The past couple of months have been quite a whirlwind! Thus, I’m a little late posting this, but I wanted to take some time to reflect on my experience at the Major League Fishing Toyota Series Championship. This event took place November 2-4 on Table Rock Lake in Missouri. This was an adventure that I will never forget!
Qualifying for the Championship
I qualified to fish the Championship back in August with my good friend, Erik Luzak. We competed in the MLF Canada Team Showdown on Cameron Lake in Fenelon Falls, Ontario – and we WON! This was our second time qualifying for the Championship together through the International Division. I knew we’d be in for another amazing experience making the trip to the US to compete!
The Format
Although Erik and I qualified through a team-format event in Canada, the Championship is not a team format. This meant that Erik moved on to fish in the pro (boater) category, and I moved on to fish in the co-angler (non-boater) category. We’d be randomly paired with another angler each day, and would be responsible for bringing our own fish to the scales rather than a combined team weight. There were 210 anglers on the pro and co-angler sides making for a 420-angler field. Anglers from over 10 different countries competed in this event.
Team Canada House
Erik and I made the 20+ hour drive down to Missouri to our AirBNB rental which we shared with fellow Canadian anglers, Evan Kung and Joey Verdnik. Both punched their tickets for the Championship through the MLF Canadian Open on Lake Simcoe this past summer. I’m so grateful for the camaraderie and just how great these guys were to share a house with.
Erik, myself, and Evan made it to Table Rock for the pre-fish period. Joey drove up the day before the tournament with my partner, Eric, joining him for the road trip. It was so lovely to have my Eric (not to be confused with Erik) there to cheer us on, capture photos, and take in the experience with us! 😊 Major League Fishing invited me to do an Instagram takeover, which you can check out here to see a bit of my experience leading up to the tournament.
Pre-Fishing: Our First Time on Table Rock Lake!
It was flippin’ cold out on Table Rock during pre-fish, but we got out there and learned as much as possible. It was the first time on Table Rock Lake for both Erik and I. It is an absolutely beautiful and unique fishery! This body of water is home to largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass. We don’t have spotted bass back home, so I was thrilled to get to catch this species again. My first time catching spots was back in 2018 during the Championship on Lake Guntersville in Alabama.
We covered a lot of water and threw a ton of different baits. With many fish relating to offshore (pelagic) baitfish, LiveScope would definitely prove to be clutch for the pros tracking down these roaming fish from the front of the boat. I utilized my time during pre-fish to adapt to picking up fish behind Erik from the back of the boat. For those unfamiliar with these types of events, co-anglers are only permitted to fish from the back of the boat.
As always, Erik and I had a great time on the water during pre-fish and I went into the event feeling optimistic. MLF hosted a pre-tournament meeting and dinner the night before the tournament. The butterflies of excitement were fierce and I was so pumped to get this tournament started!
Photo: The pre-tournament meeting with some prizing on display. Photo by MLF.
Game Time: Day One
I was paired up with Chad Mrazek for day one. It was an absolute pleasure to jump aboard Chad’s boat for the day, and to see him in action. He is a heck of an angler who is as equally talented as he is kind.
A bit of a spoiler: Chad went on to WIN the entire tournament! That was pretty incredible to watch unfold on the final day. Big congratulations to Chad, and his lovely girlfriend, Sophie!
Photo: Chad Mrazek (left) and myself (right) at the docks on day 1.
I got into 6 or 7 fish throughout the first day, but with a 15-inch minimum, only one of my catches measured long enough to bring to the scales. I ended up weighing in a spotted bass at 2lbs, 06oz, which put me in 95th place going into day two. I caught this fish on a 5/16oz Great Lakes Finesse Sneaky Underspin with a Rapala Crush City 2.75″ Suspect in Whitebait. I knew I had a lot of ground to make up. The right bites can go a long way in an event like this, especially for co-anglers.
Photo: Eric (left) snapping a photo of me (right) with my day one catch. Photo by MLF.
Day Two: I Jumped Up
Photo: A beautiful start to day two with myself (left) and Doug Johnson (right). Photo by Christian Biereth.
My day two pairing was Doug Johnson. Upon meeting Doug, he quickly set the tone for the day when he kindly said:
“There’s only a couple of women fishing in this event and I drew one of them? How lucky am I!”
That sure made me smile and broke the ice for a great day of catching fish, chatting, and sharing some laughs. Doug was so friendly and is a very talented angler. I ended up getting more bites on day two picking up 3 that were keepers. I landed a smallmouth and a largemouth on a weedless Ned rig using a 1/10oz Z-Man NedlockZ EWG Jighead in Green Pumpkin with a Z-Man 2.75″ Finesse TRD also in Green Pumpkin. I rounded out my Table Rock black bass slam by landing a keeper spotted bass on a blade bait. My day two weight was 6lbs, 15oz.
Photo: Doug Johnson (left) and myself (right) bagging up our catches at the dock to bring to bring to the scales.
Some New Hardware!
It was an absolute nail-biter going to the scales on day 2! I had a shot at making the top 25 cut which would have meant fishing day 3. I was also in contention to win the International Co-Angler division. In the end though, I missed the top 25 cut by only a few ounces, finishing 33rd place overall out of 210 co-anglers. On the plus side, my finish ended up being good enough to earn a cheque and earned me the International Co-Angler division title!
Photo: On day 3 I was presented with a trophy on stage for finishing as the top International Co-Angler. It was a moment to remember and one of my favourite trophies yet! You can catch part of it on video here.
Canada Finishes Strong
My Canadian teammates finished strongly at this event! Evan Kung earned the top International Pro position, and 10th place overall. Erik Luzak was just 7 ounces behind him, finishing 12th place overall. I also wanted to highlight some of our other teammates, Christian Clancy (who finished 41st overall), as well as Joey Verdnik, and Travis Farr who represented Canada well at this event! We had a great group of Canadians participating in this event.
Left photo: Erik Luzak (left) and Evan Kung (right) during the day 3 ceremony when Evan claimed the top International Pro position. Photo by MLF.
Right photo: Evan Kung (left) and myself (right) with our International Champion trophies.
An Exciting Invitation!
Following this event, an exciting email arrived in my inbox (I’ve included a partial screenshot below) with a pretty incredible opportunity for next year! I am currently working on finalizing boat plans for 2024 as well as securing sponsorship funds to cover entry fees. If all goes well in time for registration, I’d love to jump into an event or two for the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals as a Pro. Fingers crossed it works out and that there are still openings! I’ll definitely keep you posted.
Thank You!
Left photo: Myself (left), Andrew Pallotta of MLF Canada (middle) and Chris Jones of MLF (right). Photo by MLF.
Right photo: Andy’s selfie! From left: Andrew, myself, Joey, and Eric.
As I mentioned, life has been a bit of a whirlwind lately! A huge thank you goes out to MLF Canada for providing us with the opportunity to qualify for this event, and to all the folks at Major League Fishing who ran this incredible Championship for us all! It was such a memorable experience all around. Thank you to my great teammates/housemates, and my partner, Eric, who made the long journey to support us! 😊
Thank you to my partners for their year-round support: Yamaha Motor Canada, Power-Pole, Garmin, Fogh Marine, Hobie, Striker, Mustang, and Otter. A special thank you to Z-Man and Rapala Canada for providing me with some of the key baits that helped me for this event (and beyond)!
Thank you for reading!
Leave a Reply