Fishing near home, Roger Fitzpatrick had family on hand for the win. Photo by Rob Matsuura
GROVE, Okla. – The final day of the Toyota Series Championship Presented by Phoenix Boats on Grand Lake will go down as one of the tightest of all time. Entering Championship Saturday, four Ozark stalwarts were ounces apart – in theory shooting it out with jigs and spinnerbaits for the win. Then, the power fishing bite crumbled, and Drew Gill, Tucker Smith and Riley Harris blitzed up the leaderboard, picking off fish after fish with forward-facing sonar.
At weigh-in, Smith and Gill both weighed over 14 pounds, by far the biggest bags of the day. But, with 11 pounds, 7 ounces, Roger Fitzpatrick had just enough to hang on, moving up from second to first with 41-1 and beating Gill for the win via tiebreak, which is previous day’s standing first and then heaviest single-day catch, both of which favored the veteran angler.
For the win, which is his 13th with MLF in nearly 250 events, Fitzpatrick took home $200,250 plus a berth in REDCREST 2026 – which just to happens to be at Table Rock Lake, where he’s won twice before with MLF. Though Fitzpatrick had come oh so close many times in the Phoenix Bass Fishing League All-American, he’d never won it or a Toyota Series event until now. Throw in a Fishing Clash Angler of the Year title in the Plains Division, and it’s clear that Fitzpatrick waited until age 61 to have his best year yet.
Fitzpatrick is sure the win was meant to be
As someone who has been cashing checks with MLF/FLW since 1995, Fitzpatrick has plenty of experience when it comes to winning, but he’s probably going to need to fish for another 30 years or so to replicate this one.
TOP FINISHERS BELOW
“When I pulled into the buoys down here, I was hoping I would stay in the Top 10,” he said. “I was never nervous all day. The whole afternoon, I thought I needed at least one good fish to have a shot at this. I left biting fish on some docks – they weren’t big, but I had two fish in there that weren’t 2 pounds. When it was all said and done and was this close, I thought I probably messed up and didn’t cull those 2-pounders out.”
At the docks, with anglers bagging fish and swapping reports, Fitzpatrick realized that instead of a definite drop in the standings, he might have done enough to win, or at least make it close.
“People started saying how tough it was, and nobody had anything,” he said. “Toby Hartsell watched the livestream, and he said, ‘It’s going to be closer than you think.’”
On stage with weighmaster Chris Jones and Gill, Fitzpatrick watched the readout on the scale with rapt attention as Jones took his hand off the bag.
“Whenever he threw it down, it went 11-8, 11-7, 11-8, 11-7 – it wasn’t going 11-6,” Fitzpatrick said. “I was hoping he’d lock it at 11-8. I knew Justin [Luetkemeyer] didn’t have it. But when it locked in at 11-7, I was like ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”
With the top four finishers all separated by just 4 ounces, it’s almost certain that each of them (and perhaps others farther down the standings) lost a fish or two that cost them the ounces they needed to separate themselves from the rest of the pack, Fitzpatrick included. But regardless of the outcome, Fitzpatrick isn’t one to sweat the small stuff.
“I can’t believe there’s a God that’s so big that he listens to a prayer of a fisherman,” he said. “I give it all to Him. You can’t stop it if He’s in control. You can’t stop it. There’s no doubt He had His hand in every bit of it.”
Spinnerbait triumphs again on Grand Lake
The amount of money won on a spinnerbait in Oklahoma and the Ozark region is pretty much incalculable, but $200,000 was added to the tally this week. Near the end of practice, Fitzpatrick hit upon the pattern, which happened to be firmly in his wheelhouse.
“I got keyed in at 4 o’clock the last day of practice,” he said. “I pulled into a spot at the mouth of Wolf Creek out by the bridge, and I caught a 5-pounder on a spinnerbait. I thought, ‘That was a fluke.’ So, I went a little further, and I caught another one. I put a little rubber deal on my hook to not catch anymore, and I got two more bites. One of them didn’t drop it; he was a big one. My plan, until then, was fishing at the dam, 20-foot boat docks with a 3/4-ounce jig. That’s what I was all-in on until this happened.”
After a day of thinking it over, Fitzpatrick decided to abandon the deep docks. Instead, he spooled up some 7-foot, 4-inch St. Croix Legend Xtreme rods with 20-pound P-Line Fluorocarbon on 8.1:1 Daiwa Tatula reels and tied on a few 1 ounce Omega double-willow spinnerbaits with a big No. 7 blade to imitate gizzard shad.
Fishing shade and cables, Fitzpatrick went to work, poking his boat in and out of the many docks that Grand Lake offers.
“If it had a cable behind the dock, it was almost automatic,” he said. “They were laying on those cables. It’s an Ozark thing. The 1 ounce also was key. Late in the day, the first two days, they got real shallow; I probably didn’t need a 1 ounce. But until that time, they were out in 5 feet of water, and that 1 ounce hugs the bottom – it immediately goes to the bottom. I could cover more water with it.”
Fishing mostly near Wolf Creek, Fitzpatrick made it up into the Elk River a little as well. On the final day, he bolstered his bag with a few fish caught on a 1/2-ounce Omega Flippin’ Jig trailered with a Bojangle Baits Nos Craw.
For most of the final day, the conditions weren’t optimal for Fitzpatrick’s bite, even though the ‘Scope-friendly calm in the morning gave way to pre-frontal winds in the afternoon.
“It didn’t get here soon enough, I don’t think,” he said. “We had a morning where it was just glass out there, and it was high pressure for the most part. I had several fish nip the blades and just not eat it. This afternoon, I thought I might catch them because it did start to blow, but it was blowing a different direction than the banks I wanted to fish. When I caught ‘em, it was a southeast wind, and it was blowing into one pocket where I started, where I caught several big fish, and the wind did not hit it at all today.”
Still, old-school Ozark skills got it done once again on Grand Lake. Now, Fitzpatrick already has his wheels spinning for REDCREST this coming spring. There, the veteran Ozark angler will have a chance to put on a show on the biggest stage yet.
“April can be touchy; it’s probably going to be close to the spawn, if not spawn,” he said. “So, it’s pretty much anybody’s game. I don’t think it’ll be a ‘Scopin’ deal so much. I’m looking forward to it. I can’t imagine I get to go. It’s outstanding.”
Top 10 pros
1. Roger Fitzpatrick – 41 – 1 (15) – $200,250
2. Drew Gill – 41 – 1 (15) – $50,000
3. Tucker Smith – 40 – 15 (15) – $40,000
4. Riley Harris – 40 – 13 (15) – $35,000
5. Adam Boehle – 40 – 2 (15) – $21,000 (includes $1,000 Phoenix Bonus)
6. Hayden O’Barr – 40 – 1 (15) – $24,000
7. Chad Mrazek – 40 – 0 (15) – $23,000
8. Banks Shaw – 39 – 3 (15) – $12,000
9. Justin Luetkemeyer – 38 – 14 (15) – $11,000
10. Eli Brumnett – 38 – 11 (15) – $20,000
The top-finishing pro from each division (not including the winner) earned a $10,000 bonus for placing highest in the event. Those anglers included:
Central: Hayden O’Barr, Scottsboro, Ala., 6th place, $10,000
Northern: Tucker Smith, Birmingham, Ala., 3rd place, $10,000
Plains: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 2nd place, $10,000
Southern: Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, 7th place, $10,000
Southwestern: Riley Harris, Orange, Texas, 4th place, $10,000
Wild Card: Eli Brumnett, Wagoner, Okla., 10th place, $10,000
International: Luca Vittorio Della Ciana, Perugia, Italy, 46th place, $10,000
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