MANCHESTER, Tenn. (Major League Fishing) — For nearly two-thirds of the day on Normandy Lake, Adrian Avena and Jacob Wheeler failed to boat a scorable bass. Team MillerTech bounced from using forward-facing sonar offshore to shallow banks, boat docks, and riprap, but nothing seemed to work.
But once Avena and Wheeler finally got the clue they’d been looking for, the onslaught was on.
Avena and Wheeler charged from the bottom of SCORETRACKER® to the top during Period 3. The duo caught 27 scorable bass weighing 39 pounds, 14 ounces to win the day and advance to Friday’s Championship Round at the Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!® Deep Woods® Repellents.
Team Ferguson’s Brent Ehrler and Justin Lucas delivered the most consistent performance of the day, leading for much of the competition before being overtaken by Avena and Wheeler in the final period. The pair finished second with 20 scorable bass weighing 29-2, comfortably securing the final Championship Round berth by 8 pounds, 12 ounces over Team B&W Trailer Hitches’ Nick LeBrun and Todd Faircloth. LeBrun and Faircloth held their own early but struggled to maintain momentum during the second half of the day, ultimately finishing third with 13 bass weighing 20-6 and bringing their Heritage Cup run to an end.
Adapting with conditions keys comeback
The one-two punch of a jighead minnow and a jigging spoon got the job done for Avena and Wheeler. Photo by Tyler Brinks
Wheeler and Avena dominated their Elimination Match on Tims Ford Lake. But on a new fishery that neither had experienced in Normandy, Thursday looked to be trending much different.
The tandem began the morning searching for bass with forward-facing sonar, targeting baitfish suspended around standing timber in the deeper drains and pockets of Normandy Lake. Despite locating plenty of fish, they struggled to generate bites, remaining scoreless for the first 2 hours and 45 minutes of competition.
Finally, changing conditions began to position the baitfish and bass in a way that allowed Wheeler and Avena to capitalize. As the sun climbed higher, scattered baitfish began concentrating into tighter schools and moving deeper in the water column, drawing bass into more predictable groups. The duo eventually located fish in two separate drains, where they found bass actively feeding around schools of baitfish approximately 20 to 25 feet below the surface.
That discovery was key. Using forward-facing sonar to track the fast-moving fish, Wheeler and Avena developed an effective one-two punch with minnows and spoons, triggering a flurry of catches that rapidly erased their deficit and propelled them past Ehrler and Lucas during the final period.
“That was definitely a grind for most of the first two periods,” Wheeler said. “We finally figured it out, and it was a combination of several different things. We caught some on a minnow and some on a spoon, and we made the right adjustment in that last period. I feel like we really got dialed in, and we both started making good casts and working together.”
Avena said the key was recognizing how the fish were positioning around the bait and making precise presentations as the schools moved through the deeper water.
“When these bass are roaming on bait, they’re moving really fast,” Avena said. “If you’re not making a precise cast, especially when they’re down at 20 or 25 feet, you’re not going to catch them. This afternoon, they started sitting closer to the bottom and grouping up tight. We’d catch them on a minnow, pull that group toward the boat and then drop a spoon on their heads. It was an effective one-two punch.”
The shift in fish behavior proved particularly important on a lake where the fall transition had produced inconsistent fishing throughout the Knockout Round. Early in the day, Wheeler and Avena could see bass following their presentations on forward-facing sonar without committing. As baitfish began schooling more tightly, however, the bass became increasingly aggressive, competing for the same presentations and allowing the pair to catch multiple fish from productive areas.
Wheeler said the timing of their discovery was just as important as finding the right locations.
“A lot of times in the morning, those fish will be floating high in the bait and moving around,” Wheeler said. “As the day goes on, they start to congregate. We got into a good position where those fish were grouping up around the bait, and we were able to get on them. We just had to keep adapting and looking for that bite.”
The duo’s ability to replicate the pattern in multiple drains proved to be the difference-maker, with both anglers double-digit scorable bass. Their catches included all three black bass species – largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass – highlighting the diversity of Normandy and the effectiveness of their approach.
Avena said the turnaround was especially satisfying after spending much of the morning searching for answers.
“We literally tried a little bit of everything,” he said. “Finally, we got the right clue in one little area. We knew there might be a handful of places like that on the lake, and once we stumbled into one, we just kept rolling.”
Championship Round is set
Four teams will battle it out on a new fishery Friday with the Heritage Cup trophies on the line. Joining Team MillerTech and Team Ferguson will be Michael Neal and Wesley Strader of Team Lucas Oil as well as Team Star brite’s Bobby and Chris Lane.
Watch all the action on the RFDTV+ livestream from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps, and the Major League Fishing channel on Rumble. In addition, the final hour of competition will be broadcast live from 4-5 p.m. ET on RFD-TV.
STREAM LIVE: MLF HERITAGE CUP
