FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. – Saturday’s opening day of qualifying for Group A at Heavy Hitters also marked the first time Virginia’s Smith Mountain Lake has appeared on the national tournament stage since 2015. Even though the field of 15 pros had to contend with a morning storm that gave way to windy, high-pressure conditions (as well as the boat traffic you’d expect on a sunny Saturday), the fishery produced plenty of chunky largemouth and smallmouth.
No one caught them better than Dayton, Tenn.'s Michael Neal, who spent nearly the entire day winding a spinnerbait around steep banks and hauling in bass. He stacked up 75 pounds, 14 ounces on 26 scorable bass to take a commanding early lead, 28-8 ahead of Mark Daniels Jr. of Tuskegee, Ala, in second.
Like many anglers, Neal admitted he doesn’t reach for a spinnerbait too often these days, especially on a clear-water fishery like Smith Mountain. He felt good about a few of the areas up the Roanoke River he’d located during practice, but he started Saturday morning throwing a topwater.
It wasn’t until he saw some baitfish flickering in the area that he picked up a spinnerbait and unleashed a beatdown reminiscent of a past Heavy Hitters performance, when Alton Jones Jr. romped the field with a spinnerbait to win the Championship Round on Bussey Brake in 2023.
“It’s been a while,” Neal said when asked the last time he’d experienced a spinnerbait bite like that. “I really hardly even throw one anymore besides just dirty water. But there’s not much better than a good, hard spinnerbait bite.”
Neal caught all but two of his scorable bass on a shad-colored Spro Blade spinnerbait with a Big Bite Baits Kamikaze Swimon split-tail trailer. Initially, he figured the bait was working so well because of an ongoing shad spawn – he said he could see and feel baitfish bumping his lure as he retrieved it. However, shad spawns typically wane after the early morning hours. Neal’s bite just kept getting better.
After catching 10 scorable bass for 30-1 in the opening period, which gave him a lead of 3-10 over Jones, he added 12 more bass totaling 34-3 during Period 2. That pushed his advantage all the way to 27-6. Once he crossed the 75-pound mark with about an hour left in the day, he left his area and went searching for a big bass.
Neal admitted he was surprised the spinnerbait continued to produce, but he’s not questioning it.
“I wish I knew if it was a shad or a herring deal, because I feel like if that was just threadfins (spawning) like they do at home, I feel like it would have been done by lines-in, or at least halfway through the first period when the sun came out,” he said. “But they bit it on up into the third period, too. So, I don’t know if that's a blueback thing or what.
“The bass were literally touching the bank. I don’t know if they just sit there and wait until something comes by, if they swim that tight to the bank all day or what they really do, but I’m not going to try and figure it out a whole lot. I’m just going to keep slinging.”
Once Neal identified the right banks, he spent most of the day running water he hadn’t practiced. He’s cautiously optimistic those areas can continue to produce across the six-day event.
“I don’t think it will go away real soon,” he said. “The shad spawn usually lasts a week or two. Of course, I don’t know how long it’s been going on here. I don’t know if we’re just starting, if we’re in the middle, if we’re at the tail end. But I really don’t think the fish are going to move a whole lot based on where they’re at now. So, I feel like it can be a sustainable pattern, shad spawn or not, throughout the tournament.”
Good news for Neal is that, with a cushion of more than 50 pounds over the elimination line, he’ll be free to utilize Group A’s second day of qualifying to search out new water and chase the big bass bonus offered each day during Heavy Hitters. He plans to do a bit of both on Monday.
“I’m going to go explore some stuff,” he said. “I’m going to keep working on expanding that area out as far as I can go each direction. But also, I want to try to catch a big one.”
The first of the big bass prizes up for grabs each day during Heavy Hitters will be split between two anglers. Dave Lefebre and Fred Roumbanis each caught largemouth that weighed 6-7, so both will receive $5,000.
According to ScoreTracker Insider, Lefebre caught his 6-7 around the midpoint of the second period on a fluke. For three and a half hours, it looked like that fish would be big enough to earn him $10,000, but with 50 minutes left before lines-out, Roumbanis boated a 6-7 of his own on a glide bait.
The 15 anglers in Group A will now have the day off Sunday, while the 15 anglers in Group B will fish their initial Qualifying Round. Group A will complete Qualifying Round of competition on Monday.
The standings for the 15 pros from Qualifying Group A are:
1st: Michael Neal, Dayton, Tenn., 26 bass, 75-14
2nd: Mark Daniels Jr., Tuskegee, Ala., 18 bass, 47-6
3rd: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 15 bass, 40-12
5th: Edwin Evers, Talala, Okla., 12 bass, 33-2
4th: Cliff Crochet, Pierre Part, La., 11 bass, 31-8
6th: Alton Jones Jr., Waco, Texas, 10 bass, 26-7
8th: Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., nine bass, 25-4
7th: Fred Roumbanis, Russellville, Ark., seven bass, 24-9
9th: Dave Lefebre, Erie, Pa., eight bass, 23-2
10th: Matt Becker, Ten Mile, Tenn., five bass, 16-4
11th: Nick Hatfield, Greeneville, Tenn., five bass, 15-1
12th: Alton Jones, Lorena, Texas, four bass, 11-9
13th: Jeff Sprague, Wills Point, Texas, four bass, 10-5
14th: Andy Morgan, Dayton, Tenn., three bass, 8-8
15th: Dylan Hays, Hot Springs, Ark., two bass, 7-8
A bass must meet the 2-pound minimum weight requirement to be deemed scorable in the Qualifying and Knockout Rounds, but for the final-day Championship Round a bass must weigh at least 3 pounds to be deemed scorable.
After each two-day qualifying round is complete, the Top 8 anglers from each group advance to Wednesday’s Knockout Round. Weights will zeroed, and the remaining 16 anglers compete to finish in the Top 10 to advance to the Championship Round.
Weights are zeroed again for the Championship Round and the highest one-day total wins the top prize of $100,000.
In addition to overall tournament awards, Berkley Big Bass bonuses are awarded in each round of competition with payouts of $10,000 for the single biggest bass on each day of Group A and B Qualifying, $30,000 for the biggest bass in the Knockout Round and $100,000 for the biggest bass in the Championship Round.
The Bass Pro Tour trailering policy has been enacted for this event, so anglers will depart Trinity Ecumenical Parish each morning at 6:15 a.m. to one of five launch ramps located around the fishery. Anglers will return to Trinity Ecumenical Parish each evening following the end of competition at 3:45 p.m.
To qualify for Heavy Hitters, the weight of an angler’s single-largest bass from each of the seven 2024 Bass Pro Tour events was recorded. The 30 anglers with the heaviest total from those seven bass qualified to compete in this event.
The MLFNOW! broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney break down the extended action live on each day of competition from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. MLFNOW! is livestreamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app, and Rumble.
