Sprague leads after scorching Day 1 on chilly Lake Guntersville
Jeff Sprague leads the pack by a narrow margin going into Qualifying Day 2. Photo by Phoenix Moore. Angler: Jeff Sprague.
January 15, 2026 • Mitchell Forde • Bass Pro Tour
GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. — A cold front arrived with the start of the 2026 Bass Pro Tour season, with sub-freezing temperatures and wind chills in the single digits greeting the field as it launched on Lake Guntersville Thursday morning. But the legendary fishery’s bass didn’t seem to mind.
The bite started hot and stayed that way all the way until lines out on the opening day of the Qualifying Round at B&W Trailer Hitches Stage 1 Presented by Mercury. Three anglers – Jeff Sprague, Brent Ehrler and Jacob Walker – topped 100 pounds, and it took nearly 44 pounds to claim a spot inside the Top 25. Twenty-nine bass over 5 pounds hit SCORETRACKER®, highlighted by Walker’s 7-pound, 10-ounce brute, which earned Berkley Big Bass honors.
Sprague provided a fitting end to the day when he caught a 5-8 in the final minute of the third period (his 11th bass over 4 pounds) to take the top spot from Ehrler. He finished the day with 108-15 on 31 scorable bass compared to 108-1 for Ehrler.
“This place is literally full of 4- and 5-pounders,” Sprague said. “That’s the going rate at this place. It was an extremely fun day to be on a fishery like this catching the quality and the amount of them that we did. Just a great all-around day of fishing.”
Full results can be found here.
Sprague hoping to win one for his dad
Unfortunately, the thrill of his last-minute 5-pounder didn’t last long for Sprague. Shortly after lines out, he got word that his father passed away suddenly on Thursday.
“The one thing that he gave me was the love of fishing, and I thank him so much for that,” an emotional Sprague said.
As of Thursday afternoon, Sprague planned to continue to compete with an eye on winning his first national event for his dad. If Day 1 is any indication, he’s found the fish to do it.
Sprague knew he’d found an area holding some bass during practice, but he had no idea it would be this productive.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he admitted. “The area that I caught these fish in, I made a quick pass through in practice and had a handful of bites that were quality bites. But it was a really fast pass. And when I got there and started expanding, the more I expanded, the more bites I got. So, that’s when I really realized how many fish were in the area.”
Notably, Sprague caught all 31 of his scorable bass winding reaction baits around shallow vegetation. He started Period 1 planning to utilize forward-facing sonar to target suspended bass but quickly punted on that strategy.
“I started with a minnow in my hand this morning for about 20, 30 minutes,” he said, “and when my braided line froze solid as a rock and it was stiff as I was trying to throw it, I put it up and I said, ‘let’s go bass fishing.’”
Sprague was one of several anglers to stack up serious weight without the aid of forward-facing sonar. That was perhaps the biggest surprise of Day 1. Given the time of year and the weather, many expected jighead minnows to dominate, even if anglers were only allowed to utilize modern technology for one period per day. But according to SCORETRACKER Insidertm, just 32.5% of the weight caught by the field came while using forward-facing sonar, meaning it wasn’t any more productive than fishing without it.
“That is pure roots bass fishing, in my opinion,” Sprague said of his winding bite. “To be able to still have fisheries like Guntersville to put out those numbers and that quality of fish, that just speaks to how healthy this fishery is.”
Sprague’s 15 career Top 10s are the second most among any Bass Pro Tour angler without a win – behind only Ehrler, interestingly enough. To break through and claim his first BPT trophy, Sprague believes he needs to locate more productive water. But he’s optimistic he’s found an area that has more untapped fish.
“I’ll go look tomorrow for more water,” he said. “That last 5-pounder was somewhere I never made a cast in practice, and so now I know I just need to keep looking. I think the area I’m in is just special at this particular moment.”
Sprague’s top priority on Day 2 will be locating more fish. He’s not sure yet how many he’ll try to catch in an effort to maintain the top spot on SCORETRACKER® and claim the automatic berth to Sunday’s Championship Round awarded to the Qualifying Round winner.
“I’m going to watch the SCORETRACKER® in the morning and make a decision based off of that,” he said. “I don’t want to burn up 80 more pounds of bass for somebody to come in behind me and one-up me. So, it’s a strategy; I’ll have to think that through.”
Ehrler shocks himself
Like Sprague, Ehrler had no inkling when he launched his boat that he would reel in 100-plus pounds of bass. The veteran Californian called both his day and the numbers put up by the field as a whole “shocking.”
“It hasn’t been that easy out there,” he said. “I was just kind of blessed with landing on the right areas at the right time. I don’t see any way how I could actually duplicate that day.”
Primarily leaning on a lipless crankbait, Ehrler did most of his damage during the final hour of Period 2 and the first hour of Period 3. In that span, he caught 25 scorable bass for more than 70 pounds.
Ehrler, who has amassed 19 Top 10s in BPT competition, doesn’t feel like he’s found the fish to claim his long-overdue trophy. However, he’s hopeful he can contend for the Qualifying Round win and assure himself of yet another Top 10. Then, who knows what the Championship Round might hold.
“We’ll see how the morning starts,” Ehrler said of his Day 2 strategy. “I’ll probably just fish all my same stuff regardless. Unless I get way behind, then I’ll probably go and start practicing a little bit. But until then, I probably won’t. I have a hard time believing I can find anything good enough to change things up.”
No learning curve for these rookies
We’ve seen Bass Pro Tour newcomers experience immediate success several years in a row. It appears the 2026 rookie class has a couple candidates to continue the trend.
Walker stacked up 103-14 on 26 scorable bass during his first day of regular-season BPT competition, which has him in third place. Right behind him in fourth is Banks Shaw with 88-9.
Walker got a bead on the quality bass that call Guntersville home. In addition to his 7-10, he caught five other bass over 5 pounds on the day. His average scorable bass weighed right at 4 pounds, easily the heaviest of anyone in the field. He caught all but one of those 5-plus pounders and more than 72 pounds total winding a vibrating jig around shallow grass after he’d already turned off forward-facing sonar.
Shaw, meanwhile, picked up right where he left off last year, when he put together the best statistical season in national tour history while winning Angler of the Year and Rookie of the Year on the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals. Despite staying up late Wednesday night to register for his spring semester of classes at the University of North Alabama, the 22-year-old blistered 63-7 in the first period. Fishing right next to forward-facing sonar guru Drew Gill while they both used the technology, Shaw out-produced him by 20 pounds in the opening frame.
Keep following the action
All 51 anglers will return to the water Friday for the second day of qualifying with an eye on finishing inside the Top 25 and advancing to Saturday’s Knockout Round. You can continue to watch all the action live on the MLFNOW! livestream from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT each day at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and the Major League Fishing channel on Rumble.