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1 . WILEY X SUMMIT CUP PRESENTED BY B & W TRAILER HITCHES Headwaters Lake , Kenansville Lake , Garcia Reservoir , Stick Marsh Aired May 21 – June 5
Throughout the ( ongoing ) course of a three-year run of excellence that very few anglers have enjoyed in the history of the sport , MLF pro Jacob Wheeler has won events in just about every conceivable fashion . The Tennessee pro has enjoyed a handful of blowout wins and has survived a couple lastminute charges by various anglers while racking up multiple MLF victories , but until the final day of competition at the 2022 Summit Cup , he hadn ’ t pulled off a “ buzzer beater .”
Wheeler beat the buzzer ( and Bryan Thrift ) with his last scorable largemouth in the Championship Round on the legendary Stick Marsh , though , catching a 2-pound , 1 ounce
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fish in the final two minutes to skate past Thrift for a 6-ounce win ( 50-6 to 50-0 ). Wheeler subscribed to “ Florida 101 ” techniques to capture the Summit Cup trophy : He flipped and punched creature baits with a 2- ounce tungsten weight , connecting with 21 fish on the final day .
In doing so , Wheeler became the only MLF pro with four Cup wins to his credit ( to add to his astounding five Bass Pro Tour wins ).
2 . TOYOTA SERIES PRESENTED BY A . R . E . WESTERN DIVISION California Delta June 1 – 3
A bag of 24-11 got Stephen “ Bub ” Tosh Jr . off to a hot start in the Western Division finale and allowed the longtime Delta hammer the breathing room he needed to go to work on the final two days , weighing in limits of 16-6 and 17-15 to tally 59
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pounds for the tournament to best Lane Olson by more than 4 pounds .
Tosh relied on both old-school baits and modern staples to get the job done , alternating between a Paycheck Baits Transporter Frog , a Paycheck Baits Punch Skirt , a ChatterBait , wacky-rigged stick bait and a Lobina Rico Popper . While he didn ’ t weigh in any true California giants throughout the event , Tosh ’ s best bags were anchored by multiple 5- and 6-pounders that ultimately netted the prolific vet a $ 25,604 payday to push his total earnings with MLF over the $ 230,000 mark .
3 . PHOENIX BASS FISHING LEAGUE PRESENTED BY T-H MARINE ALL-AMERICAN Lake Hamilton June 2 – 4
To win a Phoenix Bass Fishing League All-American is a dream for
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many . To win one going away , as Connor Cunningham did at the start of June , goes well beyond the stuff of fantasy . Cunningham went wire-towire to earn the most prestigious hardware in grassroots bass fishing and a $ 120,000 check , besting second-place finisher Hunter Eubanks by 11 pounds , 11 ounces and finishing nearly 18 pounds ahead of 10th .
On Lake Hamilton , two schools of thought often prevail : fishing deep brush piles and targeting shallow docks and other structure and cover up shallow . While much of the field probed the depths in the June Arkansas heat , Cunningham caught almost all his fish up shallow on a River2Sea Whopper Plopper 110 . To find the winning fish , Cunningham bounced around between 30 to 40 spots below the Highway 270 bridge , often cutting his day short after filling out his limit to allow his coanglers a chance at theirs on brush piles in deeper water .
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