CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Seeing Jacob Wheeler’s name atop SCORETRACKER® for virtually all of Saturday’s Knockout Round at O’Reilly Auto Parts Stage 4 Presented by OPTIMA Batteries probably didn’t surprise anyone. Wheeler, an eight-time winner on the Bass Pro Tour, lives in nearby Harrison, Tennessee, and he entered the event as a clear favorite.
But Wheeler himself didn’t expect such a strong showing after the field relocated from Lake Chickamauga for the first of two days on the smaller, more mysterious Nickajack Lake.
Fishing in the current beneath the Chickamauga Dam, Wheeler posted the first scorable bass of the day – a 2-pound, 11-ounce smallmouth – 4 minutes after lines in. From there, he led nearly wire-to-wire. He stacked up 10 smallmouth totaling 32-6 in the first hour, 35 minutes (which would have been enough to finish above the elimination line). Despite spending most of the final two periods scouting new water, he cruised to a 63-5 total on 20 bass, finishing 9-3 clear of Wesley Strader.
“It was an unbelievable day of fishing today,” Wheeler said. “I felt like I could have caught another 40 pounds if I wanted to.”
Wheeler and the rest of the top nine finishers will be joined by Qualifying Round winner Justin Lucas on Nickajack for Sunday’s Championship Round. Weights will zero overnight, then the angler who can rack up the most weight will take home the $150,000 top prize. Catch the action on MLFNOW! 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.
Wheeler successfully changes with the conditions
Wheeler devoted about a third of the three-day practice period prior to Stage 4 on Nickajack, which was enough to convince him to focus on the riverine upper section of the reservoir. However, Saturday’s conditions, with overcast skies, bouts of rain and a strong current flowing from the dam, were quite a bit different than anything he saw in practice.
Turns out, that activated the smallmouth. Zipping between a handful of spots in a small zone, Wheeler got bites in bunches. The coolest flurry came when he caught a 4-7 and a 6-2 (the Berkley Big Bass of the day) back-to-back on a walking topwater.
“It was the most unbelievable bite I’ve had in a long time,” Wheeler said. “I threw it out there, and those suckers came up blowing up. I threw a (Rapala) Jowler out there, and twitch, twitch, and 4- and 5-pound smallies were blowing my topwater out of the water, and a freakin’ 6-pounder comes up and eats it. It was unbelievable.”
Wheeler built a lead of more than 12 pounds during the opening period, which allowed him to spend the rest of the day sampling more spots in preparation for the Championship Round. Wheeler said that “every hour, things seemed to be changing a little bit,” and with more current in the forecast for tomorrow, he expects the complexion of the fishery to shift once again.
“It was very important (to start fast),” Wheeler said. “I was able to understand a little bit more than I did, and I was able to sort of go, ‘OK, this is not going to work,’ or ‘this might develop tomorrow.’ … I have some things that I didn’t have even in the boat today that I know I’m going to have to add to my arsenal for tomorrow.”
As dominant as Wheeler looked during the Knockout Round, he’s not clearing out space for another trophy just yet. Predicting it’ll take around 50 pounds to claim the trophy, he described himself as “uneasy” about what the additional current, which could mean dirtier water, will do to his fish. While he thinks he’ll stay on the upper end of the lake, he’s not necessarily all-in on the smallmouth-dominated approach he employed Saturday.
“In the river section, the more current you have, it’s not necessarily the best,” he explained. “When there’s a decent amount of current, the fish will set up on offshore places, and you can catch them. But when you get a lot of current and a lot of mud, they leave that stuff. So, you’ve got to do a little bit more power fishing on the bank. And I think that will be a little bit more difficult. Like, the places I caught them today, I might be able to catch them on a couple places, but it won’t be like it was today.”
Wheeler admitted the proximity of Stage 4 to his adopted home made for more pressure than he typically feels entering a Bass Pro Tour event. He’s one day away from living up to the hype – and from adding a win on Nickajack to a résumé that already includes top-level victories on both of its neighbors, Chickamauga and Guntersville.
“By no means is Nickajack a home lake to me,” Wheeler said. “I’ve spent probably 10 days of my entire life down on that place. But I know the region, I know the Tennessee River. I’ve won on Chickamauga, I’ve won on Guntersville and had some really good finishes all throughout the Tennessee River. So, to me, they’re all sort of similar. It’s fun to go compete, but I do feel a little more pressure to try to represent the local community and do a good job at this event just because it is so close to home.”
Gill’s gamble pays off
Since his career went national in 2023, Drew Gill has been at the cutting edge of the sport thanks in large part to his mastery of forward-facing sonar. He combined that skill with some savvy strategy on Saturday to pull off an unprecedented game plan in the Bass Pro Tour’s every-fish-counts format.
For nearly the first 4 hours of competition, Gill didn’t pick up a rod. Instead, the 22-year-old phenom spent all that time idling and graphing, locating fish he could target during his lone period with forward-facing sonar.
He played it to perfection. Gill didn’t catch his first scorable bass until shortly after 11:30 a.m., and that was the only fish he put on SCORETRACKER® until the start of the third period. He entered the final frame in 15th place, nearly 13 pounds back of the elimination line. By lines out, he had climbed all the way to fourth with 40-4 on 14 bass.
“It was a really aggressive decision to choose to not fish in the tournament, to actively practice in the tournament,” Gill said. “It’s one of those decisions that you can either look like a hero or look like an idiot. And today, we ended up on the hero side of things, and that was really cool.”
In Gill’s words, he made the “unique decision because of a unique set of circumstances.” He only spent about 3 hours of official practice on Nickajack, so he knew he needed to learn more about the fishery in order to make his eighth Championship Round in 11 career BPT events. He figured most of the field had also spent the bulk of practice on Chickamauga, so the weights wouldn’t get away from him too quickly (as long as the elimination line pace stayed below 15 pounds per period, he thought he could get there). The time of year added the final ingredient, as Gill said he’s targeting fish that aren’t moving much during the course of the day.
“I taught myself on Chick, I can catch enough weight when I have Scope to overcome any amount of not catching them when I don’t,” Gill said. “And this time of year, when you’re fishing for isolated, single fish, if you find one on SideScan, that one is already caught. Whether you reel him in right then or not, that one is already caught. So, I had the opportunity to sit down and catch a bunch without catching them for 4 hours, and then once I had them all found, I just went and essentially scooped them all up the last period.”
The good news for Gill is that, while idling, he found two other areas that set up like the one where he did all his damage during the third period. So, he won’t have to try and pull off a similar comeback during the Championship Round.
“I think I’ve already got my fish for tomorrow found today,” he said. “That was kind of the side part of my strategy; I was like, if it’s going to be good enough that I can catch what I need in 2 1/2 hours, it’s also going to be good enough that I can find stuff that I won’t use.”
Even though he doesn’t plan to do it again on Championship Sunday, don’t be surprised if Gill pulls this trick out from time to time going forward as long as the BPT limits competitors to one period per day with forward-facing sonar.
“This was a decision I’m really glad I made, and I can promise you, although this was the first time I’ve made this decision and I don’t think it’s one that will happen often, it won’t be the last time,” Gill said. “This has given me the confidence I need to potentially be willing to make this gamble again sometime.”
Other notes:
Aside from Strader, few anglers had spent meaningful time on Nickajack prior to this event. Still, familiarity with nearby waters clearly helped. Five of the top nine Knockout Round finishers have Tennessee addresses. Three of those (Wheeler, Strader and Michael Neal) all live within about an hour of the launch site at Tennessee Riverpark.
The top contenders in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race continue to separate themselves from the pack. Four of the top six anglers entering Stage 4 advanced to the Championship Round. The top two, Wheeler and Gill, will stay in those spots, and it’s possible for Gill to overtake Wheeler if he finishes six places ahead of him. Matt Becker has assured that he will remain in third place and within striking distance, while Jake Lawrence will overtake Alton Jones Jr. for fourth place as long as he doesn’t finish the Championship Round in 10th.
One event after he fell just short of winning REDCREST on the downriver side of Nickajack Dam, Strader has a chance for redemption. Strader, who has years of experience fishing on and around Nickajack, put together a game plan that closely resembled his runner-up performance on Guntersville, combining current-related smallmouth with shallow largemouth. He totaled 54-2 on 19 bass to finish the day in second place.