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| Kevin VanDam leaned into 21 pounds, 8 ounces to seize the lead on Saginaw Bay. Photo by Cobi Pellerito. |
By Tyler Brinks
BASS PRO TOUR
BAY CITY, Mich. – The Knockout Round provided punch after punch, but none landed harder than Kevin VanDam‘s 21-pound, 8-ounce haymaker bag of smallmouth on Saginaw Bay at Minn Kota Stage Seven Presented by Suzuki.
Fishing in his last regular-season event ever, the bass fishing G.O.A.T. holds a 2-13 lead over Dakota Ebare heading into Sunday’s Championship ROund and aims to retire with an exclamation point and a storybook ending.
There’s intrigue at the very top of SCORETRACKER®, but you don’t have to go far to find more. The Bally Bet Angler of the Year race will come down to the last day of the season, with Jacob Wheeler (third), Ott DeFoe (fourth) and Matt Becker (fifth) still fishing, all having legitimate shots to take the title. Current leader Alton Jones Jr. is still mathematically alive, even though he didn’t advance with a 16th-place finish. Jones entered the tournament just seven points ahead of Wheeler, nine ahead of DeFoe and 10 ahead of Becker.
Tomorrow will be one for the ages, and all our burning questions will be answered at the end of the final period – and it might take until right up until the final bell for everything to be decided.
VanDam hopes to go out on top
It didn’t take long for VanDam to rocket to the top of SCORETRACKER®, landing on smallmouth from the jump and putting a huge limit in the boat in a hurry. His initial limit took only 23 minutes to catch and weighed 17-11.
