Buck/Villa and father-son Jones duo advance to Championship Round at General Tire Team Series Knighten Industries Heritage Cup Presented by Berkley
NEENAH, Wis. – Photo by PMoore - It was another fight to the finish Thursday on Lake Butte des Morts at the General Tire Team Series Knighten Industries Heritage Cup Presented by Berkley, with only 2 pounds separating teams across the elimination line on SCORETRACKER® going into the third and final period.
But, the second match of the Knockout Round ended with a tale of ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’, with the Team Builders FirstSource father-son duo of Alton Jones Jr. and Alton Jones Sr. finishing atop the leaderboard with 21 bass weighing 38-7 to pace the field and advance to Friday’s Championship Round. Also advancing is Team Star Tron – comprised of Grae Buck and Martin Villa – who ended the day with 11 bass totaling 23 pounds even to finish in second.
Team Star Tron started off with a bang at the top of the leaderboard, holding that lead throughout the first period and finding themselves neck and neck with Builders FirstSource midday. However, the Jones duo pulled ahead at the start of the second period and widened their gap throughout the remainder of the competition day.
Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches, made up of Casey Ashley and Terry Scroggins, fought back from a huge deficit period after only catching one scorable bass in Period 1. The tandem rallied and went on an afternoon flurry in Period 2 that brought them above the elimination line. That bite was short-lived, however, and the pair just weren’t around enough quality fish to survive the Knockout Round.
Team Builders FirstSource and Team Star Tron now join Team REDCON1 and Team Knighten Industries to advance to Friday’s Championship Round. Eliminated from competition was Team Smokey Mountain, who caught 10 scorable bass weighing 21-3.
Team Builders FirstSource began the day targeting boat docks, boating one keeper out of a drainage pipe while catching everything else around retaining walls and boat docks the remainder of the day.
“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.”
The father-son duo took over the top spot from Team Star Tron at the beginning of the second period and ended the period with an 8-pound lead.
“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,” Jones Jr. said. “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 competition waters for Friday’s Championship Round 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.
Jones Jr. spent the majority of the day throwing an unweighted wacky rig on the shallow end of boat docks, while Jones Sr. threw a weighted wacky rig on the deeper end of the docks, a tactic that worked great for the duo.
“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. We caught a lot of fish on a wacky rig, but my biggest and best quality fish today came on a green-pumpkin-colored 3/8-ounce bladed jig with a green-pumpkin-and-white-colored prototype trailer that we’ve been working on for a while.
“It just seemed like every time I got a bite, it was one of those 2 1/2- to 3-pound class fish, and with SCORETRACKERÒ 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 Jr. finished.
Team Star Tron led most of the first period, starting the morning fishing the outside edge of cane grass with a ChatterBait and a wacky rig before moving to boat docks and catching a few fish there. They 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.”
While they moved around the fishery more than any other team on Thursday, Team Star Tron strategically slowed their fishing down during Period 1, a decision that definitely played in their favor.
The duo made a move right before the start of the second period that they hoped would continue to propel them up the leaderboard, but the hard-charging Jones duo had other thoughts in mind. Team Star Tron went the final 45 minutes without a scorable bass but were able to hold off Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff and Pouches by a mere 1-13.
“We had a bite right after we made that move, before the first period ended, so we were hoping that would prove to be a good spot,” Buck said. “As the sun got higher, the bite started fading, so we had to try some different things. Thankfully it was enough to move us on to the Championship Round.”
The duo credit a one-two punch to their success on the day, with Buck throwing a Z-Man ChatterBait and Villa sweeping up behind him with a wacky-rigged worm.
The top two teams now advancing to the Championship Round at the Knighten Industries Heritage Cup Presented by Berkley are:
1st: Team Builders FirstSource, 21 bass, 38-7
Alton Jones Jr., Waco, Texas, 13 bass, 25-14
Alton Jones Sr., Lorena, Texas, eight bass, 12-9
2nd: Team Star Tron, 11 bass, 23-0
Grae Buck, Green Lane, Pa., six bass, 12-2
Martin Villa, Charlottesville, Va., five bass, 10-14
Eliminated from competition are:
3rd: Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff and Pouches, 10 bass, 21-3
Casey Ashley, Donalds, S.C., five bass, 10-1
Terry Scroggins, San Mateo, Fla., five bass, 11-2
Complete results from throughout the week can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 42 bass weighing 82 pounds, 10 ounces caught by the three teams competing in Match 2 of the Knockout Round on Lake Butte des Morts. Jones Jr. caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – only one of three smallmouth caught on the day – weighing 3 pounds, 2 ounces.
The Knighten Industries Heritage Cup Presented by Berkley is hosted by the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau and takes place over six days in the Fox Cities in Wisconsin. The competition water for each day is top secret and is only revealed to the anglers when they arrive at the boat ramp each morning.
The final day Championship Round will take place Friday featuring Team REDCON1 (Ott DeFoe/Andy Montgomery), Team Knighten Industries (Kelly Jordon/Keith Poche), Team Builders FirstSource (Alton Jones Jr./Alton Jones Sr.) and Team Star Tron (Grae Buck/Martin Villa).
Jones duo cruises to Knockout Round win, Heritage Cup Championship Round set
Photo by PMoore
NEENAH, Wis. — Photo by PMoore - 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.”
Joneses pull off late-day heroics
Photo by PMoore It was a mad race to the second Knockout spot. The Team B&W Trailer Hitches duo of Nick Hatfield and Justin Lucas held the No. 2 spot for most of the third period, but a key decision by Team Builders FirstSource late in the day turned out to be the difference-maker.
As the final minutes ticked down in the third period, the Builders FirstSource duo threw a Hail Mary, running three miles to fish a lone boat dock that they had boated a couple of scorable bass on earlier in the day. With just 2 minutes remaining in competition, behind by 9 ounces, Alton Jones connected with a 1-pound, 2-ounce bass to overtake the Hatfield/Lucas duo and seize the final qualifying spot from Match 1.
“Man, we had to make a decision right there in the last little bit, and we decided to fish this one dock,” Jones said. “And there was nothing else back here for us to fish. It was either going to work or it wasn’t. And it paid off. I almost missed that fish. I saw him spit it, then right back in he ate it again. It was a pretty lucky catch.”
Like most of the field, the Jones/Jones father-son duo caught all of its fish throwing soft plastics around grass and boat docks.
“We had to play from behind all day, so we just kept our head down and kept working,” Jones Jr. said. “We didn’t catch a lot of fish, but we ended up scrapping up enough.”
“I’m just glad we get to do this again for another day,” Jones Sr. responded. “I hope I performed well enough to make it where you might actually want to draw me again.”
“Maybe so,” Jones Jr. joked. “We’ll see how it goes in the Knockout Round on Thursday.”
The top two teams from Elimination Round Match 1 at the Knighten Industries Heritage Cup Presented by Berkley that now advance to the Knockout Round are:
1st: Team WIX Filters, 17 bass, 38-14
David Dudley, Lynchburg, Va., nine bass, 20-12
Dave Lefebre, Erie, Pa., eight bass, 18-2
2nd: Team Builders FirstSource, 16 bass, 28-7
Alton Jones, Jr., Waco, Texas, four bass, 5-15
Alton Jones, Sr., Lorena, Texas, 12 bass, 22-8
Local Volunteers Join MLF Pros and Fisheries Management Division to Deploy Artificial Fish Habitat into Center Hill Reservoir
MLF Bass Pro Tour anglers Alton Jones, Alton Jones Jr, Brent Chapman, Cliff Crochet, Kelly Jordon, Mark Rose and Nick LeBrun joined the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency (TWRA), Dekalb County High School Bass Fishing Team, Tyler Anderson of TylersReelFishing and MLF Fishing Management Director Steven Bardin at Tennessee’s Center Hill Reservoir this week during PowerStop Brakes Stage Three at Dale Hollow Lake Presented by Mercury to complete a Minn Kota Habitat Restoration Project supported by Humminbird.
This team of volunteers built 20 40-inch MossBack Fish Habitat Conservation Cubes, which were deployed in pairs in locations in Indian and Holmes creeks. The GPS locations were recorded on the TWRA habitat barge’s Humminbird Helix 10 and will be available in the coming weeks on the TWRA website. Each cube was weighted down using cinder block anchors supplied by the Dayton Lowes Home Improvement Store No. 2866.
The next Minn Kota Habitat Restoration Project supported by Humminbird will take place in Eufaula Oklahoma in conjunction with Bass Pro Tour Stage Four.
