EARLY, Texas — Lake O.H. Ivie is known as a giant bass factory, but the first time Major League Fishing anglers competed there – in the 2024 Patriot Cup as part of the Fishing Clash Team Series – the lake’s lunker largemouth remained elusive. Across three days of competition on O.H. Ivie, only two bass over 3 pounds hit SCORETRACKER®.
Hopes were higher when the Bass Pro Tour returned for Suzuki Marine Stage 4 Presented by Plano given the March timing and the fact that anglers were allowed to practice on the cover-filled lake. This time, it took all of 2 minutes for the first big one to show up.
Jacob Wheeler kicked off Day 1 of the Qualifying Round by boating a 7-pounder. While not quite one of the double-digit giants O.H. Ivie has been known to produce, that was one of three bass over 7 pounds and one of 23 over 5 caught by the 51-angler field on Thursday.
It also gave Wheeler the early lead. Though he traded the top spot with a few other pros throughout the day, that’s where he ended up. Wheeler totaled 44 pounds even on 13 scorable bass, which leads Brent Ehrler by 8-1. Behind him, the weights are tight, with less than 10 pounds separating Ehrler from Adrian Avena in eighth.
Full results can be found here.
Strong start, finishing flurry put Wheeler on top
After practicing on O.H. Ivie, Wheeler knew he’d be around some fish, but he didn’t really know what to expect, having shaken off most of his bites.
When his first pitch with a Rapala CrushCity Bronco Bug to a fish he’d marked on a spawning bed yielded the 7-pounder, he figured he was in for a good day – the norm for the 10-time Bass Pro Tour champion.
“I started there, and first pitch, Bronco Bug, boom,” he said. “Set the hook, she came flying out of the water, 7-pounder. I’m like, ‘uhh, yeah. This is going to be a fun day.’”
Wheeler continued his strong start by adding a 4-2, a 5-3 and a 5-14 – all in the first period. At the end of the opening frame, he led with 25-0 on five bass. He noted that his day could have been even better, as he hooked and lost a couple scorable bass, although he chalked that up to the reality of fishing amid the flooded forest that is O.H. Ivie.
“I think I was batting 75% or something like that flipping, which is not horrible,” he said. “I made a couple mistakes. One of them is sort of part of it; the other one, I shouldn’t have pulled on it as hard as I did. But everybody lost fish today. … You just know it’s part of it. You can’t get too frustrated and flustered when you lose them.”
Wheeler spent most of his day slowly and steadily picking apart timber with the Bronco Bug. With about an hour left before lines out, he found a flurry in which he was able to use reaction baits to catch four scorable bass for 8-8 in the span of 10 minutes. That proved to be the difference between Wheeler and his pursuers. Wheeler admitted that was just “good fortune.”
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you I knew it was going to happen,” he said. “But it was a combination of being in the right place at the right time and being in a quality area that had a good number of fish.”
Now, it’s decision time for Wheeler. While most anglers would likely jump at the opportunity to win the Qualifying Round, which comes with an automatic berth in Sunday’s Championship Round, Wheeler remains unsure whether that’s in his best interests.
On one hand, the guaranteed Top-10 finish would help his quest for a fifth Fishing Clash Angler of the Year title in the past six years. He entered Stage 4 tied for second place in the standings, 4 points back of leader Zack Birge. But he thinks his chances of claiming BPT win No. 11 are better if he gets a feel for Lake Brownwood, which will host both the Knockout and Championship Rounds, prior to the final day.
The numbers back that up. In 10 previous BPT events held across multiple fisheries, no Qualifying Round winner has gone on to hoist the trophy.
“Probably a day on the water on Brownwood would be nice, because I feel like the odds of winning the tournament not spending a day out there, it would be tough,” Wheeler said. “But I’m not laying up. I really haven’t got into it, to be honest with you.”
What’s next for Stage 4
The full 51-angler field will return to O.H. Ivie on Friday for the second day of the Qualifying Round. All will be fighting to finish in the Top 25 and earn a spot in the Knockout Round, which will shift to Brownwood. The best nine finishers there will join the Qualifying Round winner in Sunday’s Championship Round with $125,000 on the line.
It’s shaping up to be another dramatic race to finish above the Lucas Oil Cut Line. After Day 1, Casey Ashley sits in 25th with 17-12, but a whopping 12 anglers are within 5 pounds of his total. That’s one bite on O.H. Ivie.
Other notes:
- O.H. Ivie has a reputation as a fishery where forward-facing sonar is important, so it was somewhat surprising to see that 11 anglers never bothered to unlock their transducers on Day 1. In third with 33-7, James Elam is the best placed of the group. According to SCORETRACKER Insider™, forward-facing sonar only accounted for about 30% of the total weight caught on the day.
- Ashley and Mitchell Robinson shared Berkley Big Bass honors, as each caught a 7-1.