Harris Wins Toyota Series Tournament at Sam Rayburn

BROOKELAND, Texas (March 9, 2025) – The final weigh-in of the Toyota Series Southwestern Division tournament at Sam Rayburn was one for the record books. Three different pros weighed over 30 pounds on the day, and nobody was safe on the leaderboard. Coming in with a big lead after two days, local pro Dakota Ebare of Brookeland, Texas, faltered on Day 3, and Riley Harris of Orange, Texas, surged to the top for his first MLF win.

Weighing bags in the mid-20s each of the first two days, Harris added 30 pounds, 9 ounces on Day 3 for an 82-10 total to earn the win. For the win, which was his first with MLF, Harris takes home $29,930 and a berth in the $200,000 Toyota Series Championship this fall.

The ideal tournament scenario for any angler is to find fish, and for more of them to show up every day. Often, it’s an impossible task – fish in the summer and winter are generally not flooding in or out of areas. Fishing fans might recall it happening a lot in May and June on Kentucky Lake during the heyday of ledge fishing, with weights going up day after day and leaders throwing back 3-pounders without weighing them because their expectations were set so high. This week at Rayburn, big fish were rolling into the shallows, routing along Texas drains, and Harris was right there to meet them.

“I think the inconsistent weather that has been happening in the past month has kinda made it hard for everybody to stay on them,” said Harris, who fishes both Rayburn and Toledo Bend frequently. “I knew this week they were coming into the spawning areas, and they hadn't seen a lot of baits. And, man, it was just absolutely electric.

“I knew they were coming to me the entire event, I knew that I didn't have to really go anywhere or go out, I just knew that I had to stay put, and they were just going to keep filtering in.”

Fishing from 5 feet to 15 feet deep, Harris was fishing typical Texas patterns, but with little to no company – which was not the case for many others in the event.

“I was just fishing the drains that were right there in spawning areas, they were just sitting in the bottom of the drains or up on the sides of them,” Harris explained. “I didn't have any time to find any cranking fish or anything, so I just had to mainly ‘Scope the grass and the drains that were right there in the spawning areas.”

For baits, Harris relied on a 6th Sense Ozzie, a Neko-rigged 6th Sense Divine Shakey Worm with a 1/10-ounce weight, and an umbrella rig with three 1/8-ounce heads and two ¼-ounce heads and 6th Sense Divine Swimbaits. 

Practice days this week leading up to the event were atrociously windy, and it almost seemed like having less practice was better. Coming in off events in Florida, Ebare and Lee Livesay both caught over 30 pounds on Day 1 with just slight hints of practice. Harris was in a similar boat, having lost his lower unit on the weekend.

“I was pretty much off the water ‘til Wednesday,” Harris said. “I got to get out there when it was blowing really hard, and I was able to run a couple areas that I had confidence in, and I saw some things. But I knew it was only a matter of time before they were going to push up like they did.”

Being perfectly in tune with the fishery isn’t new for Harris, especially this year – he and Luke Potter won a February Texas Team Trail event on Rayburn with 41-9. Some lost fish certainly could have derailed his victory, though – Day 2 featured two heartbreaking mishaps.

“It was just freak accidents,” he said. “That 10 straightened out my hook. And then the 8, I guess I just had a soft spot in my line, and it just broke as soon as I laid into her, and she was sitting there flopping on top of the water in front of me trying to throw it. In an event like this where literally everything matters, I thought I blew my chance for sure.”

Still, dropping 30 on the final day makes up for a lot, and Harris was thrilled with the win.

“I have dreamt of this moment literally my entire life,” said Harris. “It's really humbling because, I wanted to compete at the top, and I've been chasing this dream for years. And its finally just kind of all started to come together, and I've been able to put things together. It’s really humbling for sure, to see where we were and now where we're at.”

The top 10 pros at the Toyota Series at Sam Rayburn Reservoir finished:

1st:        Riley Harris, Orange, Texas, 15 bass, 82-10, $29,930
2nd:       Cody Ross, Livingston, Texas, 15 bass, 79-12, $11,404
3rd:       Dylan Thompson, Del Rio, Texas, 15 bass, 76-5, $8,829
4th:        Todd Castledine, Nacogdoches, Texas, 15 bass, 74-4, $7,358
5th:        Dakota Ebare, Brookeland, Texas, 15 bass, 72-4, $6,622
6th:        Ryan Satterfield, Texarkana, Ark., 15 bass, 64-1, $6,886
7th:        Lee Livesay, Longview, Texas, 15 bass, 63-12, $5,650
8th:        Brody Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, 15 bass, 62-9, $4,415
9th:        Nick Kincaid, Brookeland, Texas, 15 bass, 60-14, $3,679
10th:     Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, 15 bass, 59-15, $3,443

Pro Chad Mrazek earned Thursday’s $500 Big Bass Award with a bass weighing 10 pounds even, while tournament winner Riley Harris won Friday’s $500 Berkley Big Bass, weighing in a 9-pounder to earn the $500 award.

Phillip Hudnall of Bixby, Oklahoma, won the co-angler division Saturday with a three-day total of 13 bass weighing 34 pounds even. Hudnall earned the top co-angler prize package worth $34,050, including a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower outboard motor.

The top 10 co-anglers at the Toyota Series at Sam Rayburn finished:

1st:        Phillip Hudnall, Bixby, Okla., 13 bass, 34-0, Phoenix 518 Pro boat w/115-hp Mercury outboard
2nd:       Justin Swayze, Gurdon, Ark., 12 bass, 32-1, $3,766
3rd:       David Bozarth, Montgomery, Texas, 11 bass, 29-1, $3,013
4th:        Stephen Vogel, Muenster, Texas, 11 bass, 28-4, $2,636
5th:        Jacob Smith, McKinney, Texas, 13 bass, 27-9, $2,260
6th:        Elijah Soto, Inyokern, Calif., 13 bass, 27-1, $1,883
7th:        Errol Sigue, Jeanerette, La., nine bass, 26-0, $1,506
8th:        Sieg Kilby, Kilgore, Texas, 12 bass,25-3, $1,318
9th:        Mark King, Gurdon, Texas, 11 bass, 24-1, $1,130
10th:     Lawrence Lacour, Mabank, Texas, 12 bass, 23-15, $942

Co-angler John Warren of Shawnee, Oklahoma, earned the first Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of the event on Thursday with a 10-pound, 2-ounce bass to earn the $150 prize, while Friday’s Day 2 $150 co-angler award went to Micheal Sharp of Calera, Oklahoma, who brought a 6-pound, 11-ounce largemouth bass to the scale.