WINCHESTER, Tenn. ¬– Dylan Akins enjoyed his best day yet at Tims Ford Lake, landing 16 pounds, 7 ounces – the heaviest bag of the tournament so far – on Day 3 of the Bassmaster College Classic Bracket.
Still, there were some anxious moments at weigh-in as the Emmanuel University angler arrived at check-in and realized his head-to-head opponent Andrew Blanton of Lander University had also caught an impressive bag of bass on Day 3.
Blanton fell just 4 ounces short with 16-3, allowing Akins to take a sigh of relief and advance to Championship Monday. He will be joined by Adrian College graduate Aaron Jagdfeld, who caught 12-3 to advance past Caleb Hudson of University of South Carolina-Union (7-3).
“I was feeling pretty optimistic because I had caught a decent sack,” Akins said. “So, I was thinking, if I want to have a chance tomorrow, I don’t know if I can keep grinding on these fish. So, I made a move to a different section of the lake to try and cull up there. I got to weigh-in and realized it was going to be close. I saw he had those two big largemouth.
“Luckily, I slid through. It was nerve-wracking.”
Weights will zero again Monday and Akins and Jagdfeld will compete head-to-head for a spot in the 2025mBassmaster Classic at Lake Ray Roberts, along with paid entries into the 2025 SBassmaster Opens with use of a fully rigged Nitro boat and Toyota Tundra.
A light rain continued to fall over Tims Ford as the remnants of Hurricane Helene continued to swirl around the area. But as the conditions have stabilized, the bite has continued to improve for the Emmanuel University graduate.
“Today was the best day I’ve had,” Akins said. “I fished a couple of new areas I found, which helped a lot. I had some key bass off of those areas. Hopefully tomorrow will be the same, too. The weather is kind of moving out of here, so there’s a chance it could completely change.”
Thus far, Akins has been targeting both smallmouth and largemouth in the southwestern section of the lake. The majority of the bass he’s caught have been feeding around suspended bait balls, but he landed one of his bigger bass on Day 3 in shallower water.
“If I see them around bait, then I’m throwing at them,” Akins said. “Today, every fish for a little while was trying to eat. If I saw them shallow or out on bait, I would throw over there and try to get them to eat the topwater.”
Garmin LiveScope has helped him locate these groups of threadfin shad, and has also allowed him to observe where the bass are sitting in the water column. Akins has seen bass swimming and suspended anywhere from just under the surface to as deep as 50 feet.
The bass located in the top 15 feet of the water column are more willing to bite a topwater, but he’ll drop a bait to the bass if they are deeper. Several groups of bass have moved quickly up and down in the water column, which has shocked Akins.
“I can sit there and watch a school of bass that is 50 feet down all of sudden swim up and get right under the surface like they are ready to feed,” he said. “What is even crazier, I know people catch largemouth shallow ... I have caught some of my biggest largemouth here in 40 feet of water. It blows my mind that they will (rise and fall) so much. The smallmouth will swim everywhere, but the schools of largemouth I’m seeing are swimming twice as fast.”
It was a wet start for Akins, but not because of the rain. While fighting a bass, Akins slipped on the gunnel of the boat and fell into the lake. He did, however, manage to land that bass and proceeded to fill out his limit.
“The first bass I caught kept and from there I filled my limit pretty fast. That hasn’t happened the last few days. I would get stuck on four for a while. After that, I had a flurry that lasted until about 10 or 11. It slowed down from there. I noticed a lot of bass starting to not react the same way.”
Jagdfeld, meanwhile, suffered his worst day of fishing since arriving at Tims Ford. Despite losing several bass early in the morning, he was able to land a respectable limit by midmorning, but the way the bass bit today has him a bit worried about his chances for the final day.
“It is good to be here, but I want to win it all,” Jagdfeld said. “I have no clue what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’m completely out of fish. But I’m going to fish free tomorrow and go bassin’. I’m going to act like I’ve never been here before.”
Throughout the first three days, the Adrian College angler has moved between two large areas of the lake searching for bass feeding on threadfin. He has landed a mix of smallmouth and largemouth with two baits, including a topwater popper and a minnow-style bait.
Like Akins, Jagdfeld has found that bass swimming higher in the water column are more willing to bite.
“Most of the bass I’m catching are within 10 feet of the surface over 15 to 100 feet of water,” Jagdfeld said. “That’s why I’m able to catch them on topwater. I switched from a Spook to a Pop-R today. I’ve seen big schools down in 30 to 50 feet of water, but it is really hard to get to them and they are hard to get to bite anyway.”
When he arrived at his starting spot on Day 3, Jagdfeld discovered the bass in the area were in an odd mode.
“I didn’t connect with the first four or five bass that blew up on my topwater. I made some mistakes. Tried to boat flip some bass I shouldn’t have,” Jagdfeld said. “I was able to grind it out and hit a few stretches that had them. I never had a big bite.”
Jagdfeld suspects the bass are starting to transition to their fall patterns, and with the rise in water levels from the tropical rains, he thinks he will have to make a drastic change in strategy.
“With the water coming up, and now that it is stabilizing, I probably will fish shallow. I haven’t done it much all week. When we first got here, there were a lot more fish on the main lake. The bait is still there, but the bass aren’t there in the numbers they were when we first got here.”
Jagdfeld and Akins will launch from Tims Ford Marina at 6:20 a.m. CT and return for weigh-in at 2:30 p.m. Live coverage on Bassmaster.com will begin at 7 a.m. and continue until 2 p.m.
