CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Jake Lawrence’s buzzer-beating bass on Championship Sunday has dominated the conversation in the bass fishing world in recent days, and rightfully so. The 5-pound, 9-ounce largemouth Lawrence landed in the final 15 seconds (on a buzzbait of all things) pushed him past Jacob Wheeler for his first career Bass Pro Tour victory, making for one of the most thrilling endings ever to a livestreamed tournament.
So much happened in the 30 hours of competition on two different lakes leading up to the final minute at O’Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 Presented by OPTIMA Batteries that we had to revisit it. Here’s a look at some of the storylines from one of the most memorable BPT events yet.
Nickajack shows out
Chickamauga, which served as the playing field for the two-day Qualifying Round, has long been one of the country’s top tournament destinations. Same goes for Lake Guntersville, which recently hosted REDCREST. But Nickajack, the reservoir between them on the Tennessee River, had never played host to a tour-level event until last week.
Safe to say it delivered. While it took some of the pros who qualified for the Knockout Round a little while to figure out Nickajack (not surprising since most of them focused their practice time on Chickamauga and a deluge of rain changed the fishery), the lake delivered multiple viable patterns plus an 8-pound big bass.
Until literally the last minute of the event, it remained a toss-up whether targeting smallmouth in the current beneath the Chickamauga Dam or largemouth on the lower end of the lake would be the way to win. The smallmouth bite was particularly strong during Saturday’s Knockout Round. Two anglers (Wheeler and Ron Nelson) made it to the Championship Round on the strength of almost all smallmouth, and Wheeler felt like he could have hit 100 pounds if he hadn’t been saving fish for Sunday. He caught two smallmouth over 5 pounds during the Knockout Round, including a 6-2 that ate a topwater. Wesley Strader also found success below the dam before spending the second half of his day targeting largemouth.
Roughly 40 miles away, a host of anglers found a few different ways to catch largemouth. Lawrence won by targeting bluegill eaters around holes in the lake’s carpet of eelgrass. Others plied offshore bars and hard spots, while still others targeted spawning fish, either around the shoreline or, in the case of Drew Gill’s wild third-period Knockout Round rally, those bedding deeper away from the banks.
Across the two days on Nickajack, the average size of a scorable bass was virtually the same as the two days on Chickamauga – 2-12 versus 2-13. While we didn’t see quite as many true giants hit the scales at Nickajack, Lawrence proved they lived there with the 8-3 he caught during the Championship Round. By the way, his five biggest bass on Sunday would have weighed a combined 27-5. No matter the lake, that’s stout.
‘Land of Giants’ lives up to its name
Speaking of lunkers, Chickamauga showed why it’s long held a reputation as a big bass factory. The storied fishery surrendered 19 bass of 6 pounds or bigger across two days, which is especially impressive considering fish generally aren’t at their heaviest this time of year.
Dean Rojas earned Berkley Big Bass honors for the event with the 9-6 brute he caught on Day 1. Nelson wrangled an 8-8 on the second day. Lawrence caught a 7-10 during his furious Day 2 rally, making him the only angler on the week to boat multiple bass of 7-plus pounds.
What year is it?
Between the bass being spread across all phases of the spawn, multiple species playing and the field fishing two different lakes, it shouldn’t come as a shock that the full gamut of baits caught bass during Stage 4. We saw anglers rely on everything from topwaters to finesse worms to bladed jigs to deep crankbaits to hair jigs and more.
That said, the two most prominent baits probably seemed a little out of place in 2025. Sure, plenty of bass were caught on Neko rigs and drop-shots and jighead minnows, as we see at every event these days. But the Championship Round showdown came down to Wheeler’s scrounger versus Lawrence’s buzzbait. If you claim you had that on your pre-event Bingo card, you’re lying.
The scrounger has admittedly made a bit of a comeback in recent years as an extension of the jighead minnow trend. Dustin Connell used it in each of his past two REDCREST victories, pairing it with the same soft-plastic Wheeler utilized to catch many of his current-related smallmouth: a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader.
The buzzbait, on the other hand, has long been considered a tool that can produce a kicker or two but rarely been relied on like Lawrence used it. According to SCORETRACKER INSIDER™ powered by Strike King, he caught 13 of his 27 scorable bass (and all but three of the ones he caught during his two periods without forward-facing sonar) on his Buckeye Buzzerk buzzbait with a Frog Factory Ribbit toad trailer.
“It’s always something that I have tied on when I go shallow in practice, and I actually caught a couple non-scorables (during the Knockout Round), and I had like a 5- or 6-pounder in that area that came off,” Lawrence said of his buzzbait. “It was just enough to kind of keep me interested, keep me going with it. In such vast areas like this – and when I say vast, it wasn’t like the area was humongous, but there was no change. And so, I’m not super confident in slowing way down and dragging when there’s just nothing to really key on. So, that was a really big deal for me to cover a bunch of water. When I would see a light spot, a little hole in the grass, I would throw my buzzbait over it.”
Top AOY contenders continue blistering pace
Wheeler may have lost out on his ninth career Bass Pro Tour trophy, but he did add to his lead in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race. Seeking his fourth AOY title in the past five years, he’s now 13 points ahead of Gill. However, there’s still multiple other anglers in the hunt in what’s on pace to go down as the most impressive AOY race in BPT history.
Through four events, Wheeler’s average finish is 3.75. If he can keep that up, it would be the best average finish for an AOY winner in the seven-year history of the Bass Pro Tour, besting his own mark of 5.43 from 2022. While it might sound impossible to maintain that average, he might have to, as Gill is currently averaging a finish of 6.75. Never in BPT history has the AOY runner-up averaged a Top 10, and only twice has the winner finished with a better average than Gill’s current mark (Wheeler in 2022 and 2024).
Matt Becker and Lawrence round out the top four, and they can’t be counted out, either. With an average finish of 12.75, Becker is actually trending better than when he won AOY in 2023, when he averaged about 15th place. Lawrence is now just 1 point behind him. Both anglers are currently averaging a better finish than three of the previous six AOY champions (Edwin Evers in 2019, Jordan Lee in 2020, Wheeler in 2021).
While it’s worth noting that the smaller Bass Pro Tour roster size in 2025 has helped concentrate points a bit, it’s clear that whoever ultimately claims the $100,000 prize will have earned it. Stay tuned for continued in-depth coverage of the AOY race across the final three regular-season events.