Hard Hit: DeFoe, Jones Jr. outlast nature in Lake Palestine’s MLF Heavy Hitters

Published 3:46 pm Thursday, April 21, 2022

In two years, Major League Fishing has felt just about everything Mother Nature can throw at it trying to hold a tournament on Lake Palestine.

In 2021 there was sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice that cancelled the event. This year the organization was able to hold its General Tire Heavy Hitters, but the 32-man field was dogged by gusting winds, high pressure, rain, delay-causing lightning, a tornado and then a cold front.

Biologically, even with a full moon approaching, the bass spawn was all screwed up, but the carp seemed to have no trouble finding the shoreline to drop eggs one day only to disappear along with spawning shad and bass on the final day.

Despite the inhospitable conditions, two fishermen came up with big paydays including Ott DeFoe, who won $100,000 for winning the championship round, and Alton Jones Jr., who took home $150,000 for big bass honors in both the knockout round and on championship day. Jones, who lives in Waco, added another $5,000 to his weekly total for finishing fifth overall.

It was the first time on Lake Palestine for both fishermen and much of the field, since this was the first major tournament held on the 25,000-acre lake.

“It worked out in my favor,” said a jubilant Jones of having never fished the lake before.

It wasn’t exactly a giant bass by Palestine standards that Jones won with. It was a 6-4 caught that morning on a Geecrack Bellow Shad, a bait that has not been released to the public yet.

His winning bass could have been much larger. Jones said earlier in the day he was sight-fishing what he estimated as a double-digit female on a bed. The fish actually rolled on the bait once, but knowing how any mistake could cause the fish to leave, he switched to a teaser lure without a hook hoping to get it excited by it, and then he would switch back to one with a hook.

“The first cast she swallows the bait and runs 30 feet before shaking it,” he recalled.

Jones said he thought his big-fish chances swam away with that fish, only to redeem himself with the eventual winner.

DeFoe and Jones found their final-day success fishing the lower end of the lake after breaking away from the pack that stayed mostly north where they had been forced by the first five-day’s weather. Many of the fishermen spent the week in Kickapoo and Flat Creek, because both run east-west and offered some protection from the wind.

DeFoe and Jones’ biggest success came around Emerald Bay where both secured their wins.

The wind, churned water and Palestine’s timber for the most part took away forward-facing sonar, making this more of an old-school tournament.

It was not a stellar day for Tennessee’s DeFoe, who like the rest of the field struggled finding scorable bass. With 40 minutes left he only had two fish for 8-2 and trailed both Justin Lucas and Fletcher Shryock.

Fishing the same waters as Jones had earlier, DeFoe added a 4-10 on a trick worm and then a 3-10 on a swim bait for 16-6, and then held on to win. It was an area he had not been able to fish since practice before the tournament.

“The fish were in there even better,” he said of the last day compared to pre-tournament. “I am not sure why the area in the morning was no good.”

The win was DeFoe’s fourth MLF on Texas waters. His other three came on Lake Fork and Sam Rayburn.

DeFoe made the finals by winning his group, with 57 pounds. Stephen Browning won the second division with 83-10. A catch-weigh-release event, half the fishermen fished the first and third days followed by the other half on days two and four. All bass two pounds and above are recorded, and the top fishermen from each group got an automatic pass to the finals, while the next seven from each participated in a knockout round to determine the eight that would join the two division winners in the one-day championship.

DeFoe, who used his time off to make a run west of Fort Worth for his first Rio Grande turkey, was surprised the final round was not more productive. He added the weather throughout the week did not help.

“We will go somewhere where we have a bad day, but that wind blew four out of six days,” he said. DeFoe added he likes the way Palestine fishes and knows it has big fish.

Jones said the tournament was a week “of a lot of changes, but it worked out in my favor.”

Along with his Heavy Hitter checks, Jones also won $100,000 in MLF’s Stage Two tournament on Lake Fork in February putting together a good year in his home state.

It was hoped the tournament would be a coming-out party for Palestine. It was not.

“This was the toughest week I have ever seen in my life,” said MLF Pro Tour angler Kelly Jordon. Although he did not qualify for the event, as a Lake Palestine resident he was an interested observer.

“The wind was 30 miles per hour out of the south, then 30 miles out of the north. There were cold mornings, and that lightning (Tuesday and Wednesday) is the worst thing that can happen,” he added.

With a full moon the day after the tournament ended and bass just starting to move onto beds, Jordon thought the outcome would be “a lot better.”

“Mother Nature did everything it could to blow this lake out. Especially with the fish trying to spawn,” Jordon said.