OCALA, Fla. — After the opening period of the Knockout Round at Kubota Heavy Hitters Presented by Bass Pro Shops, Jake Lawrence found himself at the bottom of SCORETRACKER®. But even though he’d mustered just one scorable bass, Lawrence reassured himself that on the giant bass factory that is Orange Lake, he only needed a couple bites to put himself right back in the mix.
Indeed, it took him all of 10 minutes and two fish to vault all the way from the bottom of the standings to the top. That’s where Lawrence finished the day with a total of 40 pounds, 8 ounces on seven scorable bass, 1-11 ahead of Mark Davis.
Lawrence found a group of the lunker bass that Orange Lake has been kicking out all week. After boating an 8-pounder and a 6-pounder in the first 10 minutes of Period 2, he added an exclamation point with a 9-8 giant that edged Cole Floyd by 1 ounce for Berkley Big Bass honors, which earned Lawrence an extra $30,000.
Weights will zero overnight, then Lawrence will lead the Top-10 finishers onto the water for Thursday’s Championship Round. If he can replicate his Knockout Round performance, he would take home both of the $100,000 paychecks up for grabs – one for the winner and the other for the angler who catches the biggest bass. Watch all the action on the MLFNOW! livestream from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and the Major League Fishing channel on Rumble.
Full results can be found here.
Secondary area produces for Lawrence
Prior to the flurry that launched him from last to first, Lawrence hadn’t caught a bass from that spot during the event. He’d gotten two quick bites there in practice, but revisited it on the first Qualifying Round day and never caught a fish.
Lawrence opened the day in the area that produced most of his Day 2 weight, but as often happens at Heavy Hitters, where Groups A and B trade days during the Qualifying Round before coming together for the Knockout Round, he arrived to find a host of other anglers starting on the same stretch. So, he decided to give his secondary area – which he described as a strip of clean water behind a hydrilla mat – another shot.
“I decided to stop in there at the beginning of the second period, and buddy, it was happening,” Lawrence said. “I had an 8-12. Moved the boat about 10 feet, caught a 6-11. I went and picked my camera operator up so he wouldn’t disturb the area, and once I got back in that zone, I caught the 9 1/2. And I actually had another great big one that swirled right behind my ChatterBait. Never actually touched the bait. Had she not boiled, I would have never even known that it happened. But man, the size of that boil, there is no telling how big that fish was. It was another big, big one.”
The 9-8 represented the biggest bass Lawrence has ever weighed during a tournament. Yet at the time, he didn’t think it would be enough to win the $30,000 prize.
“This sounds crazy – obviously I was extremely excited to catch that fish – but I truly did not think that it would hold,” he said. “It had only been one day that it hadn’t taken a double-digit, and we were still fairly early in the day. I just felt like it was going to take a 10-pounder to do it. But super fortunate for that extra ounce.”
Lawrence caught one more bass, a 4-7, from his honey hole before leaving to conserve it for the Championship Round. While he plans to start there Thursday and “probably spend a good portion of my day inside that area,” he also discovered another area during Period 3 that he thinks has potential, where he added two more over 4 pounds.
In all, six of Lawrence’s seven scorable bass weighed over 4 pounds. That could be huge during the Championship Round – the one day during the Bass Pro Tour season that the minimum weight for a scorable bass exceeds 2 pounds. It’ll take at least a 3-pounder to hit SCORETRACKER® on Thursday.
Had the 3-pound minimum been in effect during the Knockout Round, Lawrence would have led the way by more than 10 pounds. Marshall Hughes – who, like Lawrence, only caught one scorable bass under 3 pounds Wednesday – would have finished second with 27-11. Davis would have been third with 26-9, and Floyd would have been the only other angler over 20 pounds with 21-2.
“It gives me a ton of confidence going into that Championship Round with that 3-pound minimum,” Lawrence said. “I know where that caliber is living, and it’s just about settling into those little, key areas and getting the bites and getting them in the boat.”
Lawrence took the Bass Pro Tour by storm as a rookie in 2025, winning an event and knocking out five Top 10s en route to a runner-up finish in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race. At least compared to that, 2026 hasn’t been as smooth. This will be his first Championship Round appearance of the year.
A Top 10 and a payday of at least $30,000 is a nice way to turn things around. Leaving Florida with another $200,000 would be even better.
“I’m ecstatic,” Lawrence said. “This season has been a challenge for me, there’s no question. It’s bass fishing; it’s hard to keep everything going in the right direction at all times. And I’ve just had one of those starts to the season. It just seems like what could go wrong does.
“I’m extremely excited to have an opportunity at both winning the event as well as a $100,000 bite. That’s just crazy to even think that we’re going to have a shot at that tomorrow.”
Championship Round storylines abound
Dave Lefebre has a chance to end his Bass Pro Tour career in style. The 20-plus-year tour-level veteran hasn’t made an official retirement announcement, but he appears to be done competing nationally. However, his 2025 season did qualify him for Heavy Hitters, and Lefebre has quietly worked his way into the Championship Round field, giving himself a chance to go out with a big payday.
Davis looks like he has a real chance to claim the first Bass Pro Tour victory and first tour-level win in Florida of his career, both of which have narrowly eluded him. The Bass Fishing Hall of Famer has twice finished second at BPT events in the Sunshine State, on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in 2023 and the Harris Chain last year. Both times, he led during the Championship Round before being passed by one of the Lane brothers (Bobby Lane is in the Championship Round field as well, so watch out for him).
Alton Jones Jr. has proven to be dangerous once he reaches this point in a Heavy Hitters event. He has won both the championship belt (in 2023) and cashed the $100,000 Berkley Big Bass prize (in 2022) in past Championship Rounds.
Likewise, Jeff Sprague will look to make it three-for-three at catching the $100,000 bass during his Heavy Hitters Championship Round appearances. When he did so last year on Smith Mountain Lake, he became the first angler to catch the $100,000 bass multiple times.
By the way, Sprague is also looking to notch his long-awaited first Bass Pro Tour win. This will mark his 17th Top 10 in BPT competition. That’s second only to Brent Ehrler (22) among anglers without a Bass Pro Tour victory … and Ehrler is also in the Championship Round field after sneaking across the Lucas Oil Cut Line late for the second day in a row.
Now that Floyd finally got the monkey off his back, is he about to embark on a winning spree? Floyd broke through for his first national win at the last Bass Pro Tour event, Stage 5 on Beaver Lake, and he’s spent virtually all of his first three days on Orange Lake in the top few spots on SCORETRACKER®.