By MLF Communications Staff

MASSENA, N.Y. – High expectations greeted the Bass Pro Tour field as it launched onto the St. Lawrence River for final event of the 2024 season. During the first day of qualifying for Group A, the famed smallmouth factory didn’t disappoint.

Fish hit ScoreTracker in both impressive size and numbers, with 16 anglers eclipsing the 50-pound mark. Leading the charge was reigning Fishing Clah Angler of the Year Matt Becker of Ten Mile, who landed 30 scorable smallmouth for 106 pounds, 7 ounces — easily enough to claim the top spot on the leaderboard and 26-2 ahead Nick Hatfield in second place.

“This place is incredible,” Becker said of the St. Lawrence. “Just the amount of smallmouth in there is absolutely insane.”

With the Bass Pro Tour’s every-fish-counts scoring format bringing a unique wrinkle to the venue, one of the primary questions competitors had to answer was how much to prioritize quantity of bass versus quality.

Becker went ahead and led the way in both categories. Not only were his 30 scorable bass the most caught by any angler Tuesday, he also earned an extra $1,000 by catching quality – namely a 5-8 smallmouth that earned him the Berkley Big Bass on the day. That was one of nine smallmouth he boated that weighed at least 4 pounds.

With bites not hard to come by for most of the field, Becker said searching for bigger fish was central to his strategy.

“That’s kind of what I focused on, I wanted to catch that better quality,” he said. “You’re going to always get the bites, but if you’re around that better quality, you can rack up the weight in a hurry. So, that’s what I kind of focused on was areas where I know I can get a little bit better quality, and it worked out perfect today.”

Becker triggered the fish in those areas by “doing things a little bit different” than most of his competitors. While he didn’t want to reveal many details, he said he stumbled on this presentation during a past Toyota Series event on the St. Lawrence and expanded on it during practice. He thinks standing out from the heavy tournament traffic on the river helped generate some of those bigger bites.

“It’s a really, super unique deal, and I really don’t think anybody else is fishing the way I am as far as presenting their bait,” Becker said. “So, I’m excited about it, for sure.”

Becker started the day strong, racking up 23-5 on eight fish in the first hour after lines in. After hovering near the top of the standings for the rest of the morning, he separated himself from the pack with a furious flurry between 12:50 and 1:50 p.m. During that hour (which included a 15-minute period break), Becker boated nine fish totaling 36-11.

“It was the right place at the right time, and it was fresh — nobody had fished there yet today,” he said. “I could pretty much call my shot for about that hour there. And there was a lot more there with them that, once I caught a couple, they kind of got spooked. So, I'm definitely excited about revisiting some of those areas.”

With more than 50 pounds between his total and that of 11th-place angler Zack Birge, Becker plans to use Group A’s second day of qualifying to explore new water. He thinks having that opportunity will be important as he tries to keep tabs on the river’s dynamic brown bass.

“In my experience on this river, the fish are constantly changing, so staying on top of them is really key,” he said. “I felt like I was pretty dialed in today, but two days from now or by the weekend for the Knockout Round, things could be totally different.”

With his spots in REDCREST 2025 and Heavy Hitters now assured, Becker has adopted a win-or-bust mindset for the regular-season finale. He knows how to close the season with a flourish, having won both the event on Saginaw Bay and clinched the AOY award in the final event of 2023. He’s also won a Toyota Series event that launched out of the St. Lawrence in 2017.

That experience combined with his strong start has him cautiously optimistic about his chances of contending for a second straight walk-off win.

“I’m as confident as ever with this place and what I’m doing,” Becker said. “I feel like I have it really dialed in right now, and I could literally just call my shot today. But, like I mentioned, the smallmouth like to change. These Northern fisheries, they have such a short summer that one week of time is a huge amount of time in their summer pattern, so things change really fast. But I feel good about today, and I feel like I have enough experience here that I should be able to make the right adjustments going into the weekend.”

By the end of this week, the season-long battle for the AOY title and the $100,000 that comes with it will have a winner. Two of the remaining contenders took to the water in Group A – Alton Jones Jr. and Dustin Connell. While both are in the mix to qualify for the Knockout Round, and thus keep their hopes alive of claiming the trophy, they each have some work to do — and will need some help from points leader Jacob Wheeler.

After the first day of qualifying, Jones sits 10th in Group A with 58-0. Connell isn’t far behind him with 50-13, which has him 16th. With Jones entering the event 19 points back of Wheeler in the season-long standings and Connell another 16 behind Jones, both anglers almost certainly need to make the Knockout Round to have a shot at catching Wheeler. They’ll also need Wheeler to finish outside of the Top 20 for the first time in his past 11 regular-season BPT events. Wheeler will take to the water with Group B on Wednesday.

The 39 Anglers in Group A compete in their two-day Qualifying Round on Tuesday and Thursday, with the 39 anglers in Group B on the water on Wednesday and Friday. After each two-day Qualifying Round is complete, the anglers who finish 1st through 10th from each group advance to Saturday’s Knockout Round.

In the Knockout Round, weights are zeroed, and the remaining 20 anglers compete to finish in the top 10 to advance to Sunday’s Championship Round, when weights are again zeroed and the highest one-day total wins the top prize of $100,000.

Anglers depart at 6:45 a.m. ET each day from the Massena Intake Boat Launch, located at 1415 State Highway 131. Anglers are allowed to trailer to any ramp of their choosing within the fishing boundaries, and competition will begin on the water at 7:30 a.m. Each day’s takeiout is held at at the launch beginning at 4 p.m.

The MLFNOW! broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live on the final four days of competition from 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. MLFNOW! will be livestreamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app and Rumble.

The tournament features anglers competing with a 2-pound minimum weight requirement for a bass to be deemed scorable. The MLF Fisheries Management Division determines minimum weights for each body of water that the Bass Pro Tour visits, based on the productivity, bass population and anticipated average size of fish in each fishery.



Group A Qualifying Round – Day 1

(Figure at far right indicates weight of angler's heaviest fish for the round)

1. Matt Becker -- 106-07 (30) -- 5-08

2. Nick Hatfield -- 80-06 (26) -- 5-00

3. Brent Ehrler -- 77-04 (25) -- 4-08

4. Mark Davis -- 70-13 (22) -- 4-15

5. Marshall Robinson -- 66-12 (20) -- 5-00

6. Marty Robinson -- 65-05 (19) -- 5-07

7. Jonathon VanDam -- 60-06 (21) -- 4-07

8. Jason Vance -- 60-01 (21) -- 4-01

9. James Elam -- 58-12 (19) -- 4-06

10. Alton Jones Jr. -- 58-00 (20) -- 4-07

11. Zack Birge -- 56-02 (18) -- 4-05

12. Jesse Wiggins -- 56-00 (20) -- 3-10

13. Bobby Lane -- 54-02 (18) -- 4-10

14. Greg Vinson -- 53-09 (16) -- 4-09

15. John Hunter -- 53-06 (17) -- 5-04

16. Dustin Connell -- 50-13 (17) -- 4-10

17. Cliff Crochet -- 49-03 (20) -- 3-11

18. Justin Lucas -- 48-04 (17) -- 4-01

19. Bradley Roy -- 47-10 (15) -- 4-04

20. Kelly Jordon -- 45-06 (16) -- 3-13

21. Mark Rose -- 42-06 (15) -- 3-10

22. Ott DeFoe -- 42-03 (17) -- 4-06

23. Anthony Gagliardi -- 39-05 (10) -- 5-05

24. Brent Chapman -- 39-03 (13) -- 4-08

25. Jacob Wall -- 37-02 (11) -- 5-06

26. Luke Clausen -- 36-00 (11) -- 5-02

27. Dean Rojas -- 35-04 (12) -- 4-14

28. David Dudley -- 34-06 (11) -- 5-06

29. Edwin Evers -- 34-06 (13) -- 4-04

30. Boyd Duckett -- 33-09 (11) -- 4-05

31. Keith Poche -- 28-12 (8) -- 5-00

32. Gary Klein -- 27-15 (8) -- 4-06

33. Matthew Stefan -- 27-05 (11) -- 3-03

34. Grae Buck -- 20-11 (6) -- 4-10

35. Fred Roumbanis -- 17-11 (6) -- 4-01

36. Scott Suggs -- 15-07 (6) -- 3-07

37. Stephen Browning -- 14-04 (5) -- 3-13

38. Britt Myers -- 12-09 (5) -- 2-13

39. Dave Lefebre -- 6-02 (2) -- 3-05