May 11, 2025
COUNCE, Tenn.– The fourth MLF Invitationals event of 2025 at Pickwick Lake turned out to be gem of a tournament, with big weights and a tight finish on the final day. Taking the title – his first on the Invitationals – Banks Shaw of Harrison, Tenn., tallied 26 pounds, 6 ounces on Day 1, 21-11 on Day 2 and finished off with an even 23 pounds on the final day for a 71-1 total and a convincing margin over Paris, Tenn. pro Jake Lawrence. With a 67-15 total, Lawrence won the tiebreaker to beat Jacob Walker of Springville, Ala., who finished third.
Shaw took home his fourth MLF winner’s trophy between College, Toyota Series and the Invitationals, and by far his biggest payday yet – a cool $115,000, which includes the Phoenix MLF Bonus. Shaw also took over the Angler of the Year lead with 783 points, while Mitchell Robinson finished 19th and moved up to second in the points.
In 2024, Shaw won the Toyota Series event on Lake Chickamauga, his home lake, with a record winning margin and an 82-12 total – as you’d guess, he won it offshore. Raised on Chick, Shaw has been fishing offshore on the Tennessee River his whole life, and going to school at the University of North Alabama has given him an intimate familiarity with Pickwick. This week, having to make hay without the aid of forward-facing sonar on Day 2, Shaw put together a real masterclass on modern Tennessee River success.
Shaw primarily targeted a few schools out deep on Day 1 and mostly relied on an offshore shad spawn on Day 2. On the final day, he mixed the two to secure the win. A key difference-maker for Shaw turned out to be Day 2, when many contenders dropped out of the hunt.
“In practice I could catch some fish off a shad spawn, but at the same time, I also just tried going shallow, getting on the bank,” Shaw said. “I caught a handful of fish doing that, but nothing good. I was really worried about [Day 2] because if it was sunny, then I might not even have had a limit. That's just how it was – the sunny days in practice, I could barely get bit off the shad spawn. The fish were there, you just couldn't really get them to bite, they were too smart. I knew I could catch fish, and it turned into more than what I thought it was.”
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Fishing in 2 to 8 feet of water, Banks targeted the shad-spawn bass with a minnow, as well as a Scottsboro Tackle Top Hook Swimbait and a 3/4-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer.
“It was shallow bars that had really rough shell on it,” Shaw said. “There's no way you could really pinpoint where the fish would be at. You just had to go down it and just cover water, making as many long casts as you can to find the fish.”
On the first and third days of competition, the bulk of Shaw’s weight came from the few offshore schools Pickwick currently offers, with some as deep as 22 feet, but his best bets being in 12 to 14 feet. One of his keys was the area of the lake he ended up in, fishing mostly around or above the Natchez Trace Bridge.
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“It was definitely the area of the lake that was playing going into the event,” Shaw said. “I like it up there, but I've never fished a tournament up there. But I was just thinking with the amount of tournament pressure this year, I knew certain areas where fish were super pressured, and I thought that was somewhere they were less pressured. And on top of that, one of the main reasons why I keyed in on that area is I just thought there were more fish, with all the fish that have been released this year out of McFarland [in Florence] and all the big tournaments that go out of there.”
For his schools, Shaw did his best work with a minnow on a jighead, including a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader.
Shaw has come of age in an era when the best young anglers can find a school on side-scan as well as any veteran, and he’s loaded to the gills with forward-facing sonar skills as well. It’s not exclusive to the area, but lately, the Tennessee River Valley is turning out some of the county’s best young anglers – schooled in every aspect of offshore fishing.
“LiveScope's definitely the dominant way of fishing,” Shaw said. “I felt like my recent two or three years with it have just been the most important, because I was just able to learn more than anything. I understand what's going on, where fish are, what they're relating to, how big fish are.”
Of course, just because Shaw’s boat is loaded with screens didn’t mean it came easy. On Day 1 particularly, he could have given the tournament away.
“I went straight offshore and I rotated my four or five best places three times,” Shaw said. “I ran all the way up to hit another random place where I saw one big one and I decided I was going to hit them one more time on the way back down. I was planning on running all the way down here, and I only had, like, 15 pounds. And the last rotation through, my fish just started biting. I stayed up there. If that wouldn't have happened, then I would have probably ran down here and just had a had a rough day.”
In 2024, while he was winning on Chickamauga, he was learning on Pickwick, and it turned into big money this week.
“All the Tennessee River lakes are similar, but they somewhat set up in different ways,” Shaw said. “Chickamauga is not really a good shad-spawn lake. That's something I strictly learned here recently. Last year is the year I dialed in the shad spawn a little bit and figured out what they relate to.”
When he won at Chickamauga last year, Shaw blew the field away and had all day to think about the win. Today without a mega-bag in the ‘well, he had all day to worry.
“(At Chickamauga), I knew that I probably had it, just because I knew the body of water so good, I knew what it had to offer,” Shaw said. “I know this place good too, but just how it's been fishing here recently and the guys I was fishing against, I wasn't confident really with anything I had.
“If I would have had 28 pounds, I would have probably still been worried. So it was it was definitely a very tough mental day, I would say. Especially after losing fish – I've never been able to win a tournament losing fish like that. I thought I definitely threw it away when I lost those fish. It definitely could have happened that way, but it was meant to be this week.”
Here's how the Top 30 finished:
1st: Banks Shaw, Harrison, Tenn., 15 bass, 71-1, $115,000
Complete results for the entire field can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
