Three anglers who won BFL tournaments over the weekend added to already impressive career victory totals, as they now have 35 triumphs among them.
In La Crosse, Wis., Mike Feldermann (top photo) picked up his 13th victory on the circuit in a Great Lakes Division derby at the Mississippi River. The Galena, Ill. resident caught a 22-13 bag to edge the runner-up, longtime tour pro Tom Monsoor, by 1-12.
Feldermann has now won BFL events out of La Crosse in back-to-back years, just one calendar day apart. He's made five BFL All-American appearances and has more than $378,000 in career earnings.
“I just pretty much did the same thing I did last year,” he said. “I just fished pondweed with a ChatterBait and a spinnerbait, and I had one spot where I caught a limit pretty quick. Then I went to another spot later in the day and caught my big fish – a 6-6. They were all largemouth, no current, in about 3 feet of water.”
Feldermann’s history on the river is his biggest strength. He says he just “kind of knows where those big ones want to stage before they spawn.” In practice, he caught a few just to get an idea of what was going on, then ran history and applied his expertise to put together the winning weight in the tournament.
“Where I caught the 6-6 is probably 200 to 300 yards long – a 3-foot weed edge,” he added. “It’s a big lake.”
In Kimberling City, Mo., Marcus Sykora of Osage Beach boxed 18-14 to claim his 12th BFL win in an Ozark Division event at Table Rock Lake. Shawn Kowal was second with 17-6.
Sykora (left in middle photo) now has 51 Top-10 finishes across FLW and MLF circuits, has won more than $370,000 and has fished the BFL All-American twice.
“I was just happy to get my 12th win because it’s been a while,” said Sykora, whose last win came in 2018 at Lake of the Ozarks. “They come in bunches sometimes, so hopefully this is the start of the next bunch.”
Sykora applied old-school bass knowledge to get it done.
“The lake level kind of jumped, and the fish obviously just rode it up,” he said. “So basically, what I was focusing on was isolated bushes and willows in pockets. I was staying in the colored water, and I was flipping a green pumpkin Zoom Brush Hog with a 6th Sense peg, 6th Sense 1/2-ounce tungsten flipping weight and 6th Sense straight-shank 5/0 hook.”
Sykora also worked in a black 6th Sense Vega frog, but the key to the win was flipping up two bigger female bass – both postspawn fish. Sykora worked mid-lake spawning pockets with 45-degree banks where there was a “backstop” – a steep enough bank to keep the water from flooding way out across a wide zone outside the normal shoreline – which helped position fish in the shoreline bushes.
“That is all I did, all day long, is flip,” he added. “I just kept covering water. Sometimes they’d be all the way in the backs of creeks, sometimes in the back of a pocket off the main lake. You never really knew where you were going to catch a good one.”
Sykora added an interesting catch to his latest win.
“One of them was a tagged fish,” he said. “I didn’t even know they tagged fish on Table Rock. I’ve never caught a tagged fish in my life. We called it in just to see, and that fish was caught in 2019. So, six years ago, somebody caught that fish with a tag, and I caught it today. So, no telling how old that fish was.”
Drew Boggs of Lebanon, Tenn. joined the double-digit victory club with a 17-5 bag in a Music City Division event out of Sparta, Tenn. His triumph came by a five-ounce margin over Hunter Bouldin of McMinnville, Tenn.
Boggs (bottom photo) is a four-time BFL All-American qualifier with more than $278,000 in career earnings. But this win was extra sweet.
“There’s two things that make this very special to me,” he said. “First off, there was a goal that I set a long time ago to get 10 wins, and I finally achieved that. It’s my 10th BFL win. The second thing was that everything has changed so much; 2022 was my last win, and the past few years it seems like it’s pretty much been dominated by scoping, except on a couple lakes here and there.
“I thought the chance of winning flipping shallow had diminished big time. Thankfully, if you get around the spawn, the right time of year, or the right conditions with the water up, us old-school guys can get in the trees with them and get it done. It feels pretty good to represent the old school in that aspect, and it feels pretty good to do it on a lake that I’ve fished for 20 years and not won on.”
Boggs is now the 25th angler to win at least 10 BFL events across the circuit’s history with Operation Bass, FLW and now MLF. And his win was absolutely old-school power-fishing. With the water up above summer pool, he went shallow and caught his 5 1/2-pound kicker on a SPRO Bronzeye Poppin’ Frog and caught the rest flipping a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver with a Jenko Fishing Creature Weight.
He credits his team partner, Daniel Johnson (13th place), with helping to clue him in to the winning pattern. The two fished a team tournament together the weekend prior and got the win there, as well. Boggs took what he learned from Johnson, along with his own history on the lake, and applied it in other areas – staying respectful of Johnson’s water – to dial in the winning pattern.
“I only had eight keeper largemouth bites,” he added. “I had another five keeper spots – Kentucky bass. That frog fish was crucial in getting there. The lake seems to be pretty full of 2 1/2- to 3 1/2-pounders. Getting those 4 1/2-plus is what steps you up.”
The all-time BFL victory leader is Dick Shaffer of Rockford, Ohio, who has 17.
