GROVE, Okla. — June on Oklahoma’s Grand Lake seems like the place to be after a bass-packed Zenni Stage 6 Presented by Toyota. The lake proved it had something for everyone, with shallow bass in the bushes eating frogs and flipping baits and offshore anglers feasting on schools of fish with crankbaits, Carolina rigs, and more.
While Banks Shaw ultimately claimed his first Bass Pro Tour win in dramatic fashion with a jighead minnow, there were many other ways to catch them. Here’s a deeper look at how the top anglers found success on Grand Lake.
1. Banks Shaw – 82-15 (28)
Shaw turned in one of the greatest last-minute rallies in Bass Pro Tour history to secure his first win in his rookie year. The noted offshore expert was all in on that approach from the first day of practice and spent all his time scanning and looking for schools.
“I was fully committed to the offshore deal, because I knew the potential since there were so many schools and the fish were big,” he said. “I found one school pretty quickly in practice and thought it would be how this event was won. Most of the schools were on rock, and then some were on obvious places like secondary points and areas with current from all of the water flowing with the big rain we had during practice”
He caught fish with traditional offshore baits like deep crankbaits, football jigs and a Carolina rig, but the jighead minnow was also very important, especially on the final day.
“I started off during the week catching them on a Rapala DT 20 in disco shad, and since the schools were fresher, it was easier to fire them up with a crankbait,” he said. “As the schools got more pressured, I went with a 3/4-ounce football jig with a CrushCity Cleanup Craw on the back and used that same bait on a Carolina rig.”
He saved his forward-facing sonar for the final period each day. Then he went with a host of minnow baits, including a 5.25-inch CrushCity Freeloader, and fished them on a 3/16-ounce VMC RedLine Tungsten Swimbait ballhead.
2. Dustin Connell – 74-2 (28)
If not for Shaw’s last-minute heroics, Dustin Connell would have another trophy to take home to Alabama. Like others in the field, he mixed things up in both shallow and deep water depending on the day and other factors.
“I mainly stayed deep during the Qualifying and Knockout Rounds, but I had to go up shallow during the Knockout Round because my schools were getting busted up and harder to catch,” he said. “Late in the Knockout Round, I caught some key fish flipping with a new CrushCity creature bait called the Knuckle Bug that’s coming out at ICAST, and that allowed me to make the final day. I went shallow the final day, and that storm that came through really fired them up, and I was able to catch them quick on a white, 3/8-ounce VMC Heavy Duty Swim Jig with a CrushCity Cleanup Craw on the back.”
When fishing offshore earlier in the week, he went with a crankbait – both a Rapala DT6 and D10 – and caught several on a soon-to-be-released urchin bait from CrushCity called the CEO.
3. Zack Birge – 64-5 (21)
Fishing in his home state, Zack Birge stayed red hot, making his fifth Top 10 of the season in six events. His approach to Grand Lake was simple – fishing shallow because of the higher water levels.
“I was fishing flooded stuff – bank grass that was just under the water and some bushes and willows,” he said. “I stayed on the mid to upper part of the lake every day. When I come to Grand Lake, the further away from Wolf Creek I get, the worse I seem to do.”
Birge caught fish flipping a creature bait while also mixing in a 3/8-ounce Hag’s Hurricane bladed jig in sexy shad and a Hag’s Jive Talker rattling popping frog in bone. He flipped and frogged with an Alpha Angler Zilla rod, a high-speed reel and 30-pound Yo-Zuri SuperBraid. For his vibrating jig, he opted for an Alpha Angler Mag-Rebound, a high-speed reel and 20-pound Yo-Zuri T7 fluorocarbon line.
4. Alton Jones Jr. – 55-5 (20)
It was a split week for Texas pro Alton Jones Jr., as he spent each morning shallow up the lake and then ran down toward the dam and fished offshore during the latter part of each day. Both strategies were key to him securing his best finish of 2026.
“The first half of the day, I was shallow and primarily throwing a white, 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait, with a Geecrack Bellows Vibe on the back,” he said. “I also caught a couple of fish every day flipping when I came across a good target using a Geecrack Bellows Shad, both white and green pumpkin depending on the time of day.”
After moving locations and going deeper, a variety of baits produced.
“It was a plethora of lures – a big crankbait and a Carolina rig with a Bellows Shad – but I also caught quite a few during my ‘Scope period with a minnow each day,” he said. “The key to the offshore fish was looking for little flat spots since it’s so steep down by the lake. Anywhere that was a little flatter had the potential to have schools on them, and the quality seemed to go up when you got into the creeks.”
5. Bobby Lane – 46-2 (18)
Making his first trip to Grand Lake since his REDCREST win in 2022, Bobby Lane was able to secure another great finish and spoke highly of the fishing this week.
“This place is phenomenal, man, and if you want to catch a bunch of fish, June when the water is up can be some of the most fun fishing you’ll have,” he said. “I kept it simple this week with a few fish on a spinnerbait, a handful on a Berkley Swamp Lord frog, but everything else was flipping a Berkley PowerBait Pit Boss with a 1/2-ounce Epic Tungsten weight. I had three setups with that on there, and every time I thought about trying something else, I’d get another bite flipping.”
The final two days, Lane stuck to Wolf Creek, but that was a progression due to the water levels.
“I caught them on the main lake the first day, but as the water fell, it got tougher,” he said. “Once the water fell, I had a few new stretches fish were moving to in Carey Bay and around Bernice, but I did catch quite a few in Wolf Creek the last two days.”
6. Jake Lawrence – 31-4 (11)
After a slow start to the season by Jake Lawrence’s standards, he was able to get his first regular-season Top 10 of the year. He started strong on Grand Lake and topped SCORETRACKER® through two days, earning the automatic bid to the Championship Round.
Staying offshore, Lawrence fished Grand just like he would be fishing back home on Kentucky Lake.
“It was a two-pronged approach for me,” he said. “I had one major area in Honey Creek with schools that wouldn’t react to moving baits and then some other fish further down the lake where you could catch them on winding stuff.”
When fishing Honey Creek, he used a Carolina rig with a creature bait and a 6-inch Yamamoto Hinge Minnow in green gizzard shad on a jighead.
“Most of the Hinge Minnow fish were without forward-facing sonar and just casting it out there and working it blind, which is something that was new for me this week,” he said.
7. Spencer Shuffield – 28-1 (10)
Spencer Shuffield continued his solid success this year, catching them in a variety of ways on Grand. Everything from flipping and frogging the bushes to deep cranking and Carolina rigs played a role in his finish. He also caught fish with a jighead minnow using forward-facing sonar.
“I’d say about half of what I caught was on a Carolina rig with a 3/4-ounce Ark Tungsten cylinder weight and a Z-Man Gremlin creature bait in green pumpkin,” he said. “I was using 20-pound Yo-Zuri T7 fluorocarbon for both my leader line and main line. I also caught quite a few fish in the bushes and willow trees flipping and throwing a frog.”
While those were his two main tactics, two others helped him advance to each round.
“On the second day, during my ‘Scope period, I caught seven or eight fish on a 6-inch Z-Man Jerk ShadZ in smelt to help me advance,” he said. “Then, during the Knockout Round, I got onto a flurry at the very end of the day with a Yo-Zuri 3DB Series deep crankbait in matte gizzard shad that got me into the Championship Round.”
8. Ron Nelson – 27-8 (10)
Ron Nelson also mixed it up, utilizing both a shallow water flipping approach and hitting an offshore point with moving baits. It paid off as he won the Knockout Round, but things changed on the final day with a wind shift hurting his deeper fish.
“I’d start out each day flipping a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver around the bushes in Wolf Creek,” he said. “I’d use any dark color I had and went through a bunch of bags on them, so it was several colors. I went with a 3/8- or 1/2-ounce weight, depending on how much wind we had, and had to bump up to 30-pound Sunline Shooter because I felt like that was my best chance to land those fish in the bushes.”
When fishing for schooling fish on what he described as a flat point, Nelson caught fish on a host of baits, including a Carolina rig, a crankbait, a vibrating jig and an urchin-style bait.
“It was a point with a bunch of rocks on it to position the fish, and it was loaded with them during the Knockout Round,” he said. The final day, I ran up there, and the wind had done a complete shift, and they were gone. All that was there was white bass.”
9. Keith Carson – 24-7 (8)
Florida’s Keith Carson notched his second Top 10 finish of the season, and he did it by staying within sight of the Wolf Creek boat ramp.
“I didn’t do a lot of running around and probably didn’t even burn a gallon of gas, but I did have to adjust each day with the water levels changing,” he said. “The first day, I started off flipping bushes with a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Stank Bug in black and blue, but then the water dropped, and I had to switch it up.”
With the lowering water levels, Carson stuck to the same areas but focused slightly deeper and went with a crankbait to make the Knockout and Championship rounds. His bait of choice was a Berkley Frittside 5 in black chartreuse.
10. Brent Ehrler – 20-11 (8)
Brent Ehrler notched yet another Top 10 on the Bass Pro Tour, and he did it all shallow even though he did his best to find deeper schools of fish. He gave the deep bite a fair shot the first day before pulling the plug.
“The first day of the tournament, I started out deep on a school I’d found and figured I’d have to at least try it, but I never got a bite,” he said. “After that, I ran back up the lake and started flipping with a Yamamoto Flappin’ Hog and Yamamoto Senko. That was good the first day, but I went to reaction baits as the event went on.”
Among his best lures in the later days of the event were a frog, a Lucky Craft 1.5 squarebill and a Lucky Craft BDS3. But the Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait was his top performer.
“It was a mix of everything, but a 1/2-ounce, white Jack Hammer with a Yamamoto Zako on the back was what I caught the most fish on,” he added.