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JUSTIN LUCAS
You ’ ll have to look long and hard to identify a more prolific stretch of smallmouth-bass-catching productivity than the seven days that Alabama pro Justin Lucas posted in mid-July on the MLF Bass Pro Tour , and mid-August at the final Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Super Tournament of the season .
Lucas – who has proved in recent years to be a stout competitor in smallmouthcentric tournaments – arrived for practice for Bass Pro Tour Stage Five fresh off a top five at Heavy Hitters in Kissimmee . After two days of poking around Green Bay , he admitted to wife Bree that he had found the fish in practice to win the event . Day one of the competition proved him right : Lucas waylaid 50 smallmouth for 141 pounds , 9 ounces , shattering MLF records for singleday and single-period weights . He followed that up with 38 smallmouth for 110-5 on the final day , securing his first MLF win and Lucas ’ first major win since 2016 .
He was back at it a month later , weighing in 21-7 on day one of the Pro Circuit tournament on Lake Erie , following that up with 19-14 , 18-3 and 19-10 to eke out a 1-ounce margin over Jacob Wheeler for Lucas ’ first FLW win since 2008 .
Lucas ’ stat line for seven days of competition : 108 smallmouth for 331 pounds , and two championship trophies .
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RUSTY SALEWSKE
The year 2020 will be defined differently for everyone , but for Rusty Salewske , there ’ s really one word that describes it most accurately : vindication . The Alpine , California pro last fished the Pro Circuit in 2011 , just a couple years removed from a fifth-place finish in the Forrest Wood Cup on Three Rivers . It was a tournament Salewske says he should have won , were it not from some bad decision-making on the final day .
Fast-forward 11 years and Salewske found himself face-to-face with an opportunity for redemption after a nine-year hiatus from the tour-level bass fishing world . In his triumphant return , Salewske made the TITLE , fished his way to the final day and then leaned on some sound decision-making , fortitude and self-confidence to land a pair of winning fish in the last 42 minutes of the event – the second of which was a 4-14 with 12 minutes left to overtake Bradford Beavers for the win .
After rejoining the Pro Circuit with plans to reevaluate his financial situation in a couple years , a $ 200,000 payday and the prestige that comes with it means Saleweske isn ’ t going anywhere any time soon . Vindication indeed .
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OTT DEFOE
Viewed as a whole , the 2020 season was one of Ott DeFoe ’ s best in his 13-year tour-level career . The Tennessee pro doggedly battled Jordan Lee and Jacob Wheeler down to the wire for Bass Pro Tour Angler of the Year honors , registering his fourth AOY Top 10 finish in five years .
But one 66-minute sliver of DeFoe ’ s 2020 season – during the Championship Round of the mid-March Bass Pro Tour event on Lake Athens – might just go down as the most impressive hour-plus of the entire MLF tournament calendar . DeFoe had struggled through two periods of the final day , and trailed leader Mark Daniels Jr . by more than 19 pounds with an hour and 15 minutes left in the final period . At 4:45 p . m ., DeFoe pulled up near a bridge causeway within a stone ’ s throw of the ramp and caught a 2-3 , his sixth fish of the day . And then he caught his seventh . And his eighth , ninth and 10th , all in under 10 minutes . At 5:28 , DeFoe ’ s Rapala DT-10 dug its trebles into his 14th fish of the day , a 9-6 that vaulted him into te lead .
He never looked back , finishing the day with 69-12 ( 28 pounds ahead of Alton Jones Jr . in second ). DeFoe ’ s magical 66-minute run resulted in 18 fish for 57-4 – which alone would have won him the Stage Three trophy .
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SPENCER SHUFFIELD
If the Pro Circuit awarded Comeback Angler of the Year honors , it ’ d be a toss-up between Saleweske and Spencer Shuffield , the latter of whom also left the professional bass fishing world for a time . Shuffield , dealing with some financial hardships that made him give up that life for a few years , clawed his way back to the Pro Circuit by winning just about everything he could win in the Arkansas area .
It was a dark period for Shuffield , followed by the brightest of lights , as he rediscovered his passion for bass fishing and his desire to make it back to the big stage . And make it he did .
In his first year back on the Pro Circuit since 2015 , Shuffield finish second in AOY points after a third-place finish on Lake Martin and a fifth on Lake Erie . Pepper in two more top-30 finishes and sixth place in the TITLE and it ’ s easy to see why Shuffield ’ s return was truly a rebirth for the 31-year-old Hot Springs , Arkansas pro .
Making Shuffield ’ s 2020 revival all the more impressive , he missed out on getting to fish his home lake of Dardanelle when the Pro Circuit schedule was reshuffled due to the COVID-19 pandemic – a tournament he undoubtedly would have done well in . If you told Shuffield before the season that he ’ d be the runner-up to AOY without fishing his home pond , well , I think he ’ d probably have taken that .
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