Jones duo cruises to Knockout Round win, Heritage Cup Championship Round set
NEENAH, Wis. — The fisheries around Neenah and Fox Cities, Wisconsin, have generally produced close contests throughout the Knighten Industries Heritage Cup Presented by Berkley. But during the second and final Knockout Round match of the General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops event, no one could keep up with the Joneses.
Representing Team Builders FirstSource, the father-son duo of Alton Jones and Alton Jones Jr. put together an impressive second half of the day and finished safely atop SCORETRACKER® with 21 bass totaling 38 pounds, 7 ounces. The Joneses will advance to Friday’s Championship Round as a result, where they will be joined by Grae Buck and Martin Villa of Team Star Tron. Buck and Villa totaled 23-0 on 11 bass, narrowly holding off Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches (Casey Ashley and Terry Scroggins) by 1-13 to finish above the elimination line.
Team Builders FirstSource and Team Star Tron will be joined by Team REDCON1 (Ott DeFoe and Andy Montgomery) and Team Knighten Industries (Keith Poche and Kelly Jordon) during the single-day sprint to claim the Heritage Cup trophies. Watch all the action on the MLFNOW! livestream from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. CT at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and Rumble.com.
Joneses already eyeing Championship Round
Buck and Villa started the day strong, jumping out to an early lead that they held throughout the first period. Shortly after the start of Period 2, however, the Jones duo took over the top spot and never looked back, pushing their advantage to 8 pounds by the end of the frame.
In fact, by the end of the day, they had shifted their focus to preparing for the Championship Round — even though they don’t know which body of water they’ll compete on.
“We finished out the end of the day fishing some main-lake boat docks with wind blowing on them to see if any smallmouth were patternable,” Jones Jr. said. “We were just trying to figure out some new patterns and new possibilities. We assume we might be going to Lake Winnebago for the Championship Round, so we decided to come to the other side of the lake, because that was the closest we could get to Winnebago.
“Honestly, I hope they send us to Green Lake and it’s a crystal clear smallmouth smash fest. But we had a good cushion toward the end of the day, so we started thinking through possible game plans for tomorrow.”
That strategy may or may not play out for the pair. While the competition waters for the Heritage Cup have included Lakes Poygan, Winneconne and Butte des Morts thus far, anglers won’t find out the Championship Round playing field until they are driven to the ramp by competition officials Friday morning.
“That’s the hard part, because we really don’t know what we’re going to do until we get there – and find out where ‘there’ is,” Jones Sr. added, laughing.
The father-son team built their advantage by picking apart man-made cover. They began the day targeting boat docks, boating one keeper out of a drainage pipe while catching everything else around retaining walls and docks the remainder of the day.
Jones Jr. spent the majority of the day throwing a weightless wacky rig on the shallow end of the docks, while the elder Jones threw a weighted wacky rig on the deeper ends, a tactic that worked great for the duo. However, the younger Jones caught a few quality fish – including the Berkley Big Bass of the day, a 3-2 smallmouth – on a 3/8-ounce, green pumpkin bladed jig with a prototype trailer.
“We really just caught them junk-fishing today,” Jones Jr. said. “Whatever looked right, whatever presentation for the piece of cover in front of us. … It just seemed like every time I got a bite (on the bladed jig), it was one of those 2 1/2- to 3-pound class fish, and with SCORETRACKER® as slow as it was, it’s been tough. So, catching those 2-pound or better fish has been really key, because bites have been really hard to come by.”
Jones Sr. believes the slightly windier conditions prompted the Butte des Morts bass to react better to moving baits than those they caught in Poygan and Winneconne, and his son took advantage.
“What a great day,” Jones Sr. said. “The conditions today really made a difference for us. The bass chased the bait a little bit today, whereas they wouldn’t chase anything in our Elimination Match on Sunday.”
Star Tron stays alive
Buck and Villa accounted for five of the first 10 bass to hit SCORETRACKER® after starting the morning fishing the outside edge of cane grass with a ChatterBait and a wacky rig. They didn’t stay put for long, though, running around Butte des Morts more than any other team.
Once their morning bite fizzled, they moved to a stretch of boat docks and caught a few fish there. They then made another successful move, stacking up more weight targeting riprap before ending the day around willow trees in the third period.
“I was super happy with our first period,” Villa said. “The rest of the day was a grind, but any time you’re at least catching them on pace with the other teams is a good deal. The bridge move we made was a good one. We made a lot of moves today while also trying to spend our time fishing, not just running around.”
The duo credited a one-two punch to their success on the day, with Buck throwing a Z-Man ChatterBait Jack Hammer and Villa sweeping up behind him with a wacky-rigged worm. While they went the final 45 minutes without boating a scorable bass, their cushion proved just enough, as they were able to hold off Ashley and Scroggins by less than 2 pounds.
“As the sun got higher, the bite started fading, so we had to try some different things,” Buck said. “Thankfully it was enough to move us on to the Championship Round.”