After three tough days in the Elimination Round on O.H. Ivie, professional anglers competing in the Major League Fishing (MLF) General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops this week in Early, Texas, headed to a new fishery on Sunday.
Lake Brownwood was the playing field for the three two-man teams competing in Match 1 of the Knockout Round at the Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq, where teams were met with flooded willow grass, flat reeds and other emergent vegetation.
It was a closely contested day – just 1 pound, 4 ounces separated the top two teams at the end of the day – but as SCORETRACKER® expired, it was the Team Coign duo of Jeff Sprague and Bryan Thrift that stood alone atop the leaderboard. Team Coign caught 17 bass weighing 30 pounds, 2 ounces to pace the field and advance to the Championship Round on Tuesday. Also advancing in second place was Team Builders FirstSource – Alton Jones Jr. and Ott DeFoe – who boated 15 bass totaling 28-14. Team Knighten Industries ( Brent Chapman and Wesley Strader) was eliminated from the competition.
Link to Hi-Res Photo of Patriot Cup Knockout Round Match 1 Winners Team Coign (Sprague/Thrift)
Link to HD Video Clip of Patriot Cup Knockout Round Match 1 Highlights
Link to Photo Gallery of Patriot Cup Knockout Round Match 1 Highlights
Team Coign boated a 2-3 within the first seven minutes of competition to get off to a quick start Sunday morning. The duo started the day targeting fish in willow grass and stayed with that pattern throughout the day.
Team Builders FirstSource took the lead at the end of the first period and held it for most of the second period but couldn’t hold off Team Coign, who rallied toward the end of Period 2 to take over the top spot once again, holding it for the remainder of the competition day.
“When you come to Central or West Texas, you think of rocky, canyon-type lakes like Falcon Lake, Lake Amistad or those types of reservoirs,” said Sprague in his post-game interview. “But then you get to Lake Brownwood, and it’s an oasis. It’s so crazy with all the vegetation.”
“It’s an absolutely beautiful lake,” Thrift interjected. “Even when you get up there in the grass, there’s rock under the water. It’s the bassiest-looking lake I’ve fished in a long time.”
Team Coign had pretty much locked up its Championship Round bid by the start of the third and final period, but the duo decided to keep pushing for the top spot.
“We don’t know where we will be fishing the Championship Round, and there’s a possibility of coming back to Lake Brownwood, but we decided to just pour it on in that final period,” said Sprague. “This was such a fun day of fishing, and in that last period, with the pressure off, we just had a great time.”
“It’s not like what we were doing was a specific thing that we knew we could come back to either,” Thrift added. “We would go back through an area where we didn’t get a bite and get four bites – or hit a spot where we had several bites and get nothing. This was just late summer fishing, running the bank and the grass, trying to pick off some of those bluegill feeders that were still hanging around.”
“This was opportunistic fishing at its best,” Sprague added. “It’s not every day that you get to go fishing with your buddy and someone as good as Bryan is, so it’s been a great day.”
Thrift caught a few fish on a topwater frog and on a swim worm, but it was Sprague that did most of the heavy lifting, catching 15 bass totaling 25-11 to make up the bulk of the team’s total weight and end the day atop the leaderboard.
“Bryan and I did a lot of damage today, and the key to our success was a basic swim jig (paired with) the Lake Fork Lure Co. Pro Craw, honey-craw colored – one of my brand-new, signature series baits,” said Sprague. “We could see bluegill high in the water column, and the fish were feeding on them in the water willow all day long, so this bait was just the ticket we needed. We’re going to take it with us into the Championship Round and see if we can’t do some damage with it on Tuesday.”
The top two teams now advancing to the Championship Round at the Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq are:
1st: Team Coign, 17 bass, 30-2
Jeff Sprague, Wills Point., 15 bass, 25-11
Bryan Thrift, Shelby, N.C., two bass, 4-7
2nd: Team Builders FirstSource, 15 bass, 28-14
Ott DeFoe, Blaine, Tenn., eight bass, 15-6
Alton Jones Jr., Waco, Texas, seven bass, 13-8
Eliminated from competition are:
3rd: Team Knighten Industries, nine bass, 14-13
Brent Chapman, Quivira, Kan., seven bass, 11-14
Wesley Strader, Spring City, Tenn., two bass, 2-15
Complete results from throughout the week can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 41 bass weighing 73 pounds, 13 ounces caught by the three teams in the first match of the Knockout Round on Lake Brownwood. Sprague caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a 4-pound, 3-ounce largemouth, only the second bass over 4 pounds caught all week.
The Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq is hosted by Visit Early and takes place over six days in west-central Texas. The competition water for each day is top-secret and is only revealed to the anglers when they arrive at the boat ramp each morning.
The second match of the Knockout Round will take place Monday, featuring Team 7 Brew (Justin Lucas/Brent Ehrler), Team Lucas Oil (Jacob Wheeler/Dustin Connell) and Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches (Luke Clausen/Martin Villa). Anglers are driven directly to the day’s competition area launch ramp by their officials. Competition begins on the water at 8:45 a.m.
The MLFNOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live every day of competition from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. CT. MLFNOW!® is live streamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app and Rumble.
The Patriot Cup features 12 two-man teams divided into three groups as they entered the one-day Elimination Round matches. Each of the three Elimination Round matches featured four new teams, with the top two teams from each match of the Elimination Round advancing to the Knockout Round on Days 4 & 5. In the Knockout Rounds, three teams compete each day, with the top two teams from each Knockout Round match moving on to the Championship Round on Day 6. In Tuesday’s Day 6 Championship Round, the final four teams will compete in a one-day shootout to determine which team will win the 2024 Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq.
The 2024 General Tire Team Series is comprised of four events – Challenge Cup, Heritage Cup, Patriot Cup and Summit Cup – featuring two-man teams of MLF Bass Pro Tour pros competing from the same boat. Each event features a roster of 24 anglers, teamed up and working together to claim part of a season purse of more than $720,000. Teams were formed through a selection process, where 48 team captains – based on Fishing Clash Angler of the Year (AOY) standings throughout the 2024 Bass Pro Tour season – selected a teammate. Teams will compete throughout the fall of 2024.
Television coverage of the Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq will premiere on Outdoor Channel as six two-hour episodes in March 2025. New MLF General Tire Team Series episodes will premiere each Saturday morning on Outdoor Channel and posted to MOTV.
Proud sponsors of the MLF General Tire Team Series include: 7 Brew Coffee, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Barbasol, Bass Boat Technologies, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, Builders FirstSource, C-MAP, Coign, Epic Baits, Ferguson, Fishing Clash, General Tire, Knighten Industries, Kubota, Lowrance, Lucas Oil, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Nitro Boats, Onyx, Plano, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala Baits, REDCON1, Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff, Star brite, Toyota, USAA, WIX Filters and YETI.
For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.
About Major League Fishing
Major League Fishing (MLF) is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, producing more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America’s living rooms on CBS, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Channel, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world’s top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 17 countries. Since its founding in 2011, MLF has advanced the sport of competitive fishing through its premier television broadcasts and livestreams and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.