DAYTON, Tenn. — The Econo Lodge Stage Four Presented by Winn Grips gets started on Tuesday morning when lines go in at 7:30 a.m. ET. The two groups of 40 anglers (Group A and Group B) will compete in the Shotgun Round and then the Elimination Round for a Top 20 spot in their respective groups for the right to move on to the Knockout Round.
The order the groups hit the water has flip-flopped from Stage Three. Group A will be the first to fish Lake Chickamauga on Tuesday. Stage One winner Jordan Lee and 2019 Bassmaster Classic champion Ott DeFoe are two big names to look out for in Group A. Takahiro Omori, Ott DeFoe, Jeff Sprague and Russ Lane notched top-10 finishes in Stage Three and they will look to have a similar showing this time in Tennessee.
“A big factor this week is going to be familiarity with TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) lakes,” MLF NOW! analyst Marty Stone said. “Randy Howell, Timmy Horton and Mark Rose fish these types of lakes well. We will see fish in all three stages of spawn, and that makes me think Dean Rojas and Ish Monroe could be some guys to look out for as well. You also can’t forget about Ott DeFoe and Jeff Sprague, those guys are really hot right now.”
Group B is filled with heavy hitters that had stellar showings in Stage Three. The Group is headlined by
“About 20 percent of this group are really good anglers, and oh by the way, this is a home game for them,” Stone detailed. “I wouldn’t want to have to be in the Top 20 coming out of this group to compete with these guys who know these types of lakes well.”
Group A gets Stage Four started on Tuesday, April 9 and Group B begins competition on Wednesday, April 10. The MLF NOW! live stream will begin at 10 a.m. ET daily, while the SCORETRACKER™ will be viewable starting at “lines in” (7:30 a.m. ET) every day from April 9-14 for free on MajorLeagueFishing.com.