HENDERSON, N.C. (March 10, 2025) – Boater Tyler Trent of Nathalie, Virginia, caught a five-bass limit weighing 21 pounds, 10 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on Kerr Lake. The tournament was the first event of the season for the BFL Piedmont Division. Trent earned $7,748, including the lucrative $5,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus, for his victory.
Trent kept it pretty simple on Saturday. He used his best tool for Kerr Lake – experience.
“It’s been fishing off and on because the lake level got up so high, but it’s getting close to back down to normal level,” he said about Kerr Lake. “I basically just used past experience because it’s my home lake, and I was just able to run a lot of places and just happened to run across the right fish throughout the day.”
Trent figures he made close to 50 stops on Saturday, catching one or two here and there and hitting a variety of targets that he’s marked on his GPS over the years. His go-to lure was a homemade jig with a DNZ Products Agitator crawfish trailer.
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Tyler Trent, Nathalie, Va., five bass, 21-10, $7,748 (includes $5,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
2nd: Hunter Tibbetts, Centreville, Va., five bass, 19-14, $1,374
3rd: Thomas Milton, Chester, Va., five bass, 19-8, $1,221
4th: Shawn Hammack, Gasburg, Va., five bass, 17-12, $766
5th: Bryson Peed, Clarksville, Va., five bass, 16-11, $550
6th: Michael (Tony), Eskridge Delmar, Md., five bass, 15-8, $504
7th: Adam Lester, Huddleston, Va., five bass, 15-7, $458
8th: Rodney Sorrell, Stokesdale, N.C., five bass, 15-5, $412
9th: Micah Mitten, Powhatan, Va., five bass, 14-12, $366
10th: David Wright, Lexington, N.C., five bass, 14-11, $321
Thomas Milton of Chester, Virginia, caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces, and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $305. Casey Cornelius of Indianapolis, Indiana, won the co-angler division and $1,374 Saturday, after bringing three bass to the scale that totaled 7 pounds, 13 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Casey Cornelius, Indianapolis, Ind., three bass, 7-13, $1,374
2nd: Derek Stanley, Fuquay Varina, N.C., three bass, 7-7, $687
3rd: David Deciucis, Chester, Va., three bass, 6-10, $459
4th: Dalton Marlow, Maiden, N.C., three bass, 6-4, $321
5th: Collier Clemmons, Wilmington, N.C., two bass, 5-1, $275
6th: Chad Liptrap, High Point, N.C., two bass, 4-15, $252
7th: Steve Cannon, Wilkesboro, N.C., two bass, 4-8, $329
8th: Kieran Packard, Oklahoma City, Okla., two bass, 4-5, $206
9th: Dwayne Bingman, Julian, N.C., two bass, 3-14, $183
10th: Morris Mustian, Oxford, N.C., one bass, 3-13, $312
Morris Mustian of Oxford, North Carolina, earned the Big Bass co-angler award of $152, catching a bass that weighed in at 3 pounds, 13 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.
In addition to winning the tournament, Tyler Trent of Nathalie, Virginia, has the early lead in the Fishing Clash Piedmont Division Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 250 points, while Casey Cornelius of Indianapolis, Indiana, leads the Fishing Clash Piedmont Division Co-Angler of the Year race with 250 points.
The next event for BFL Piedmont Division anglers will be held March 30, at Smith Mountain Lake in Huddleston, Virginia.
https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bfl-kerr-31025.html
Bass Fishing League (BFL) News