COLUMBIA, S.C. — Cold, windy, post-frontal conditions might have chilled the bite a tad from what some anglers expected on Day 1 of PowerStop Brakes Stage 3 Presented by Strike King. But Lake Murray’s healthy largemouth population still made its presence felt, with 21 of the 66 Bass Pro Tour anglers topping 30 pounds and doing so with a variety of techniques.
Bites seemed to come in flurries, and no one had a more prolific one than Jeff Sprague. The veteran Texan rocketed to the top of SCORETRACKER® when he stacked up nearly 40 pounds in a 90-minute span during Period 1. He maintained his lead for the rest of the day, totaling 59 pounds, 13 ounces on 18 scorable bass. That has him 9 pounds clear of Marshall Hughes in second. Brent Ehrler sits right behind Hughes with 49-15.
Full results can be found here.
Sprague surprises himself
Lake Murray has been good to Sprague over the years. He finished 12th in the 2017 Forrest Wood Cup on the fishery and seventh when the Bass Pro Tour visited in 2023. Yet he admitted he didn’t take the water Thursday morning expecting to find himself leaving with the lead.
For one thing, Sprague heard the pre-tournament chatter about how many fish anglers were seeing during practice and figured the weights could get heavy in a hurry – especially for those anglers utilizing forward-facing sonar. He also didn’t hook many fish during practice, so he didn’t know just how productive his bank-oriented approach could be.
“The way I’m fishing, I would have potentially burned it up, burned fish that I don’t want to burn,” Sprague said. “So, once I figured out what they wanted to eat, I just kind of looked at the area and milled around and tried to find some other areas that set up similar to that.”
Turns out, while 45 anglers utilized forward-facing sonar during Period 1, Sprague outpaced all of them. He found several sweet spots in the same vicinity that produced multiple bass apiece. He totaled 42-1 during the opening frame, distancing himself from his nearest pursuer by more than 14 pounds.
“I had a starting area; I didn’t have a starting spot,” Sprague explained. “I was just fishing the conditions, and I knew where the fish were at. It’s just put the trolling motor down and go. Once you’re going, you could locate those fish in little groups on little turns and little rolls, then you’re able to Spot-Lock and make multiple casts and catch multiple fish off each one of those little special areas.”
From there, Sprague spent the rest of the day covering water and looking for more key spots. He turned his Lowrance ActiveTarget on during Period 2 but never deviated from winding around the shoreline.
While Sprague didn’t want to divulge many details about his technique of choice, he believes the groups of bass he found were fresh fish staging prior to the spawn. Quite a few anglers found the bass to be finicky, but Sprague said those that recently migrated from deeper water are willing to bite. He’s optimistic that more groups will move in, replenishing those areas as the tournament progresses.
“The fish are coming,” he said. “The fish are really starting to move in, to get there, and that’s the thing that’s the most intriguing. Guys are going to have to find the fish that are starting to move in and are fresh and haven’t been messed with at all.”
Sprague’s goal now is to finish atop the Qualifying Round standings, which would earn him a direct trip to Sunday’s Championship Round and his 14th career Bass Pro Tour Top 10. However, he did note that if he falls behind the pace Friday morning, he’s willing to ease off his best areas and spend the afternoon preparing for the Knockout Round.
“It’s great to get a strong start like that,” Sprague said. “It takes a little pressure off. But then it adds an additional pressure, because now you start to think about making it to the Championship Round if you’re able to put it together two days in a row and skip that Knockout Round. That’s kind of what we’ll shoot for in the morning. We’ll just see what the day gives us, and then we’ll make a decision on whether we lay into them and try to make that Championship or if we lay up and just go fish the Knockout Round and try to make it through that way.”
Hughes starts strong in Murray debut
With seemingly infinite creek arms, coves and contour lines to explore, Lake Murray can be an intimidating place for a first-timer. That learning curve is only exacerbated by the collective experience on the fishery for much of the Bass Pro Tour field and the fact that competitors had just two days of official practice.
Hughes addressed the challenge by picking one area to spend his entire first day of practice then another where he spent all of the second day. That seems to have paid off.
“It was like a maze trying to get around,” Hughes said of Murray. “It’s got all them little islands and pockets. I kind of picked an area the first day of practice and picked an area the second day of practice, and here we are.”
The BPT rookie found two distinct bites, one that he targeted during his lone period with forward-facing sonar and another that produced after he turned off his transducers. Fishing water protected from the wind, Hughes boated six bass for 19-5 while using his forward-facing sonar in Period 1. He then added 31-8 on 10 fish the rest of the day, bringing his total to 50-13.
Hughes actually expected the fish he targeted with forward-facing sonar to bite better. However, he was pleasantly surprised by his secondary pattern. He ended up using part of Period 3 to run new water and find more areas that set up the same way.
“I just kind of started hopping around,” Hughes said. “I had marked some different things in the lake that looked good, and I kind of figured one little pattern out, and I ran with it, and it turned out to be pretty good. I spent a lot of the last period idling around, looking for more of that, marking that kind of stuff.”
Hughes is optimistic that he can replicate his Day 1 success – although having never fished on Murray before, he admitted he’s not sure what to expect as conditions change. Like Sprague, his plan is to gauge where he stands midway through Day 2 and then decide whether to make a push for the Qualifying Round win.
“I’m going to see how tomorrow starts shaking out, and we’ll go from there,” he said.
What’s next for Stage 3
The full field will return to the water Friday for the second day of the Qualifying Round. As noted above, the leader following Day 2 will earn a trip to Sunday’s Championship Round, while the rest of the Top 20 will qualify for the Knockout Round.
Even by Bass Pro Tour standards, it’s shaping up to be a brawl to secure a spot above the elimination line. South Carolina native Britt Myers currently sits in 20th place with 30-15, but five anglers lurk within one scorable bass of his total. In fact, 12th through 25th place are separated by just over 5 pounds. Buckle up for a furious race Friday afternoon.
Stream all the action live on MLFNOW! from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET each day at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and the Major League Fishing channel on Rumble.
Other notes:
- All day, anglers remarked about the health of Lake Murray’s largemouth. The numbers backed that up, with the average size of a scorable bass on Day 1 coming in at 3-1. It’s been more than a year since the last time a regular-season Bass Pro Tour event featuring predominately largemouth (in other words, excluding the St. Lawrence River) produced an average fish over 3 pounds, the last such occurrence being 2024 Stage 2 on Santee Cooper.
- The biggest of those bass came from Justin Lucas. The Berkley pro earned Berkley Big Bass honors for the 7-4 he caught early in the third period. That lunker anchored a total of 35-13, which has him in 11th place.
- There’s still lots of fishing left at Stage 3, but it’s looking like the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race could be in for a major shakeup. The leader entering Thursday, Jacob Wall, struggled mightily, catching just one scorable bass for 2-5. That has him in 65th place. He wasn’t the only one to find the bite slow, either. Six of the top seven anglers in the points entering this event currently sit below 25th, including three-time AOY winner Jacob Wheeler, who’s 27th. Drew Gill is the lone exception; he’s in fourth place with 43-3 after Day 1.