Thompson bags 25-11 to keep lead but competition closing in on Pickwick
Ken Thomspon continues to lead the Central Division slugfest on Pickwick Lake with a two-day total of 56 pounds, 14 ounces. Photo by Jody White. Angler: Ken Thompson.
FLORENCE, Ala. — Weigh-in for Day 2 of the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Central Division season-opener on Pickwick Lake brought another parade of big bass and 20-plus-pound bags. Forty-two anglers eclipsed the 20-pound threshold on Thursday, and it took a whopping 43-0 to make the Top 25 cut and qualify for Day 3.
Also for the second day in a row, everyone else is looking up at Ken Thompson. Thompson followed up his 31-pound, 3-ounce megabag from Day 1 with 25-11 on Thursday. His two-day total of 56-14 leads Jake Lawrence by 1-3. On the Strike King co-angler side, Rodney Keel sacked up 22-13 to rocket from 36th place into the top spot, 1-9 clear of Michael Luckey.
Thompson will lead the Top 25 out on Day 3 with his first MLF win in his sights. But given the caliber of fish Pickwick has been producing and the host of hammers lurking behind him (Lawrence, Dylan Nutt and Hayden Marbut are each within 5 pounds of his total and have won on the Tennessee River), he can’t afford to slip.
Same stretch produces for Thompson
No surprise, Thompson returned to the same area where he did his damage on Day 1 – a zone where he’s using forward-facing sonar to target fish holding tight to individual pieces of cover. Weighing a mixed bag each of the first two days, the Pennsylvania native said his area has quality largemouth and smallmouth living side by side.
“I caught a smallmouth and a largemouth on the exact same stump,” Thompson said. “Like, I rolled through it the first time and I caught a largemouth off of it, and whenever I made my circle and came back to it a few hours later, I caught a smallmouth.”
While his gaudy two-day total might make it seem like the fishing has been lights-out, Thompson said it’s often felt like a grind. He (and the rest of the field) have found plenty of quality fish, but getting them to bite has been far from straightforward. He only caught about 10 bass all day Thursday.
“A lot of the pieces of cover that I’m fishing, there’s two, three, four bass on them,” Thompson said. “But they’re so hard to get to bite. The bait I’m throwing, I have it on a screw-lock jighead, and twice I had the bait completely pulled down. They ate it that much, and I never even touched them with the hook. They’re being very, very picky about eating.”
Thompson’s bite picked up around 9 a.m., when the current flow ticked up. The second-year Tackle Warehouse Invitationals pro put together a limit that weighed about 21 pounds then gradually culled his way up from there.
“Around 9 or 10 o’clock, the current starts pulling, and it seems like for the first hour that it starts pulling more, they seem to be eating,” Thompson explained. “From 9 to 10 o’clock seems to be the magic time that you can hurry up and make hay pretty quick.”
Thompson had been optimistic that more fish were traveling to his area, but he said he saw fewer bass on his electronics Thursday than he did Wednesday. He had more competition fishing nearby on Day 2 as well.
The good news, though, is he’s kept a couple spots in reserve for Championship Friday, which he hopes he can turn to if his standard rotation dries up.
“I saved two spots that I found yesterday,” Thompson said. “If I could get to 25 today, then I was going to save those two areas for tomorrow. One area, I caught a 6 off of it in practice, and I had two good ones come up yesterday afternoon that I didn’t let eat, just because I had 30 pounds yesterday and I wanted to save everything that I could. And I never even went to those two areas today.”
Thompson is confident that he’ll once again be around the fish to win – it’s just a question of making them bite and putting them in the boat. Not only would this represent a breakthrough victory if he can finish it off, it would go a long way toward allowing him to keep chasing his dream of fishing full-time.
“It takes a lot of stress off of me worrying about how I’m paying for the Invitationals the rest of the year,” Thompson said. “I got some sponsors, and I got enough to get rolling, but I’ve got to make some money in the first couple (events) or I’m not even going to be able to finish the season, and I’ll have to get back to building bridges again.”
Lawrence gains ground despite losing big one
On the Tennessee River, there might not be a scarier angler to have looming in second place than Lawrence. Not only is he hot right now, coming off a sixth-place finish in his Bass Pro Tour debut on Lake Conroe, Lawrence used to guide on Pickwick and Kentucky Lake. He estimates he has between 7,000 and 8,000 waypoints saved on Pickwick – the venue where he won a Phoenix Bass Fishing League Super Tournament in 2023.
So, it doesn’t come as a shock that Lawrence edged closer to Thompson with his 28-4 bag on Day 2. In fact, had it not been for a giant that broke the hook on his jighead this afternoon, he might have taken over the top spot.
“I probably caught 100 scorable bass on it last week at Conroe in the BPT; never changed the jighead, everything is fine, no big deal,” Lawrence said. “I broke my hook on like a 9-pounder today. I wasn’t even putting that much pressure. I don’t know if I put a bad spot in it at some point last week like with the pliers, taking it out. But it was just kind of a freak thing. Like, there’s not much you can do about it. I’m not going to be upset about it. But I’m going to take that as a learning experience – I’m going to toss my jighead after each tournament.”
Lawrence echoed Thompson’s sentiment that, while the weights might not show it, tricking a big one into biting isn’t easy. He thinks that has a lot to do with fishing pressure, and he’s hoping to find some areas that haven’t been hit as hard on Day 3.
“When you finally find one that hasn’t seen a bait in the last couple days, the last week, you can tell,” Lawrence said. “He rushes up there and eats it. And boy, can you tell when he’s seen a bait. A lot of them won’t even move. You can throw three, four, five times at it and then he’ll finally, real lazily ease up there at it.
“So, the name of the game tomorrow is going to be running as much fresh stuff as I can, kind of seeing where everybody is at and where they’re doing it at. One of my best areas really got hit hard today. Four or five boats were kind of in and out all day. I’m not even sure if I’ll go back. It got that weird.”
Lawrence is following the same general playbook as most of the contenders, throwing either an Alabama rig or a jighead minnow at isolated pieces of cover. However, he said he figured out a slightly different pattern Thursday afternoon that he’s hopeful can continue to produce.
“I actually figured out a new little pattern late this afternoon and culled up two or three more times,” he said. “I could call my shot – like, not necessarily catch him, but knew where he was going to be.”
Lawrence will take the water Friday with a clear goal in mind: 30 pounds. If he can do that, he thinks he’ll have a good chance to add a seventh Tennessee River title to his résumé.
“I’ve been fishing for 30 every day this week, it just hasn’t quite happened,” he said. “But crazy as it sounds, I’m not going to feel comfortable unless I’ve got 30 – and heck, he still may beat me.”
Top 10 pros:
1. Ken Thompson – 56-14 (10)
2. Jake Lawrence – 55-11 (10)
3. Dylan Nutt – 54-4 (10)
4. Broderick Luckey – 52-13 (10)
5. Hayden Marbut – 52-11 (10)
6. Logan Dyar – 49-13 (10)
7. Hunter Bouldin – 48-12 (10)
8. Cal Lane – 48-11 (10)
9. Logan Parks – 48-4 (10)
10. Banks Shaw – 48-3 (10)