BAINBRIDGE, Ga. – The final event of the Toyota Series Southern Division was possibly the best of the season – the Angler of the Year race went down to the wire, and every day featured big bags and big fish. Taking the lead on Day 1, Kyle Cortiana blasted an even 27 pounds, which he followed with another 20-pound sack that dropped him to second with a 47-14 total. On the final day at Lake Seminole, the Oklahoma angler rallied back for the win, dropping 24-8 to crush the competition with a 72-6 total.
Cortiana earned $34,145 for the win, his second Toyota Series victory in under 12 months (he also won last summer at Lake Champlain). To top it off, he also finished second in AOY, making two Top 10s on the season.
Hayden O’Barr tallied 67-15 for second place, and Levi Thibodaux finished third with 66-8. Making headlines on the final day with a 10-pounder and a 27-8 bag, Kyle Austin finished fifth while fishing the last two days with a broken elbow he suffered after falling off his boat at a gas station.
Closing out an impressive season, Parker Knudsen made three Top-10s in a row to earn Fishing Clash Angler of the Year honors. Cortiana finished second and Bobby Bakewell finished third in the standings. The Top 25 pros and co-anglers qualified for this fall’s Toyota Series Championship, where up to $235,000 will be on the line on the pro side.
When Cortiana won his first AOY in the Southwestern Division in 2016, he did it fishing shallow, mostly dirty water in Texas and Oklahoma. Now, he’s a threat anywhere in the country, on clear lakes with smallmouth, grassy bowls in Florida and this week, in the deep, timber- and grass-filled waters of Lake Seminole.
Practicing with Knudsen, as he has all year, Cortiana rolled into town from the most recent MLF Invitationals event and got right to work.
“Parker and I have been working together all year,” Cortiana said. “And I would say that I helped him greatly on the first two events. He was (at Seminole) before me while I was fishing Smith Lake, and he just basically said, ‘Dude, they’re in the timber. The bite is going to be pretty good. Spring Creek timber is pretty good.’
“So, my first day of practice, we launched together, and he showed me the boat lanes, you know, and then we shut down. He said, ‘I caught some fish right here, and I want to expand this way, let’s expand this way.’ So, he and I expanded that way, and I immediately saw what he was talking about.”
By tournament time, Cortiana knew what was he was looking for, but he had to continue to fine-tune his approach to avoid stumbles, and to make up for the more than occasional lost fish.
“I was looking for the deepest timber I could find that was along the grass edge,” he said. “Those were the areas that I had the confidence in to just look, And there’s a ton of that.
“I figured out real fast on Day 1 when I got served the humble pie of 10 pounds by noon that I had to quit going where I caught ‘em in practice,” he added. “There were boats everywhere. I was trying to force myself to fish by boats because I’ve got all these waypoints here where I caught fish. One stretch I had, I caught 11 fish over 4 pounds on my first pass in practice. I never caught a decent bass in that ever, and I fished it again today.
“I just realized I have to go where there’s no boats, where the fish are not getting pressured. Even if there’s fewer fish, they’re more likely to bite because the fish are wanting to eat. I was looking around while I was fishing, identifying areas that had the deep holes in the grass with timber, that had zero boats pounding on them.”
Another separator for Cortiana was his ability to consistently add weight in the afternoon. Though he boxed over 18 pounds in the first hour on the final day, he was able to put big fish in the boat late, while many others struggled once the sun really got up.
“Once it got past that morning bite, every fish you threw at that was up, it was almost like they saw your bait before it hit the water. They would immediately just go and start making their way down,” he said. “So, if you could find those fish already down, or you weren’t the reason they went down – if you just happen to catch that fish out there 80, 90 feet, just kind of making his way down and can pick which direction it’s going and lead that fish while it’s just kind of belly-walking the bottom, and then they rise to you. Well, it’s a great scenario.”
Cortiana’s primary weapon was a 5-inch YUM FF Sonar Minnow on a 1/4-ounce Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp Pro-V Eagle Eye Jig. He used a 7-foot, medium light Kistler Magnesium spinning rod with a Kistler Magnesium spinning reel, and a 7-foot, medium light Kistler Helium with a Kistler Kyrios reel. He spooled up with 10-pound braid and a 10-pound fluorocarbon leader across the board.
Here's how the Top 10 finished:
1st: Kyle Cortiana, Broken Arrow, Okla., 15 bass, 72-6, $34,145
2nd: Hayden O’Barr, Scottsboro, Ala., 15 bass, 67-15, $14,634
3rd: Levi Thibodaux, Thibodaux, La., 15 bass, 66-8, $10,168
4th: Brody Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, 15 bass, 65-9, $8,474
5th: Kyle Austin, Ridgeville, S.C., 15 bass, 63-0, $7,626
6th: Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, 15 bass, 60-2, $6,779
7th: Aaron Yavorsky, Palm Harbor, Fla., 15 bass, 58-11, $5,932
8th: Parker Knudsen, Minnetonka, Minn., 15 bass, 57-5, $5,084
9th: Dylon Smith, Baconton, Ga., 15 bass, 54-3, $4,487
10th: Buddy Benson, Dahlonega, Ga., 15 bass, 53-1, $3,389
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Baylor Ronemus of Tiger, Ga., and Dylon Smith of Baconton, Ga., split Thursday’s $500 Berkley Big Bass Award, both catching a bass weighing 7-8. Hayden O’Barr of Scottsboro, Ala., brought a bass weighing 7-13 to the scale Friday to capture the prize.
