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Rayburn two months earlier ). He cruised through the qualifying rounds , had the heaviest weight in the Knockout Round , and then racked up 70-1 on the final day to fend off Jacob Wheeler ( 63-7 ) and Jason Lambert ( 59-8 ).
And he did it cranking a Strike King Series 5 and a 5XD over a shell bar at the mouth of a creek , grinding his plugs along the bottom in 5 to 13 feet of water . The win was VanDam ’ s 26th , catapulting him just shy of the $ 7 million mark in career winnings .
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5 . ABU GARCIA COLLEGE FISHING PRESENTED BY YETI WILEY X COLLEGE FACEOFF Lake O ’ the Pines June 12
There are blowouts and then there ’ s what the Stephen F . Austin University duo of Hunter Muncrief and River Lee did to the rest of the field in the second Wiley X College Faceoff of the 2021 season at Lake O ’ The Pines .
Keying in on a point that featured shell beds and potentially
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bedding bream , Muncrief and Lee used 6th Sense Cloud 9 C-10 crankbaits to blast 24 bass for 70 pounds , 12 ounces and an absolutely dominant 45-pound , 14-ounce margin of victory over secondplace finishers Austin Johnson and Karson Hamilton of Arkansas Tech University .
When the flurries stopped and the crankbait was no longer doing the trick , Muncrief and Lee switched to a Carolina rig tipped with a 6th Sense Flush and also spent a little time flipping bushes up shallow , though that one point did almost all the damage in the one-day event .
6 . TACKLE WAREHOUSE PRO CIRCUIT PRESENTED BY BAD BOY MOWERS FEDERAL AMMUNITION STOP 5 Potomac River Presented by Lucas Oil June 17 - 20
Italian angler Jacopo Gallelli made waves when he became the first European to compete professionally in the United States with his inclusion on the Tackle
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Warehouse Pro Circuit this season . While Gallelli had already made a name for himself by double-qualifying from the Southern and Southwestern Divisions of the Toyota Series in 2020 , it ’ s a big leap to the national touring circuit — one that requires learning a lot of new fisheries , techniques and skills .
That learning curve resulted in finishes no better than 57th in the first four events of the season , but at the Potomac River in June , Gallelli proved he ’ s studying up when he leapt from sixth to first on the final day of competition with a 20-pound bag full of fish . It was a win full of fiery emotion that signified Gallelli ’ s true arrival on the biggest stage .
To secure his tournament-best Day 4 bag , Gallelli primarily leaned on a 1 / 2-ounce Z-Man / Evergreen ChatterBait Jack Hammer in a section of Potomac Creek that featured grass that made a 45-degree turn , resulting in an eddy and a nice hangout for big Potomac River largemouth . The result : a $ 135,000 check ( including a $ 35,000 Phoenix contingency bonus ) and a trophy he ’ ll proudly show off when he returns home to Italy .
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7 . BASS PRO TOUR GENERAL TIRE STAGE FIVE PRESENTED BY BERKLEY St . Lawrence River June 25-30
As the youngest winner of the BFL All-American and the Forrest Wood Cup ( he was 20 and 21 , respectively ), Jacob Wheeler has made a career out of doing things faster ( and better ) than anyone . So it came as no surprise when the Tennessee pro claimed Bass Pro Tour Stage Five on the St . Lawrence River to become the first ever four-time winner on MLF ’ s highest-level circuit .
What came as a shock is how thoroughly Wheeler dominated on the big drainage of Lake Ontario . He shattered the single-day weight record with 165 pounds , 1 ounce of smallmouth on Day 1 of the event , and then broke the league ’ s Championship Round record with 129 pounds on the final day to beat Jeff Sprague by nearly 30 pounds .
Wheeler did it all with a flogger in one hand and a drop-shot rod in the other , catching the majority of his weight by dropping a Googan Baits Rattlin ’ Ned on bedding smallmouth .
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