Kubota Heavy Hitters Presented by Bass Pro Shops is, by its very nature, a big-fish tournament. Every year, the pros who qualified through the Bass Pro Tour the previous season contend for big money on big-bass fisheries – Berkley Big Bass bonuses every day of the event plus a $100,000 prize for winning. This year, former BPT pro Dave Lefebre double dipped in the Championship Round by winning the $100,000 bonus and another $100,000 for winning the whole event.
But Heavy Hitters 2026 took “big bass” to a new level at Florida’s Orange Lake. A smaller fishery filled with grass (and with low water levels concentrating its thriving largemouth population), the lake kicked out giant bass every day of the six-day tournament. The result: one of the most impressive tournaments in Major League Fishing history. When we use the word “historic,” we mean it.
Lefebre’s massive win(s)
Lefebre didn’t requalify for the Bass Pro Tour in 2026, and while he didn’t announce his retirement from professional bass fishing, the Erie, Pennsylvania, pro hasn’t fished the big circuits in 2026. But because of the Heavy Hitters qualification process, he earned a spot in the field on Orange Lake and was therefore given another opportunity to compete on MLF’s biggest stage. And compete he did.
After weighing just two scorable bass for 6-4 on the first day of qualifying, Lefebre rallied hard on his second day with seven scorables for 33-10 (including an 8-3). The third-best day of anyone on the water propelled him just above the Lucas Oil Cut Line for a Knockout Round berth. In the Knockout Round, he tallied another four scorables for 16-1, the deciding fish being a 7-pounder he caught to start the third period.
The rest, as they say, is history. Despite a slow fishing day for the Championship Round field, Lefebre was consistent in weighing six bass between 3 and 4 pounds – with a true kicker. Early in the third period, it was a 9-pound, 3-ounce brute that gave him the lead on SCORETRACKER® and in the hunt for a $100,000 Berkley Big Bass.
A win like that deserves a look under the hood, by the numbers:
18: Number of scorable bass Lefebre caught on a bladed jig – every single scorable he caught following his two-fish performance with a swim jig on Day 1.
3-12: Lefebre’s winning margin over Ron Nelson, who caught two 7-pounders in the Championship Round but couldn’t match Lefebre’s quantity.
9-3: Weight of Lefebre’s (essentially) $200,000 fish. It was the smallest Berkley Big Bass of the event, but only by ounces (and from a smaller field than in any other round).
3:30: Amount of time (in hours and minutes) between first and second scorable bass for Lefebre on his second day of qualifying. After a 3-2 to start the day, Lefebre endured a long lull that ended with an 8-3, which jumpstarted his rally.
28-7: Weight of Lefebre’s best five scorables on his second day of qualifying
1:57: Amount of time (in hours and minutes) between Lefebre’s $100,000-winning fish and his last fish of the day in the Championship Round (a 3-5) that gave him some breathing room atop SCORETRACKER®. That’s a long time to sweat your lead holding with $200,000 on the line.
The heaviest of hitters
For one day, Takahiro Omori held the new record for biggest bass ever caught at Heavy Hitters – a 10-1 he caught not on a bladed jig but a topwater walking bait shortly before 10 a.m. on the opening day of the tournament. That record would stand only until 2:19 p.m. the next day, when Michael Neal caught an 11-pounder – his personal-best bass and his first ever over 10 – for what ended up standing as the largest caught on Orange Lake that week.
We’ve seen some BPT events that have featured some giant bass (Stage 3 at Lake Fork in 2020, Stage 1 in West Monroe, Louisiana, in 2022), but none consistently kicked out the kind of size we saw at Orange Lake.
33: Number of bass over 7 pounds caught by the 32-angler Heavy Hitters field at Orange Lake (which never featured more than 16 anglers on the water at any given time)
60: Number of bass over 6 pounds caught across the six days at Orange Lake
3-10: Average size of all bass caught during Heavy Hitters. For some perspective: Stage 1 in 2022, which featured a 12-14 from Randy Howell and six more over 8 pounds, resulted in just a 2-15 average for the tournament (though the minimum scorable weight for that event was slightly lower).
9-3: Smallest of all the Big Bass bonus-winning fish over six days at Orange Lake. From Day 1 to Day 6, here’s the winning weight for those money fish: 10-1, 11-0, 10-1, 9-8, 9-8, 9-3.
Heartbreak at Orange Lake
If you watched the MLFNOW! livestream coverage of Heavy Hitters (or followed along on social media), you doubtless saw John Hunter experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat in a split second’s time during his final day of qualifying. Hunter got his hooks into a monster – and his hand in its mouth – before the potential $10,000 bass bumped the gunnel on the way up, gave a massive shake and swam off.
Similarly, Jake Lawrence nearly went head-first into Orange Lake in the waning moments of the Championship Round. Lawrence reeled into a big bass but couldn’t catch up with its sprint toward his boat. The fish jumped once to show its heft, then breached at the boat and spit the hook back at Lawrence – another heartbreaking (and critical) loss caught on camera. For Lawrence, who finished the Championship Round 7 pounds, 1 ounce behind Lefebre, that bass may have meant Heavy Hitters victory.
For BPT pros who compete in the catch-weigh-release format with SCORETRACKER®, real-time heartbreak is part of the game. Check this out:
1: Number of ounces by which Lawrence’s biggest bass (9-8) eclipsed that of Cole Floyd (9-7) in the Knockout Round. Lawrence once again held the Big Bass lead by 1 ounce in the Championship Round (8-15 to Marshall Hughes’ 8-14) before Lefebre’s winning 9-3.
2: Number of pros (Bobby Lane, Brent Ehrler) who caught scorable bass in the final hour of the Knockout Round to bounce Todd Faircloth just below the Lucas Oil Cut Line. Faircloth finished just a pound behind Ehrler and 9 ounces shy of Lane.
10-2: Combined weight of the final two bass Lefebre caught in the final day of qualifying (including a 3-5 as time expired) to bounce Bryan Thrift from Knockout Round contention. Thrift finished just 2-9 shy of Lefebre.
3:12: Time (in hours and minutes) that Floyd led the Berkley Big Bass hunt in the Knockout Round. Floyd caught a 9-7 first thing (the second scorable bass of the entire day) before Lawrence boated a 9-8 at 11:22 a.m. for the eventual $30,000 bonus.
25-1: Weight Bass Fishing Hall of Famer Skeet Reese put on the scale on his second day of qualifying. Unfortunately, it was 6-3 shy of what he needed to make the Knockout Round. Reese finished the round in ninth, effectively ending his hiatus from retirement.
Neal’s unbelievable performance
Prior to Heavy Hitters, Neal had never caught a bass of 10 pounds or more – astonishing when you consider:
- a) how much Neal has fished in his life
- b) the fact that Neal hails from Dayton, Tennessee, home of Lake Chickamauga and, until recently, the Tennessee record largemouth.
Neal catching an 11-pounder was a huge moment on its own, but it’s everything else he did on his first day of qualifying that made it one of the most impressive performances we’ve ever seen from anyone – in any tournament, let alone Heavy Hitters.
Neal started his day with a 6-9. About 40 minutes later, he boated a 6-2. A couple hours later, a 6-7 before his $10,000 11-pounder. Awesome, right? Well, Neal wasn’t done. He finished the day with a 6-10 and an 8-3.
38-13: Weight of Neal’s best five on Day 2. If Heavy Hitters had been a five-fish-limit derby, Neal would have had to cull a 6-2. Forget Dirty 30; Neal just barely missed a Fantastic 40.
1: Number of scorable bass Neal caught on his second day of qualifying (he didn’t really need to catch anything to advance to the Knockout Round). That one weighed 9-8 and once again won Berkley Big Bass honors. If you’re only going to catch one, that’s a good one to catch.
20,000: Amount (in dollars) Neal took home in Big Bass bonuses. He also pocketed another $7,000 for finishing 13th.
Odds and ends
75: Percentage of Championship Round scorables caught on a bladed jig (24 of 32).
0: Number of Championship Round scorables caught flipping or punching after being a highly effective method earlier in the event (all of Neal’s aforementioned fish in his huge first day came flipping a creature bait).
1,794-10: Total weight of all scorable bass caught at Heavy Hitters between 32 anglers.
16: Percent of scorable bass that weighed 5 pounds or more. Roughly 27% of all scorables weighed 4 pounds or more.
4,143: Minimum amount (in dollars) earned by everyone in the Heavy Hitters field. A no-entry-fee event, there’s a reason you hear BPT pros talk about “Heavy Hitters” (qualifying) fish throughout the regular season.
50,000: Amount (in dollars) Lawrence took home between the Knockout Round Big Bass ($30,000) and his $20,000 payday for finishing third. Not a bad consolation prize after losing what may have been the winning fish in the closing minutes of the Championship Round.
15: Most scorable bass caught by anyone in a single day, tallied by Florida pro Terry Scroggins on Day 1 (62-3). Scroggins caught three over 7 that day, including an 8-9.
Also of note
- Despite concerns about Orange Lake’s size and low water, the fishery stood up surprisingly well to hosting 16 anglers each of the first five days and 10 pros in the Championship Round. Across the four-day Qualifying Round (with a 2-pound minimum weight in effect), the field combined to catch 92 scorables on Day 1, 103 on Day 2, 81 on Day 3 and 91 on Day 4. The Knockout Round featured 98 scorables, and then 32 in the Championship Round, when the minimum scorable weight increased to 3 pounds.
- There seemed to be an invisible cap on fish of 8 pounds or more at Orange Lake during Heavy Hitters. We never saw more than four such fish caught on any day of the event, with four on Day 1, three on Day 2, four on Day 3, four on Day 4, four in the Knockout Round and three in the Championship Round. On the other hand: No day featured fewer than three bass of 8 pounds or better.
- The Top 10 finishers at Heavy Hitters represented a hodgepodge of pros from all over the country: Lefebre from Pennsylvania, Nelson from Michigan, Lawrence from Tennessee, etc. The only Top 10 finisher who hails from Florida was Lane, who turned in an eighth-place finish. Scroggins was the next-highest-finishing Floridian (16th).
- Omori continues to add to his magical 2026 season. In addition to being selected to the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, he won Stage 2 at Lake Hartwell for his first BPT win. He then went on to finish runner-up at REDCREST and set the record (if only for a day) for biggest bass ever caught at Heavy Hitters on Day 1, netting another $10,000 in the process.
- Omori also gave us one of the most memorable moments of the entire tournament on his second day of qualifying, when he got his boat stuck trying to get to a backwater pool early in the day. After trying (and failing) to get his boat unstuck, he waited for an airboat to try (and fail) to pull him free. The helpful airboat crew gave him a ride back to the ramp, then they got his boat out and brought it back just in time for Omori to serve a 15-minute penalty for needing assistance retrieving his boat. At that point, he was barely clinging on above the Lucas Oil Cut Line and about half an hour left to fish. Shortly thereafter, Omori was bounced below the Cut Line. He answered with under 2 minutes on the game clock, hooking and landing a miracle 6-pounder to advance to the Knockout Round.