Top 10 baits from Lake Guntersville - Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Central Division
by Major League Fishing 21 May 21:34 BST
14-16 May 2025
Though plenty of checks were cashed in the grass, the offshore patterns turned out to be the name of the game on the Big G - Angler: Preston Kolisek © Major League Fishing / Jody White
The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Central Division event on Lake Guntersville was a great tournament, where all sorts of patterns worked.
Classic, main-river ledge fishing was good, pros slurped fish up off shallower places, there was a strong shad spawn bite and more. If you're looking for early summer success on the Tennessee River, what the pros did at the Big G should be pretty instructive.
1. Peavyhouse cranks 'em up
Isaac Peavyhouse earned his first Toyota Series win fishing offshore, mostly on a place he had to himself, a little off the beaten path.
In classic fashion, a Strike King 10XD crankbait was his most productive lure all week. He also used a Yank-Um Custom Tackle structure jig and a jighead minnow. He threw all his baits on Yank-Um Custom Tackle rods.
2. O'Barr finishes second again
After Day 2, you wouldn't have expected Hayden O'Barr to finish as the runner-up, but for some reason, the second-place spot has a magnetic draw on the young angler these days. Blasting 28-8 on Day 3, O'Barr rocketed up from 12th to nearly win on his home lake.
"It is absolutely unreal," he said of his third consecutive runner-up finish. "Like, I truly did not see this one coming, you know? Going out in 12th place, I was just trying to move up a little bit. And it was an unreal day. I started off catching a 7.30 in probably the first 15 minutes. And the next spot I went to, I just caught a bunch of big ones there, too. Finishing second sucks, but it's still Top 10 every single time, so I'm happy about that."
Fishing offshore, O'Barr used a minnow a lot the first two days but moved to bottom baits on Day 3, primarily a 3/4-ounce 44 Outdoors football jig with a 5-inch Berkley PowerBait MaxScent The General trailer. He threw his jig on a 7-foot, 4-inch, heavy TigeRodz with an Eternity blank.
"The first two days, I was fishing deeper white bass schools," he said. "And then the third day, when I caught the big bag, I was just fishing 10-foot shell beds around grass. Typically, the big fish in the midsection of the lake like to get on those early to mid summer, and they had finally just pulled up on them for the third day."
3. Offshore program works for Turano
Matteo Turano turned in a big performance fishing exclusively offshore. Fishing very well lately, this was his best event at the Toyota Series level.
Turano used a few baits, relying heavily on a minnow on a 1/4- or 3/8-ounce Buckeye G-Stroll Jig Head as well as a drop-shot with a 6-inch Roboworm Straight Tail Worm in morning dawn and a Bucca Brand Trick Shad. He threw his minnows and drop-shot on a 7-6, medium Phoenix Feather, a rod he depends on for a number of techniques.
"I just spent my practice idling and really tried to find as many spots and schools as I could, because I knew I was going to have to keep driving past most of the spots because somebody was going to find them," he said. "My key for this week was just always having a spot that I could pull up on. Sometimes I had to drive by 10 waypoints before I had a spot."
The other important factor for Turano was really maximizing his first cast - which, considering the wind blew against the current each of the last two days, was no easy task.
"I think the really big key was getting that first cast as natural as possible," he said. "So, I lined my boat up so my bait would be coming down current, and I was able to use my Performance Fishing Brakes and keep the boat down-current even though the wind was blowing. After that first cast, if you didn't catch one, your chances went way down."
4. Lane stays off the bank
Staying offshore all week, Cal Lane knocked out a Top 10 on his home fishery.
"It was super fun," said Lane. "I had a super great time fishing on Guntersville, and felt like I might have had a shot to win, but I knew going into the last day I needed a big bag. I came back to check-in with a 3-pounder, and you can't win on Guntersville with a 3-pounder."
According to Lane, a 6-inch Roboworm Straight Tail Worm on a drop-shot with a 3/16-ounce weight was his moneymaker. He threw it on a 6-10, medium-light Full Send spinning rod and used 10-pound Cortland Master Braid for his mainline.
5. Nutt commits to the offshore game
Finishing fifth and staying tremendously consistent, Carter Nutt rolled into town with limited practice after the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals event on Pickwick and kept catching bass.
"I just scanned the whole time. I was just looking for schools of fish that were set up on shell bars and offshore current breaks and stuff," said Nutt. "That's my favorite way to catch them, out of schools on the TVA, that is what I live for. To be able to do that in a big tournament like this was super, super cool, and I had a great time doing it."
Nutt ended up with a pretty big rotation of baits.
"They were really acting funny on a minnow," he said. "You could tell that they've been fished for all winter long, because those fish were kinda tapped into this winter, the ones that suspend and usually don't see a bait all winter long. Usually this time of year, the fish are really dumb when they get out deep, but those fish were not dumb at all. They were educated. And there weren't many of them, either. Usually this time of year everywhere you look would have a school on it, and you could catch 25 to 30 pounds at every school on the lake. And it just wasn't like that."
For Nutt, a Strike King 10XD, a 5/8-ounce True Bass Shuttlecock, a 1/2-ounce V&M Flatline Pacemaker Football Jig with a Strike King Rage Craw and a Scottsboro Tackle Top Hook Swimbait got the call.
6. Anderson earns his second Top 10 of the season
Blasting 27-9 on Day 1 set up Caz Anderson for a great event, and successive 20-pound bags kept him in the Top 10. Maybe the best to really mix offshore fish and shallow fish, Anderson fished hard spots, bluegill beds, schools and grass mats.
His best baits were a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Magnum Hit Worm on a Neko rig, a Berkley Swamp Lord and a Berkley Dime 15. He threw the Neko on a 7-1, medium Fenwick World Class with a 12-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon and a 3/32-ounce weight.
On Day 1, Anderson wrecked 'em offshore.
"In practice, it was one of those things where I just kind of knew it was going to be an offshore tournament, so I idled and idled and idled," he said. "The second to last day of practice, I was idling this grass edge, and there was a hard spot on the edge of the grass. And you see a bazillion of them out there. But they weren't on every single one of them, for sure. And when I looked on this one, there were quite a few fish, and it was in like 8 feet of water, pretty shallow. And it looked like probably 15 fish on side scan just dotted up on that hard spot."
On Day 1 of the event, things came together perfectly thanks to a low boat draw.
"Down there by the dam, I had a little saddle that had a mega school on it," he said. "I was riding down, and I looked over and there was nobody on the hard spot. And I'm like, 'You know what, I probably just need to take what I can get at this point.'
"I rolled over there, and my first three casts were three 4 1/2-pounders on a Neko rig," said Anderson. "And then I proceeded after that to have to rotate through baits. I had 26-something off that one spot by about 9:00 that morning."
On Day 2, Anderson's hard spot bass had flown the coop, and he mixed offshore spots, bluegill beds and even some frogging action in a mat of blown-in eelgrass the rest of the way.
7. Mixing and matching works for Luckey
A big bag on Day 1 put Broderick Luckey in the conversation for the win, but the area fell apart for him on Day 2, which forced him to adjust.
Fishing offshore and everything else, Luckey said that he may not have weighed more than two fish on the same bait. His arsenal included an Azuma Z Boss 24, a 6th Sense Ridge Worm, a 7-inch Deps Sakamata Shad on a 1/8-ounce, 4/0 Picasso Spring Lock Tungsten Ball Head and a 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer.
Luckey had a juice offshore spot, but the wind ruined it on Day 2, and it never recovered.
"On Day 1 at 8:00, I pulled up on that one spot, and it was unbelievable how many fish were sitting there," he said. "I'd say 60 or 70 good ones just stacked up within, like, a 10-foot hard spot, and I caught all my 28 pounds from 8 to 11 on Day 1."
On Day 2, Luckey headed right for it.
"I went back, and there was a guy who had been fishing that spot since 2002 who was in our tournament as well, sitting right where I caught them," said Luckey. "He hadn't been there yesterday, but I had to work with him, and he had caught a 5 and a 6 before I even got there. But when that wind started blowing, mud from the flat floated over the top of the spot, and I just watched those fish disappear. I mean, I was watching them just swim out toward the main channel. It went from about a 70-fish school to maybe 20. If that wind hadn't blown, I'm telling you, I would have been dangerous."
8. Drop-shot, swimmer, hair jig play for Knight
Clint Knight knocked out another Top 10 on the Tennessee River with a handful of normal and less normal ledge baits.
One of his baits was an unreleased 8-inch swimbait from Fast Eddie's, and he also used a 5/8- and 7/8-ounce True Bass Shuttlecock and an Imakatsu Skinny Eel Crawler on a drop-shot, with 1/4- or 3/8-ounce weights depending on the current.
"I really dedicated the whole tournament to idling and just looking for ledge fish," explained Knight. "I just fished the current-facing stuff. I feel like it was a lot more of a timing deal - you couldn't pull up and expect to get bit right away.
"Day 1, I got in a really bad rotation," he said. "I could tell I was fishing behind people, but I was boat 170-something, so I had to fish behind people that day. That day, I just had to survive."
On the final day, Knight's timing was perfect, and he boxed over 25 pounds very early.
"I feel like the majority of the people who are good on the TVA, they're going to find the same stuff," he said. "It's if you can figure out how to get one to bite, and just be in the right place at the right time."
9. Shaw finishes strong to earn the AOY title
The Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race was tight heading into the final event, and in the end, Dylan Nutt, Carter Nutt and Banks Shaw were battling it out, with Carter and Shaw fishing on the final day and Dylan watching from 26th place. Finishing ninth, Shaw was able to edge both Nutt brothers by less than 10 points to put an extra $5,000 in his pocket.
"I thought Dylan was definitely going to get a Top 10, and he had a 10-point lead," said Shaw. "So, I really wasn't even thinking about AOY. And then after the second day, he didn't make the cut. I started to think about it, and Carter was so close to me, I was kind of nervous about it, because I wasn't having that good of a Day 3."
Still, Shaw got it done.
"It felt really good because I knew the caliber of guys that were in it," said Shaw. "There are a lot of the same guys I fish against in college fishing those, and they're all from the Tennessee River. The three tournaments being on the Tennessee River, I know there were a lot of really good people in it."
Fishing offshore, Shaw used a Rapala DT14, a Scottsboro Tackle Top Hook Swimbait and a few other baits, mostly tossed on Joe Burns Custom Rods sticks.
"I had a couple places that weren't getting fished as much, and I was able to catch them on that crankbait pretty good, just because they haven't seen one yet," he said. "And then I mixed in some community holes. It was just a timing deal. If you could get them fired up on a crankbait, they were typically bigger."
10. Dedication to offshore works for Kolisek
In need of a good finish to make the Toyota Series Championship, Preston Kolisek got it done with a Top 10 and slid up to 20th in the points.
Fishing offshore, Kolisek used a 3/4-ounce Davis Baits Shaky Fish with a 5-inch Castaic Jerky J, a 5.5-inch Hog Farmer Spunk Shad on a 1/4-ounce head with a 3/0 hook and a Scottsboro Tackle Top Hook Swimbait.
"I tried to find a shad spawn a few days of practice, and it seemed like all I could catch were numbers and no size," said Kolisek. "I thought I was going to stay offshore the whole time, and that's just what I did. I scanned all practice looking for new ones and untouched fish and community hole fish and was able to find about four places or five places I'd rotate in the tournament."