KIMBERLING CITY, Mo. (April 28, 2025) – Boater Marcus Sykora of Osage Beach, Missouri, caught a five-bass limit weighing 18 pounds, 14 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on Table Rock Lake. The tournament was the third event of the season for the BFL Ozark Division. Sykora earned $ $11,270, including the lucrative $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus, for his victory.
In the history of BFL and regional competition in the Ozarks, Sykora is streaking toward legend status. He’s earned 51 top-10 finishes across FLW and MLF circuits, has won more than $370,000, has fished the BFL All-American twice and has now won 12 BFL tournaments.
“I was just happy to get my 12th win because it’s been a while,” said Sykora, whose last win came in 2018 at Lake of the Ozarks. “They come in bunches sometimes, so hopefully this is the start of the next bunch.”
Sykora applied old-school bass knowledge to get it done.
“The lake level kind of jumped, and the fish obviously just rode it up,” he said. “So basically, what I was focusing on was isolated bushes and willows in pockets. I was staying in the colored water, and I was flipping a green pumpkin Zoom Brush Hog with a 6th Sense peg, 6th Sense 1/2-ounce tungsten flipping weight and 6th Sense straight-shank 5/0 hook.”
Sykora also worked in a black 6th Sense Vega frog, but the key to the win was flipping up two bigger female bass – both postspawn fish. Sykora worked mid-lake spawning pockets with 45-degree banks where there was a “backstop” – a steep enough bank to keep the water from flooding way out across a wide zone outside the normal shoreline – which helped position fish in the shoreline bushes.
“That is all I did, all day long, is flip,” he added. “I just kept covering water. Sometimes they’d be all the way in the backs of creeks, sometimes in the back of a pocket off the main lake. You never really knew where you were going to catch a good one.”
Sykora added an interesting catch to his latest win.
“One of them was a tagged fish,” he said. “I didn’t even know they tagged fish on Table Rock. I’ve never caught a tagged fish in my life. We called it in just to see, and that fish was caught in 2019. So, six years ago, somebody caught that fish with a tag, and I caught it today. So, no telling how old that fish was.”
The top 11 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Marcus Sykora, Osage Beach, Mo., five bass, 18-14, $11,270 (includes $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
2nd: Shawn Kowal, Linn Creek, Mo., five bass, 17-6, $2,000
3rd: Wyatt Marler, Oldfield, Mo., five bass, 16-14, $1,334
4th: Nick Lawler, Ava, Mo., five bass, 16-10, $933
5th: Aaron Stanphill, Bella Vista, Ark., five bass, 16-5, $900
6th: Drew Sagely, Rogers, Ark., five bass, 15-14, $733
7th: Jeffrey Barrickman, Forsyth, Mo., five bass, 15-13, $667
8th: Eric Olliverson, Shell Knob, Mo., five bass, 15-12, $600
9th: Jacob Wade, Mountain Grove, Mo., five bass, 15-9, $533
10th: Brant Rowland, Little Suamico, Wis., five bass, 15-6, $443
10th: Graden Hansen, Grove, Okla., five bass, 15-6, $443
Danny Burns of Nixa, Missouri, and Sykora tied for the Big Bass Boater award after both catching a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 7 ounces. They each took home $270 for their share of the prize. Jamie McCain of Lake Lotawana, Missouri, and Dustin Hedrick of Harrison, Arkansas, tied for the win in the co-angler division Saturday after each bringing three bass to the scale that totaled 8 pounds, 12 ounces. McCain pocketed $1,500, while Hedrick – who also won the $270 Berkley Big Bass award on the co-angler side for catching a fish that weighed 4 pounds, 8 ounces – took home $1,770.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Jamie McCain, Lake Lotawana, Mo., three bass, 8-12, $1,500
1st: Dustin Hedrick, Harrison, Ark., three bass, 8-12, $1,770
3rd: Vincent Jones, Robertsville, Mo., three bass, 8-6, $666
4th: JD Tate, Spokane, Mo., three bass, 8-2, $411
4th: Walt Hammond, Lees Summit, Mo., three bass, 8-2, $411
4th: Steve Treiber, Eureka, Mo., three bass, 8-2, $411
7th: Mark Dettling Jr., Park Hills, Mo., three bass, 8-1, $333
8th: Bradley Pierce, Gretna, Neb., three bass, 7-15, $300
9th: Brock Tabor, Harrison, Ark., three bass, 7-14, $267
10th: Garrett Sanders, Fredericktown, Mo., three bass, 7-10, $233
After three events, boater Eric Olliverson of Shell Knob, Missouri, now leads the Fishing Clash Ozark Division Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 736 points, while Jamie McCain of Lake Lotawana, Missouri, leads the Fishing Clash Ozark Division Co-Angler of the Year race with 712 points.
The next event for BFL Ozark Division anglers will be held June 14, at Truman Lake out of Warsaw, Missouri.
https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bfl-table-rock-42825.html
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