March is widely regarded as the best month of the year to catch a big bass, so it’s fitting that the Bass Pro Tour is taking up residence in a state that has a strong claim to be the lunker capital of the country – Texas.
During the course of the month, BPT pros will visit four fisheries across two events in the Lone Star State. First up is Champion Teamwear Stage 3 Presented by MillerTech on Lakes Whitney and Waco this Thursday through Sunday. Then, Stage 4 will take the 51-angler field west to O.H. Ivie and Lake Brownwood March 26-29.
The next two events will, of course, play a significant role in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race. But they’ll be even more pivotal in the other season-long competition for BPT pros – qualifying for Heavy Hitters.
In case you don’t know, Heavy Hitters is an annual, no-entry-fee “all-star” event with juiced up daily big bass bonuses, which increase each round up to $100,000 for catching the biggest bass of the Championship Round. Qualification is determined by the sum of the biggest bass caught by each angler at every regular-season event, with the top 30 pros making the field for 2027.
Unlike the Angler of the Year race, every tournament doesn’t necessarily carry equal weight in the Heavy Hitters standings, and Stages 3 and 4 could be a real difference-maker. No one has won more Heavy Hitters cash than Alton Jones Jr., who took home $150,000 in big bass bonuses in 2022 then blew the field away to win the championship belt in 2023. Since the 2026 Bass Pro Tour schedule was announced, he’s had the Texas swing circled. Look for him to prioritize getting a couple big bites during the next two events, even if he has to deviate from his primary pattern to do so.
“These next two tournaments that we’re going to have are going to make or break Heavy Hitters,” Jones said. “You’re going to have guys that leave here with a big fish of 3 1/2 pounds, and you’re going to have guys that leave here with 9-pounders. Or, at Ivie, a 14-pounder.
“So, there’s a lot on the line, more than just points here. These are the two events that you circle where you’ve got to get a big bite.”
Jones, who lives near Lakes Whitney and Waco and has years of experience on both fisheries, expects a few big bass to hit SCORETRACKER® at Stage 3 – possibly even a 10-pounder. However, he doesn’t think there will be a ton of big ones caught, especially for those anglers who fail to make the Knockout Round cut. The two-day Qualifying Round will take place on Whitney, which, while it might have better numbers of bass, typically doesn’t produce the same quality as Waco.
As Jones noted, we could see anglers gaining 6 or 7 pounds on some of their peers in the Heavy Hitters standings at this event. For reference, the difference between Jacob Wheeler, the top qualifier for Heavy Hitters 2026 on Orange Lake based off last year’s BPT season, and the last qualifiers (a three-way tie between Nick LeBrun, John Hunter and Takahiro Omori) was 6-13.
There could be an even larger gap between the haves and have-nots at Stage 4. O.H. Ivie has emerged as the nation’s premier giant factory in recent years. It’s produced more Legacy Class ShareLunkers (bass over 13 pounds) than any other Texas lake five years running. There’s a real chance someone catches the first “teener” in BPT history there.
But those giants aren’t easy to fool – as evidenced by the Fishing Clash Team Series event held on O.H. Ivie and Brownwood in the fall of 2024. The bite was especially tricky at that event, but only one bass over 4 pounds hit SCORETRACKER® across three days of competition on Ivie.
Expect to hear lots of pros talking about finding a “Heavy Hitters fish” during the next two events. By the time the calendar flips to April, some anglers will have all but sealed a spot in the field, and some will be facing a steep climb.
AOY update: Rookies on top, sharks circling
As for the Angler of the Year competition, there’s still lots of season left that could shake up the standings. But through two events, a pair of rookies are making it apparent that they were ready for the biggest stage.
Jacob Walker leads the points standings after a pair of second-place finishes to start the season. Just five points back of him is fellow rookie Banks Shaw, who finished fifth at Lake Guntersville and fourth at Hartwell.
We’ve seen quite a few examples in recent years of rookies tasting immediate success upon arriving to the Bass Pro Tour. Each of the past three seasons, a newcomer has both won an event and finished in the top two of the AOY standings – Matt Becker in 2023, Drew Gill in 2024 and Jake Lawrence in 2025. However, never since 2019 (when everyone was new to the Bass Pro Tour) have two rookies finished among the Top 10.
Shaw and Walker should have staying power near the top of the standings. Both have shown the ability to catch bass all over the country. Walker notched three Top 10s in three different states across his two seasons fishing the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals, including a win on Lake Champlain. Shaw’s dominance has been well documented. He won the Angler of the Year and Rookie of the Year titles on the Invitationals last season in record fashion, and he’s now up to 10 Top 10s in his first 11 career tour-level events.
But the pair will have their work cut out to hold onto the top two spots. Just 2 points behind Shaw is Wheeler. The perennial bully of the Bass Pro Tour has won the AOY title four of the last five years, including two in a row. He will, of course, be the biggest threat, but he’s not the only one.
Not far behind Wheeler is Zack Birge. After finishing sixth in the points two years in a row, Birge feels due to truly challenge for an AOY crown for the first time in his strong pro career. A point behind him, Ott DeFoe has finished in the top four of a tour-level AOY race five different seasons, but never won. And tied with DeFoe is Spencer Shuffield, who could be dangerous if he’s still lurking near the lead entering the stretch run. Shuffield has long been money in the second half of the season. Since 2020, he’s finished in the top 20 of 14 of his 19 tour-level events held in June or later. That includes a $200,000 win at the 2022 TITLE and three straight Top 10s to close last year’s BPT season.
Fishing Clash Angler of the Year Top 10:
- Jacob Walker – 158 points
- Banks Shaw – 153
- Jacob Wheeler – 151
- Justin Cooper – 146
- Zack Birge – 143
- Spencer Shuffield – 142
- Ott DeFoe – 142
- Mark Daniels Jr. – 140
- Jacob Wall – 135
- Keith Carson – 135