EARLY, Texas — The three Elimination Round matches at the Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq brought a challenging bite on O.H. Ivie Lake. When the Knockout Round got underway Sunday, the three competing tandems got a change of scenery, taking on nearby Lake Brownwood.
The new fishery offered a different look and quite a bit more action, resulting in a tight race for the top spot on SCORETRACKER®. Ultimately, Jeff Sprague and Bryan Thrift of Team Coign took the win. Their total of 30 pounds, 2 ounces on 17 scorable bass topped Team Builders FirstSource (Ott DeFoe and Alton Jones Jr.) by 1-4.
The good news for DeFoe and Jones is that they, along with Sprague and Thrift, qualified for Tuesday’s Championship Round and the chance to claim a General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops trophy. Their 28-14 total easily cleared that of Team Knighten Industries (Brent Chapman and Wesley Strader) by 14-1. Team Knighten Industries was eliminated from competition.
Whereas O.H. Ivie is largely devoid of aquatic vegetation, the anglers found Lake Brownwood to be full of shallow grass like water willow and flat reeds. Sprague and Thrift quickly found success targeting it, boating a 2-3 within the first 7 minutes of competition. The duo stayed with that pattern throughout the match.
“When you come to Central or West Texas, you think of rocky, canyon-type lakes like Falcon Lake, Lake Amistad or those types of reservoirs,” Sprague said. “But then you get to Lake Brownwood, and it’s an oasis. It’s so crazy with all the vegetation.”
“It’s an absolutely beautiful lake,” Thrift added. “Even when you get up there in the grass, there’s rock under the water. It’s the bassiest-looking lake I’ve fished in a long time.”
Thrift caught a few fish on a topwater frog and a swimming worm, but it was Sprague, a Texas native, who did most of the heavy lifting, catching 15 bass totaling 25-11 to make up the bulk of the team’s total weight. Thrift also caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a 4-3 largemouth, only the second bass over 4 pounds caught all week.
“Bryan and I did a lot of damage today, and the key to our success was a basic swim jig (paried with) the Lake Fork Lure Co. Pro Craw, honey-craw colored – one of my brand-new, signature series baits,” said Sprague. “We could see bluegill high in the water column, and the fish were feeding on them in the water willow all day long, so this bait was just the ticket we needed. We’re going to take it with us into the Championship Round and see if we can’t do some damage with it on Tuesday.”
Team Builders FirstSource took the lead at the end of the first period and held it for most of the second but couldn’t hold off Team Coign, who rallied toward the end of Period 2 to take over the top spot once again, holding it for the remainder of the competition day. While Sprague and Thrift had virtually locked up a spot above the elimination line by the start of Period 3, the duo decided to keep pushing for the top spot.
“We don’t know where we will be fishing the Championship Round, and there’s a possibility of coming back to Lake Brownwood, but we decided to just pour it on in that final period,” Sprague said. “This was such a fun day of fishing, and in that last period, with the pressure off, we just had a great time.”
“It’s not like what we were doing was a specific thing that we knew we could come back to either,” Thrift added. “We would go back through an area where we didn’t get a bite and get four bites – or hit a spot where we had several bites and get nothing. This was just late summer fishing, running the bank and the grass, trying to pick off some of those blue–gill feeders that were still hanging around.”
The final two spots in Tuesday’s Championship Round will be awarded Monday during the second and final Knockout Round match. Catch all the action live on the MLFNOW! livestream from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. CT on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and on Rumble.