The Tennessee River turned the tournament into a challenging game of hide-and-seek, offering few bites and even fewer keeper fish. To make matters worse, Mother Nature seemed determined to test every angler in the field, delivering bluebird skies, shifting winds, and falling temperatures throughout the weekend.
Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, the team of Tony Vieson and Jeff Durbin claimed the Day 1 lead with a five-fish limit weighing 9.16 pounds. Close behind were John Holton and Dan Gotforth with 4.12 pounds. The pair flirted with an even stronger showing, but one ambitious bass neglected to grow its final few millimeters before tournament day, leaving them to wonder what might have been.
As if the conditions were not already difficult enough, the Tennessee Valley Authority began lowering the river to winter pool levels, while a strong high-pressure system moved in and completely killed the wind. The result was the third major weather and water-condition change in as many days between practice and the final day of competition.
Neither team let the constantly changing conditions slow them down.
At the final weigh-in, Tony Vieson and Jeff Durbin brought one fish to the scales weighing 1.87 pounds and shared stories of the ones that got away, including a trophy smallmouth bass that repeatedly jumped and rolled before finally throwing the bait Jeff had hooked deep in its mouth. Their catch gave them a two-day total of 10.92 pounds.
In the end, however, it was John Holton and Dan Gotforth who made the winning move. Following a late-day soaking from local pleasure boat traffic, the pair put together a three-fish limit highlighted by the tournament’s Big Bass, a 3.33-pound largemouth. Their final two-day weight of 11.26 pounds was enough to secure the victory and claim the title in the club’s final tournament of the 2026 season.
Congratulations to John Holton and Dan Gotforth, the final champions of the 2026 season.