SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — REDCREST. The big one. And there’s no more fitting a venue for the biggest of all Major League Fishing tournaments than Table Rock Lake and nearby Springfield, Missouri – home of the “Granddaddy of All Outdoor Stores,” Bass Pro Shops’ flagship location.
Between the now six-year history of REDCREST (this year marks No. 7), the fame and bass fishing tournament history of Table Rock and all the combined résumés of the pros fishing REDCREST, the well of stats, facts and figures is deeper than the lake itself. And just how deep is Table Rock? Keep reading to find out.
The playing field
Before finding out more about the players, it’s helpful to know what they’ll be facing April 17-19 when they take to Table Rock for a chance at a $300,000 payday. The field is impressive. Past winners. Past multi-time winners. Superstars of the sport. They’ll all find a level playing field on a lake known for its shoreline adorned with flat, stacked rock and fat, abundant bass.
4: Number of species of black bass that inhabit Table Rock – largemouth, smallmouth, spotted and meanmouth (technically a hybrid species, but one that’s more prevalent here than most other places in the country).
5-10: Missouri record meanmouth bass, caught at Table Rock.
7-8: Weight of the Missouri state-record spotted bass, caught from Table Rock by Gene Arnaud in 1966.
220: Maximum depth (in feet).
745: Miles of shoreline at normal pool.
6,423: Length (in feet) of the Table Rock Dam, construction for which was finished in 1958 for flood control of the White River.
43,100: Surface area (in acres) at normal pool.
52,300: Surface area (in acres) of Table Rock’s flood control pool.
72,001: Most water ever released through Table Rock Dam (in CFS, December 2015)
The players…
With a 35-angler field contesting the three-day championship event, REDCREST is loaded with some of the best talent the game has ever seen. Pick a headliner: Is it Jacob Wheeler, World No. 1 bass angler for the billionth year running? Is it the King of REDCREST himself, three-time winner Dustin Connell? How about inaugural REDCREST winner and future Hall-of-Famer Edwin Evers? The résumés are stacked, and the history with Table Rock for some is extensive.
3: Number of wins Connell has in six previous REDCREST appearances. He’s the only angler with more than one such trophy.
3: Anglers named “Jacob” or “Jake” in the REDCREST field – not a record; REDCREST 2025 included Jake Lawrence, Wheeler, Jacob Wall and Jacob Walker (Walker, a 2026 BPT rookie, did not qualify this year from that group). That’s 8.5 percent of the field.
5: Number of FLW/MLF Table Rock events fished by Ott DeFoe, Brent Ehrler, Justin Lucas and Wesley Strader, each. Combined, the quartet boasts a win and five Top 10s on the fishery.
5: Number of pros in the REDCREST field with at least 20 BPT Top 10s (including REDCREST and Heavy Hitters). Wheeler leads the way with 41, followed by Michael Neal with 24 and 20 apiece for DeFoe, Ehrler and Zack Birge.
11: Number of BPT wins for Wheeler, who’s still hunting his first REDCREST win despite three Top-5 finishes in six previous events.
22: Age of the youngest competitor in the REDCREST field. University of Montevallo angler Brody Robison won the College Fishing National Championship with partner Peyton Sorrow, then bested Sorrow at the Toyota Series Championship to lock up his REDCREST berth.
32: Number of FLW/MLF tournaments Roger Fitzpatrick has fished at Table Rock (with two wins and seven Top 10s). Fitzpatrick qualified with his Toyota Series Championship win last November.
62: Age of the oldest angler in the REDCREST field, Bass Fishing Hall of Famer Mark Davis. He’s looking to top his best career REDCREST finish (10th in 2021).
134: Miles from home for former REDCREST winner Edwin Evers, who also has third- and seventh-place REDCREST finishes to his name.
5,200: Miles (give or take) from Perugia, Italy, to Springfield, Missouri. MLF Italy qualifier (via the Toyota Series Championship) Luca Della Ciana joins the stacked field as the first-ever international qualifier.
37,741,793: Combined career earnings (in dollars) of the 35 anglers in the REDCREST field.
…and the game
While Table Rock has a long history of hosting national tour-level tournaments, it’s never hosted REDCREST and only two Bass Pro Tour events – back-to-back tournaments, in fact, with Stages 6 and 7 of the inaugural 2019 season. Stage 6 went to the late Aaron Martens, while Wheeler followed that up with a win of his own at Stage 7. But throughout the history of FLW and MLF, Table Rock has been a staple. With all the history on the fishery, there’s bound to be some interesting numbers to look at…
5-13: Weight of the largest bass caught during BPT Stages 6 and 7 in 2019 (Andy Morgan, Stage 6 Knockout Round).
20-3: Weight of the winning bag in the April 18, 2021 BFL at Table Rock – the second of back-to-back BFLs that weekend (19-12 won the prior day). Big bass for that event was 6 pounds, 4 ounces. Given the timing of those tournaments, that’s a pretty good guide for what we should see at REDCREST: plenty of bass in the 3- and 4-pound range with the possibility of multiple 5- and 6-pounders hitting SCORETRACKER®.
25-6: Largest one-day-tournament five-fish limit weighed in an FLW/MLF event at Table Rock, caught by Michael Stetich in a 2012 BFL.
56: Number of scorable bass Wheeler caught in the Championship Round of 2019 BPT Stage 7 for a total of 84 pounds.
73: Number of FLW/MLF events on Table Rock, not including three yet to be contested this year and five prior to 2000 for which the FLW database has no information.
129-14: Weight Wheeler caught on Day 1 of qualifying at 2019 BPT Stage 7 (88 scorable bass).
Of note
- REDCREST 2026 may be the perfect convergence of location, fishery and time of year. Table Rock is an eminently significant bass fishery steeped in history and located close to the Bass Pro Shops National Headquarters. In late April, it fishes wide open with multiple fish species in multiple stages of the spawn. Literally everything will be in play, which is going to require anglers to be smart about their game plans, versatile and adaptable with adjustments throughout the weekend. Expect fireworks.
- Will forward-facing sonar be a big player at Table Rock? Of course. Will it be THE player? Likely not. Table Rock is a big fishery with so many options for cover and structure. No two anglers are likely to run the exact same program at the same times. Making use of the one period per angler per day of forward-facing sonar will be key, as it always is, but the “no-‘Scope lull” isn’t going to be as prevalent on a lake like Table Rock this time of year. When the ‘Scope is off, the playing field is still wide open.
- If Connell is the King of REDCREST, Alton Jones Jr. is the Prince. Unfortunately, only one of those crowns is particularly heavy, and it’s the one Jones is lugging around after finishing runner-up in both 2023 and 2024. But Jones happens to be one of the most well-rounded, versatile anglers on the Bass Pro Tour, and this tournament looks to be setting up perfectly for that kind of do-it-all angler to do really well. Will this be the year Jones finally gets over the hump and dethrones Connell?
- Similar to Jones, Wheeler is as versatile as they come. He’s also never won REDCREST, despite finishes of third, third, fourth and sixth. Coming off a win at Stage 4, Wheeler is riding high once again, and a REDCREST win for Wheeler feels inevitable at some point. But will that point be this year, on a lake where he recorded his first BPT win? It would certainly be poetic.
- Keith Carson will turn 39 on Day 2 of REDCREST. He could buy himself plenty of birthday presents with $300,000. A Carson win isn’t a far-fetched idea, either. If largemouth are up on beds, as they’re expected to be, Carson (and Ron Nelson, too) will be the one to find them and catch them. Carson has also been phenomenal with forward-facing sonar this season, and that one-two punch could make him ultra-dangerous at Table Rock.
- While REDCREST is considered the championship event of the Bass Pro Tour, what makes it even more interesting in the inclusion of anglers from various levels of MLF – from the Phoenix Bass Fishing League ranks to the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit. International anglers. College students. And sometimes regional heroes like longtime Toyota Series standout Roger Fitzpatrick, who, thanks to his Toyota Series Championship win last fall, gets to fish REDCREST in his home state on a lake he’s fished so many times before. If Fitzpatrick can adjust quickly to the every-fish-counts format, he’ll find himself in the mix come Championship Sunday.