment in a long career.
Starting the day in second behind Martin Villa, Hatfield knew he was close to a win. Still, the Top 10 was about as stacked as can be on the Potomac, and he also knew he needed to do more than just hold serve.
“Today I decided to scrap where I’ve been starting because it sucked yesterday,” Hatfield said. “I didn’t want to try to go in there and scrap out 14 or 15 pounds, I wanted to go for the win.”
So, he rolled into Chicamuxen Creek and started fishing in a recently opened spawning sanctuary.
“I knew it hadn’t had the pressure; I didn’t know if I could catch them in there, but I figured it hadn’t had the pressure like everywhere else,” Hatfield said. “So, I went in there and started catching them pretty quick. I got in a few areas there and caught them on a bunch of different things, but there was one little area in there that was a bream bed, and most of the big ones I caught, I caught off of it. When it went down it was pretty crazy.”
After catching a few swimming a jig and frogging in a marshy creek, Hatfield pulled out a popper as he roamed around. Things happened in a hurry after that.
“I stumbled into it as I was fishing, just going down the bank,” he said. “I threw a popper up close to the point, and one engulfed it. I kept throwing over there, and upon further inspection, after I caught some, I saw it was a bream bed. So, I actually went back to it later in the day and caught another 4-pounder off of it.”
Running bream beds has gotten a bit trendy recently, and the Top 10 definitely added them into the mix with the usual Potomac staples. For Hatfield, a big patch of spawning bluegill in Quantico Creek did a lot of the heavy lifting.
“I saw the one in Quantico the second day of practice and I saw there were a bunch of big ones swimming on it and it was easy to get bites,” Hatfield said. “I never found another one until today.
“I’d say out of 15 bass I weighed, maybe four or five came off something else,” he said. “Swimming a jig, a frog, ChatterBait, something like that. It was all on bream beds, basically.”
For his bream beds, Hatfield’s primary weapon was a wacky-rigged Yamamoto Senko with a No. 1 Hayabusa WRM929. He also mixed in a 3/8-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer, a 3/8-ounce Hayabusa Lil’ Schmitty Swim Jig , a popping frog and a bone Lobina Rio Rico. He used Doomsday rods for all of his techniques, opting for a 7-foot, medium-heavy model for the wacky rig.
“I’ve wanted to win one of these, I’ve tried hard,” Hatfield went on to say. “I knew that I could do it, and today just shows that I can. I can’t wait for the next one, I’m ready to go right now.”
The top 50 pros at the Stop 5 at the Potomac River finished:
1st: Nick Hatfield, Greeneville, Tenn., 15 bass, 53-12, $117,500 (includes $35,000 Phoenix Bonus)
2nd: Cody Meyer, Star, Idaho, 15 bass, 48-9, $50,000
3rd: Eric Panzironi, Longwood, Fla., 15 bass, 48-8, $20,000
4th: Wyatt Frankens, Corrigan, Texas, 15 bass, 46-9, $18,000
5th: Martin Villa, Charlottesville, Va., 15 bass, 46-8, $17,000
6th: Blake Hall, Rogersville, Ala., 15 bass, 46-1, $17,000
7th: Andrew Loberg, Rocklin, Calif., 15 bass, 46-0, $15,000
8th: Keith Carson, DeBary, Fla., 15 bass, 45-13, $14,000
9th: Bryan Schmitt, Deale, Md., 15 bass, 45-12, $13,000
10th: Kyle Weisenburger, Columbus Grove, Ohio, 15 bass, 44-11, $12,000
11th: Pete Ponds, Madison, Miss., 15 bass, 44-8, $10,000
12th: Jim Moynagh, Shakopee, Minn., 15 bass, 44-5, $10,000
13th: Jordan Collom, Canyon Lake, Calif., 15 bass, 44-4, $10,000
14th: Troy Stokes, Trenton, Mich., 15 bass, 44-1, $10,000
15th: Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 15 bass, 43-13, $10,000
16th: Cody Spetz, Hollister, Mo., 15 bass, 43-12, $10,000
17th: Flint Davis, Leesburg, Ga., 15 bass, 43-11, $10,000
18th: Hunter Eubanks, Inman, S.C., 15 bass, 43-11, $10,000
19th: Cole Hewett, Orange Park, Fla., 15 bass, 43-10, $10,000
20th: Spencer Shuffield, Hot Springs, Ark., 15 bass, 43-9, $10,000
21st: David Walker, Sevierville, Tenn., 15 bass, 43-7, $10,000
22nd: Jeremy Southerly, Fulks Run, Va., 15 bass, 43-6, $10,000
23rd: Robert Nakatomi, Sacramento, Calif., 15 bass, 42-14, $10,000
24th: Jason Vance, Battle Ground, Ind., 15 bass, 42-13, $10,000
25th: Ron Nelson, Berrien Springs, Mich., 15 bass, 42-11, $10,000
26th: Matt Becker, Ten Mile, Tenn., 15 bass, 42-7, $10,000
27th: Charlie Reed Jr., Gloucester, Va., 15 bass, 42-5, $10,000
28th: Justin Cooper, Zwolle, La., 15 bass, 42-4, $10,000
29th: Wayne Vaughan, Chester, Va., 15 bass, 42-3, $10,000
30th: Mike McClelland, Blue Eye, Mo., 15 bass, 42-2, $10,000
31st: Blake Felix, Warsaw, Mo., 15 bass, 42-1, $8,000
32nd: Cody Pike, Powhatan, Va., 15 bass, 42-1, $8,000
33rd: Michael Catt, Jacksonville, Fla., 15 bass, 41-14, $8,000
34th: Tyler Stewart, Dubach, La., 15 bass, 41-14, $8,000
35th: Christian Greico, Tampa, Fla., 15 bass, 41-13, $8,000
36th: Kyle Hall, Granbury, Texas, 15 bass, 41-11, $8,000
37th: Joe Wieberg, Freeburg, Mo., 15 bass, 41-9, $8,000
38th: Matt Greenblatt, Port Saint Lucie, Fla., 15 bass, 41-4, $8,000
39th: John Duarte, Middle River, Md., 15 bass, 41-2, $8,000
40th: Marshall Robinson, Landrum, S.C., 15 bass, 40-15, $8,000
41st: Braxton Setzer, Wetumpka, Ala., 15 bass, 40-15, $8,000
42nd: Ramie Colson Jr., Cadiz, Ky., 15 bass, 40-10, $8,000
43rd: Terry Olinger, Louisa, Va., 15 bass, 40-9, $8,000
44th: Eddie Carper, Valliant, Okla., 14 bass, 39-11, $8,000
45th: Travis Harriman, Huntsville, Ark., 15 bass, 39-4, $8,000
46th: Austin Culbertson, Moberly, Mo., 14 bass, 39-2, $8,000
47th: Jack Daniel Williams, Kingsport, Tenn., 15 bass, 38-4, $8,000
48th: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 15 bass, 37-7, $8,000
49th: Joshua Weaver, Macon, Ga., 15 bass, 36-15, $8,000
50th: Kyle Minke, Lindstrom, Minn., 14 bass, 36-12, $8,000
Complete results for the entire field can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 247 bass weighing 663 pounds, 3 ounces caught by the 50 pros Monday. The catch included 47 five-bass limits.
The three-day tournament featured a roster of 150 pro anglers competing for a top prize of up to $115,000 and an invitation to compete at REDCREST 2024. The next Invitational event will take place July 25-27 at the Tackle Warehouse Invitational at the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin.