Michael Neal caught fewer scorable bass than a couple of his competitors on Thursday, but he boated 13 that exceeded 3 pounds.
June 06, 2025
By MLF Communications Staff CALVERT CITY, Ky. – Kentucky Lake almost certainly has more tournament history in early June than any other fishery in the country. And yet, when the Bass Pro Tour kicked off its fifth tournament of the season on the fishery Thursday, no one seemed to know what to expect. Kentucky Lake and neighboring Lake Barkley hadn’t hosted a top-level tournament since 2018, prior to a downturn in the lakes’ largemouth population, and this marked the first ever visit for the BPT and its every-fish-counts format.
At least for the top few performers, Kentucky Lake looked a lot like the bass factory of old.
Keeping with tradition, Michael Neal found a red-hot bite on the lake’s legendary offshore ledges and amassed 103 pounds, 10 ounces on 39 scorable bass to pace the field. He has a 3-7 lead over home-lake favorite Jake Lawrence, who also hit triple digits with 100-3 on 40 scorable bass.
“I was really skeptical before we got here about how it was going to be,” Neal said, “But it’s definitely coming back, for sure.”
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While not everyone was able to find productive offshore schools, those who did stacked up weight in a hurry. Neal and Lawrence were two of four anglers who topped 50 pounds in the opening period, along with Justin Lucas and Jacob Wheeler.
Wheeler caught all his 95-15 before the midpoint of the day, then spent the rest of his time scouting for new schools.
Having grown up on Lake Chickamauga, Neal has ample experience fishing river-channel ledges, so he was in his comfort zone targeting offshore schools. However, unlocking the bite on Kentucky Lake wasn’t nearly as simple as finding structure that held bass in the past and reeling them in.
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Neal came to Kentucky Lake with a trove of waypoints from past tournaments, but he said he only found bass on two of those spots.
“I really think the main contributing factor to that is the current is so strong right now, I don’t think they’ve set up exactly right,” he explained.
Plus, the fish seem to be on the move. Neal located 12 offshore schools in practice, and of those, only six were still there Thursday. In fact, even the school that produced 19 scorable bass for 54-6 during the first period seemed to disappear by the end of the day.
“Even the schools that I caught them all out of this morning, I went back at the end of the second period, and they were gone,” he said. “I don’t know if that was just from pressure from me, or if they left for the same reason that all the rest of them do.”
Neal separated himself from his competition by finding a better average size. He caught one fewer scorable bass than both Lawrence and Wheeler but had more weight than both. Thirteen of his fish weighed more than 3 pounds.
Neal, who noted that he caught fish on just about every rod on his front deck during the course of the day, attributes that quality to his willingness to stick with moving baits like crankbaits, hair jigs, swimbaits and spoons (which produced his biggest bass of the day, a 5-4) as long as possible before switching to finesse or dragging presentations.
“I stuck with the staple ledge baits, the moving baits – crankbait, hair jig, swimbait, spoon – things like that to get the bigger bites,” Neal said. “And I would make them work as long as I could and then follow up with bottom baits – Carolina rig, dropshot, etc. – instead of just leaning on that to begin with. Your bigger bites always come on that moving stuff first.”
Neal now has a decision to make. The winner of the Qualifying Round gets to skip the Knockout Round and advance directly to the Championship Round. While an automatic Top 10 is usually coveted, Neal thinks the fact that Kentucky Lake’s bass seem to be moving means spending a day off the water would actually hinder his chances of claiming his third Bass Pro Tour trophy. He’ll spend the evening weighing whether to fish for the Qualifying Round win on Friday or devote his day to graphing and scouting new water.
“I still may decide to go for the win and the automatic berth, but if I do that, I have zero shot to win the tournament,” he said. “At this point, it’s whether or not you take a guaranteed Top 10 and know you’re not going to win or have to fight through the Knockout Round and have a chance to win. I’m not saying that’s the same for everybody, but for the number of fish I’ve found right now, that’s where I’m at.”
Greg Vinson earned the Berkley Big Bass Award Thursday with a 5-14 largemouth that he caught on a swimbait early in Period 2. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day.
The full field of anglers compete in the two-day Qualifying Round on Thursday and Friday. From there, the pro with the highest two-day total advances directly to Sunday’s Championship Round. Anglers who finish 2nd through 20th will advance to Saturday’s Knockout Round.
In the Knockout Round, weights are zeroed, and the remaining anglers compete to finish in the Top 9 to advance to Sunday’s Championship Round, where weights again are zeroed, and the highest one-day total wins the top prize of $150,000.
Anglers launch at 7:15 a.m. CT from the Kentucky Dam Marina, located at 466 Marina Drive in Gilbertsville. Takeouts are held at the same location beginning at 3:45 p.m. daily.
The tournament features anglers competing with a 1-8 minimum weight requirement for a bass to be deemed scorable. The MLF Fisheries Management Division determines minimum weights for each body of water that the Bass Pro Tour visits, based on the productivity, bass population and anticipated average size of fish in each fishery.
Qualifying Round – Day 1
(Figure at far right indicates weight of angler's heaviest fish for the day)
1. Michael Neal -- 103--10 (39) -- 5--04
2. Jake Lawrence -- 100--03 (40) -- 4--10
3. Jacob Wheeler -- 95--15 (40) -- 5--02
4. Justin Lucas -- 81--06 (34) -- 4--09
5. Cole Floyd -- 72--15 (30) -- 5--04
6. Colby Miller -- 68--06 (29) -- 4--06
7. Mark Rose -- 65--08 (25) -- 5--11
8. Dustin Connell -- 63--06 (23) -- 4--13
9. Adrian Avena -- 62--06 (22) -- 5--02
10. Jacob Wall -- 59--10 (26) -- 4--02
11. Spencer Shuffield -- 56--09 (24) -- 3--05
12. Brent Chapman -- 54--07 (22) -- 3--12
13. Andy Montgomery -- 54--02 (23) -- 4--10
14. Justin Cooper -- 52--11 (23) -- 3--15
15. Brent Ehrler -- 52--03 (23) -- 4--01
16. Zack Birge -- 51--15 (25) -- 3--15
17. Jesse Wiggins -- 51--02 (25) -- 3--11
18. Luke Clausen -- 49--07 (20) -- 4--03
19. Shin Fukae -- 43--11 (19) -- 3--14
20. Alton Jones -- 42--04 (17) -- 5--09
21. Andy Morgan -- 41--13 (19) -- 3--09
22. Ron Nelson -- 41--08 (19) -- 4--05
23. Brandon Coulter -- 36--09 (18) -- 4--00
24. Drew Gill -- 36--08 (17) -- 5--02
25. Nick Hatfield -- 36--02 (16) -- 3--04
26. Gerald Spohrer -- 34--06 (14) -- 5--01
27. Alton Jones Jr. -- 32--07 (16) -- 3--01
28. Marshall Hughes -- 32--02 (15) -- 3--07
29. Takahiro Omori -- 32--01 (14) -- 3--09
30. Bradley Roy -- 31--07 (13) -- 4--15
31. John Hunter -- 31--03 (12) -- 3--15
32. Marshall Robinson -- 31--02 (16) -- 3--01
33. Josh Bertrand -- 30--13 (14) -- 3--14
34. Mark Daniels Jr. -- 30--07 (13) -- 4--12
35. Dylan Hays -- 30--00 (13) -- 3--08
36. Wesley Strader -- 29--12 (14) -- 3--01
37. Marty Robinson -- 29--04 (13) -- 3--07
38. Dave Lefebre -- 28--01 (12) -- 5--07
39. Chris Lane -- 26--02 (13) -- 3--01
40. Casey Ashley -- 25--11 (12) -- 3--07
41. Keith Poche -- 23--10 (11) -- 3--00
42. Matt Becker -- 23--07 (11) -- 2--14
43. Bobby Lane -- 23--02 (10) -- 4--11
44. Martin Villa -- 22--11 (11) -- 3--04
45. Nick LeBrun -- 22--02 (9) -- 4--08
46. Britt Myers -- 22--02 (10) -- 3--05
47. Fletcher Shryock -- 21--14 (11) -- 2--08
48. Jeff Sprague -- 21--01 (9) -- 4--01
49. James Elam -- 19--13 (10) -- 3--01
50. Jared Lintner -- 19--05 (10) -- 3--10
51. Keith Carson -- 18--01 (7) -- 3--03
52. Ott DeFoe -- 16--10 (6) -- 5--02
53. Terry Scroggins -- 16--03 (5) -- 3--11
54. Gary Klein -- 15--07 (6) -- 4--07
55. Greg Vinson -- 15--03 (6) -- 5--14
56. Skeet Reese -- 12--09 (5) -- 4--02
57. Todd Faircloth -- 10--06 (4) -- 3--15
58. David Dudley -- 10--05 (5) -- 2--08
59. David Walker -- 10--00 (4) -- 4--06
60. Edwin Evers -- 9--15 (4) -- 3--13
61. Dean Rojas -- 9--13 (3) -- 3--14
62. Fred Roumbanis -- 9--03 (5) -- 2--02
63. Mark Davis -- 8--15 (3) -- 5--07
64. Bryan Thrift -- 5--14 (3) -- 2--03
65. Jeremy Lawyer -- 1--09 (1) -- 1--09
66. Anthony Gagliardi -- 0--00 (0) -- 0--00
