Setting up the Toyota Series Championship on Wheeler Lake

The Toyota Series Championship is a highlight of fall. Photo by Cobi Pellerito.

OCTOBER 17, 2024 • JODY WHITE • TOYOTA SERIES

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – By some measures, the Toyota Series Championship Presented by Bass Boat Technologies is the biggest event of the year. Taking place on Wheeler Lake Nov. 7-9, it gathers the best from the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats, MLF’s international affiliates, top finishers from the Phoenix Bass Fishing League, as well as the high school and college ranks. With more than 200 pros and Strike King co-anglers in the field, it’s a big championship with commensurate rewards.

On the pro side, first place stands to take home up to $235,000, including a $35,000 Phoenix MLF Bonus, and co-anglers compete for a $33,500 Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat powered by a 115hp outboard. Additionally, the winning pro at the Toyota Series Championship Presented by Bass Boat Technologies qualifies for REDCREST 2025 for the chance to win $300,000, and the highest-finishing pro from each division, including the Wild Card, receives a $10,000 bonus.

Of course, like all of MLF’s biggest events, there’s a live component. In this case, the final day will be streamed live on MLFNOW! 

The lay of the lake

Though not an unknown, Wheeler Lake is not the same hotbed of tournament fishing as it’s neighbors on the Tennessee River. Just upstream, Lake Guntersville carries the flag for the river system, and two lakes down, Pickwick Lake is a regular stop for just about every trail going. On the other hand, Wheeler offers some mystery, especially given the time of year and the fact that we won’t really know the water conditions until the actual event.

According to Ryan Salzman, who guides there and hails from Huntsville, several possible patterns will be in play come tournament time.

“There’s definitely gonna be a guy or two in the Top 10 from the dam,” Salzman said. “There’s gonna be guys that do really well on topwater, guys that run up the big creeks. Like, I would say a couple of guys do really well in creeks, fishing topwaters and spinnerbaits. And I think you’ll have a couple guys do really well ‘Scoping.”

From dam to dam, Wheeler is pretty diverse – there’s grass, the famous Decatur Flats with its stumps and shell bars, some major creeks (the Elk River is where Zack Birge won the 2014 Rayovac FLW Series Championship), and of course the current below the Guntersville Dam. Positioned close to Ditto Landing, the dam is perhaps the wildcard of the event. In 2022, Nathan Brewer led the Toyota Series event at Lake Guntersville for two days by locking out of Big G and fishing below the dam for smallmouth.

Per Salzman, the umbrella rig bite can also be pretty good on Wheeler, and for that, he likes the 3.5-inch True Bass Minner to imitate small shad. There’s also the potential for a shallow cranking bite, with something like a Yo-Zuri 3DB Crank 1.5 MR or a topwater bar bite, similar to what folks run on Pickwick and Kentucky Lake. So, all told, there could be a lot of variety in play.

“All that being said, it really depends on the weather leading up to that for whichever one of those will set up for the win,” Salzman said. “Let’s just say you get a lot of rain and they’re pumping a lot of current – the dam might do well. If there’s not a lot of current, creeks might win, or the forward-facing guys might win it.”

The recent Choo Choo Division Super Tournament was won at the trailrace by Trent Surratt, but, the same result is far from a guarantee this time.

A tournament that delivers

Obviously, the high-finishers in the Toyota Series Championship are well rewarded – it’s what makes the Toyota Series one of the best bargains in bass fishing. But it’s not just about the money – this Toyota Series Championship can mean a lot.

Last time it was at Wheeler, Birge won, having qualified out of the Southwestern Division. It set him up for a run at the FLW Tour in 2015, which was a pretty wild ride for the young pro, and the rest is history. This year, the Oklahoma pro got a big-time win in the Bass Pro Tour event at Lake Eufaula.

The year Birge won, he triumphed over a lot of veteran talent. Last year, Chad Mrazek beat out a Top 25 that included some of the brightest stars of the year to come. Behind the Texas pro, there were five anglers who would go on to qualify for the Bass Pro Tour or Elite Series in 2024. Plus, Drew Gill dominated the world this year, and the rest of the Top 25 (or Top 50, really) was basically a cavalcade of headline stories.

So, this is one to watch closely, which you can do live on MLFNOW! on the final day – it’s not only important in the moment, it’s a herald of things to come.