COLUMBIA, S.C. — As the final period of the Qualifying Round at PowerStop Brakes Stage 3 Presented by Strike King ticked away, Matt Becker couldn’t buy a bite. Across the last three hours of competition Friday, Becker never landed a Lake Murray bass – although he still managed to hold on to the final spot above the Elimination Line, topping two competitors by less than 1 pound to secure a spot in Saturday’s Knockout Round.
A new day brought zeroed weights, and Becker took full advantage. He caught fire early on Saturday, sprinting to the top of SCORETRACKER® with 10 bass totaling 30 pounds, 13 ounces during the first hour of competition. He then maintained the top spot for nearly the entire rest of the day, finishing with 44-10 on 15 scorable bass. That was just 11 ounces ahead of Jacob Wheeler, while Drew Gill and Alton Jones Jr. also finished within 2-2 of Becker’s total.
That quartet – all former Bass Pro Tour winners – will be joined by Qualifying Round victor Jeff Sprague as well as the rest of the top nine finishers from the Knockout Round in what’s shaping up to be a loaded Championship Round. Weights will once again zero, then the angler who can amass the most weight Sunday will take home $150,000.
Stream all the action live from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET on Sunday on MLFNOW! at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and the Major League Fishing channel on Rumble.
Full results can be found here.
Becker in contention for another win on Murray
Becker grew up in Pennsylvania, where he spent a lot of time on Lake Erie, and now lives on the Tennessee River. So, on paper, it doesn’t really make sense why he’s found so much success at Lake Murray. But the South Carolina impoundment has always treated him well.
Becker earned his first national win on the fishery at a Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit event in 2021, then finished a solid 27th when the Bass Pro Tour visited in 2023 en route to winning the Angler of the Year title as a rookie. Now, he’s back in the Top 10 again. Multiple times Saturday, he remarked that Murray is his favorite tournament venue in the country.
“I really can’t explain it,” Becker said. “I love clean water, and I guess it’s a blueback herring thing. I’ve always done well on herring lakes. But yeah, from the very first day I launched my boat on Murray, I just clicked with it and loved it.”
That past success helped bolster Becker’s confidence entering the Knockout Round despite his slow finish Friday. Like most of the field has all week, he opted to use his one allotted period with forward-facing sonar during Period 1. He returned to the same pocket where he caught four scorable bass the morning prior, and this time, he found the fish positioned shallower and feeding aggressively.
Using a jighead minnow, he boated 12 scorable bass for 36-6 during the opening period – more weight than he caught during either of the first two days of competition.
“I had the opportunity to have a similar morning yesterday, but I just missed them,” Becker explained. “I lost them; they weren’t eating the bait right. So, I knew the potential was there. I didn’t expect that this morning, but I knew I had to go back to that same zone and see if I could trick a few into biting, and it was fast and furious this morning. They were biting instead of following.”
With his forward-facing sonar turned off, Becker spent the rest of the day skipping a wacky-rigged Yamamoto Senko around boat docks. That became the dominant pattern across the field on a warm, sunny afternoon.
Becker added three scorable bass with his transducers turned off, including the first one he’s landed during the third period all week. He knows he’s going to need to do a better job of keeping up the pace during the latter two periods of the Championship Round if he hopes to add another Lake Murray trophy to his collection. Sprague sailed through the Qualifying Round, amassing the heaviest total of the field on each of the first two days (although it will be interesting to see if he can continue to ride his crankbait bite after no one in the field found consistent success with moving baits Saturday). Plus, Wheeler and Gill admitted they stopped trying to catch fish Saturday afternoon once they’d put a safe distance between themselves and the elimination line.
“I feel okay about the first period; I feel like I can survive,” Becker said. “But I don’t really feel like I’m on anything for the afternoon. I’ve got maybe two or three stretches of docks that I feel like I may be able to get a bite on again, but other than that, I really don’t know what I’m going to do yet. So, I’m going to have to think about it and maybe make a game-time adjustment.
“There’s definitely a couple areas I feel like I could have went to this afternoon had I needed to catch one. I was just kind of trying to explore and look at new stuff. But still, I wish I would have caught a few more.”
While cooler, cloudier conditions could hurt the bite a bit, Becker expects it to take at least 50 pounds to earn the win, possibly more than 60. That might seem like a tall task, but the fact that he has a spot in the final-day field means he has a shot, especially on his favorite lake.
“The weather is going to be different, so I really don’t know what the fish are going to do tomorrow,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it was a little bit tougher than today just given the weather we have coming through – the clouds and the cooler temperatures. I think it’s going to take somewhere in the 50- to 60-pound range to win. We’re going to have to figure something out to make that happen.”
Other notes:
The battle to take over the top spot in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race will come down to Championship Sunday, as both Wheeler and Gill – also the top two finishers in 2024 – made the Championship Round. If Gill finishes seven or more places ahead of Wheeler, he’ll take over the top spot from Jacob Wall. Otherwise, Wheeler will be back in the driver’s seat to claim his fourth AOY title in the past five years.
The only angler among the 19 Knockout Round participants who never turned on his forward-facing sonar was Mark Daniels Jr. The strategy paid off, as Daniels snuck into the Championship Round by finishing ninth with 34-6 on 11 bass, all of which he caught skipping a wacky worm around docks.
One angler could hoist a long-awaited first Bass Pro Tour trophy on Sunday. Sprague and Brent Ehrler have the most Top-10 finishes without a win of any BPT anglers, and both qualified for the Championship Round. This marks the 16th Top 10 for Ehrler and No. 14 for Sprague.