COLUMBUS, Miss. (May 5, 2025) – Boater Eddie Armstrong of West Point, Mississippi, caught a five-bass limit weighing 14 pounds, 12 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on the Columbus Pool. The tournament was the third event of the season for the BFL Mississippi Division. Armstrong earned $3,021 for his victory.
In mid-April, the Bassmaster Open on the Columbus Pool of the Tombigbee system was won on a white swim jig in the grass, while several others in the top 10 also worked a white swim jig or vibrating jig. Armstrong knew about the results of that tournament, and he knew the rest of the field did, too. So he purposely changed it up to avoid the most heavily pressured areas.
“All the locals had jumped on the bandwagon, and I knew everybody that would come pre-fish was going to be doing the same thing,” he said. “And that’s what they did.
“I got to messing around with just some isolated stuff that didn’t look good to everybody else and noticed that the fish had really pulled out of the grass and were a boat length away from the grass. Every fish I weighed in but one came off a junebug lizard, and I caught one off a frog that was actually on an isolated stump with grass on it.”
Armstrong fished his 8-inch lizard on a Texas rig with a 3/16-ounce weight. He tossed it into the edge of the grass – sparse grass; “just a few springs” – and fished it back slowly, bringing it off the edge and letting it drop while staying a long way off. That slow approach and staying back produced better-than-average fish.
“We learned that a long time ago out here,” he said. “This is not something that’s new. A lot of times the fish will back off from the grass (when there’s heavy fishing pressure).”
Another key was staying in shallow water. Armstrong held the boat in 3 to 4 feet of water most of the time and at the deepest was only in about 8 feet. Using this approach, he fished four primary areas. He caught a limit from the first spot then culled four of those bass throughout the day.
“I always fish to win,” Armstrong added. “I felt like I had a good chance after what I saw yesterday and knowing what everybody else was going to do and I wouldn’t have anybody (to share water with). One of the places that I fished had probably 10 boats go down that all went by fast throwing a swim jig because there wasn’t hardly any grass there. They were just really going from spot to spot, and we (he and his co-angler) actually caught four keepers off that spot.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Eddie Armstrong, West Point, Miss., five bass, 14-12, $3,021
2nd: Hunter Briles, Russellville, Ala., five bass, 14-3, $1,511
3rd: Luke Glasgow, Guin, Ala., five bass, 12-5, $1, 507 (includes $500 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
4th: Kyle Shaw, Millport, Ala., five bass, 11-13, $705
5th: David Dove, Columbus, Miss., five bass, 11 - 09 $604
6th: John Anderson, Bay Springs, Miss., five bass, 11 - 07 $654
7th: Kyle Glasgow, Guin, Ala., five bass, 10-15, $478
7th: Kevin Nicely, Ethelsville, Ala., five bass, 10-15, $478
9th: Gene Brown, West Point, Miss., four bass, 10-14, $403
10th: Jeffery Davis, Steens, Miss., five bass, 10-7, $352
Tommy Robinson of Florence, Alabama, caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 5 ounces, and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $345. Jonathan Goodman of Ethelsville, Alabama, won the co-angler division and $1,511 Saturday, after bringing three bass to the scale that totaled 8 pounds, 4 ounces.
The top 11 co-anglers finished:
1st: Jonathan Goodman, Ethelsville, Ala., three bass, 8-4, $1,511
2nd: Andy Lockhart, Amory, Miss., three bass, 7-9, $755
3rd: Gary Stripling, Kennedy, Ala., three bass, 7-1, $504
4th: Travis Culbreth, Pearl, Miss., three bass, 6-7, $352
5th: Richard Baker, Jackson, Tenn., three bass, 6-5, $302
6th: Chance Starnes, Louisville, Miss., three bass, 5-14, $277
7th: Takaaki Kojima, Temecula, Calif., three bass, 5-12, $252
8th: Allen Swedenburg, Columbus, Miss., two bass, 5-9, $227
9th: Lance Jackson, Starkville, Miss., three bass, 5-8, $201
10th: Brandon Mast, Mathiston, Miss., three bass, 5-2, $167
10th: Jeffery Reece, Guys, Tenn., two bass, 5-2, $167
Craig Perrigin of Gordo, Alabama, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $172, catching a bass that weighed in at 4 pounds, 11 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.
After three events, Luke Glasgow of Guin, Alabama, now leads the Fishing Clash Mississippi Division Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 714 points, while Steve Hammack of Caledonia, Mississippi, leads the Fishing Clash Mississippi Division Co-Angler of the Year race with 694 points.
The next event for BFL Mississippi Division anglers will be held June 7, at Ross Barnett Reservoir out of Ridgeland, Mississippi.
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