Alabama angler wins $100,000 in MLF tourney here

“I get here, and the banks look identical to Smith Lake. I mean, identical. And the fish set up identical. It seemed like I could call my shot, all week long.”

Wiggins spent the tournament targeting boat docks with a homemade shaky-head rig. After winning the Group A Qualifying Round, he advanced directly into Thursday’s Championship Round.

“I did exactly what I wanted to do, all week,” Wiggins said. “I grew up throwing a worm – that’s all we did. And we finally get a lake where they’re spawning and they’re biting the shaky-head. When they’re on that thing, I feel like I can win.”

Wiggins shaky-head rig was homemade – he fished both a 1/8-ounce and a 3/16-ounce – and he credited his key bait as being a watermelon-candy-colored Jackall Flick Shake worm.

“I always throw my shaky-heads on my 7-foot, 1-inch extra fast St. Croix Legend Elite rod – medium-heavy – with a Quantum Smoke S3 reel,” Wiggins said. “My line was Seaguar – Smackdown 30-pound braid and a 12-pound (Seaguar) Invisx leader . I worked with 12-pound because the water was dingy, and I was throwing it mainly around docks and cables.

“To come away with a win, first place against these guys – Lord have mercy, I can’t even put it into words,” Wiggins went on to say. “My support system back home – they all sacrifice so much. My wife Haley, River, my mom, Haley’s mom, Haley’s sisters, my grandma, my brothers – it’s crazy how much they sacrifice just for me to come out here and chase these things. I am so happy to win this for them. I can’t wait to bring this trophy back home to Addison.”

The top 10 pros from the Bass Boat Technologies Stage Four on Lake of the Ozarks Presented by Bass Cat finished:

1^{st –} Jesse Wiggins, Addison, Ala., 11 bass, 27-11, $100,000

2^{nd –} Dean Rojas, Lake Havasu City, Ariz., nine bass, 25-4, $45,000

3^rd – Wesley Strader, Spring City, Tenn., six bass, 17-11, $38,000

4^{rd –} Stephen Browning, Hot Springs, Ark., five bass, 14-0, $32,000

5^{th –} Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., five bass, 13-2, $30,000

6^{th –} Kelly Jordon, Flint, Texas, four bass, 11-11, $26,000

7^{th –} Andy Morgan, Dayton, Tenn., four bass, 10-9, $23,000

8^{th –} Mark Rose, Wynne, Ark., three bass, 10-4, $21,000

9^{th –} Jonathon VanDam, Kalamazoo, Mich., two bass, 4-3, $19,000

10^{th –} Jeremy Lawyer, Sarcoxie, Mo., zero bass, 0-0, $16,000

Full results for the entire field can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall there were 49 scorable bass weighing 134 pounds, 7 ounces caught by the final 10 pros Thursday.