CHARLES COUNTY, Md. (Major League Fishing) — Team Seaguar BRAWLR’s Bradley Roy of Lancaster, Kentucky, and Greg Vinson of Wetumpka, Alabama, saved their best performance of the week for when it mattered most Friday, dominating the Championship Round of the Bass Pro Shops Patriot Cup Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches on the Potomac River with 46 scorable bass weighing 92 pounds, 5 ounces.
The longtime friends and travel roommates turned Championship Day into a runaway, building separation from the field throughout the day and finishing with a commanding margin to claim the Patriot Cup title.
Behind them, the battle for the remaining positions stayed much tighter. Team YETI’s Jeff Sprague of Wills Point, Texas, and Bryan Thrift of Shelby, North Carolina, mounted a late charge to climb into the runner-up position, continuing their strong history at the Patriot Cup. Despite being among the early contenders for the title, the Team O’Reilly Auto Parts duo of John Hunter of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and Nick Hatfield of Afton, Tennessee, finished third, while Team Lucas Oil’s Jake Lawrence of Paris, Tennessee, and Jacob Walker of Springville, Alabama, rounded out the field with a fourth-place finish.
After limiting competitors to different sections of the Potomac River during the Elimination Rounds and Knockout Rounds, Major League Fishing opened the entire river for Friday’s Championship Round, giving the four remaining teams the freedom to run the tide and revisit productive water from throughout the week – an opportunity Roy and Vinson took full advantage of.
The Team Seaguar BRAWLR duo started fast in Accokeek Creek, near Potomac Creek, and quickly separated themselves from the field. Vinson led the early charge as the pair amassed 14 scorable bass for 28-13 in Period 1, taking a 7-pound advantage over Team O’Reilly Auto Parts into the first break.
“The first two days we started slowly and had to close strong, so thankfully today we got into a little section and finally had a strong start,” Roy said. “That little flurry right out of the gate was a big deal. We knew if we could find another group like that and put another 20 pounds on SCORETRACKER®, we could make it really hard on everybody else. We just wanted to keep it going.”
While the entire Potomac River was available to anglers, changing tides remained the biggest variable. The best tidal conditions came early, and as incoming water began to spread fish out across the grass and cover, teams were forced to decide whether to stay with productive areas or use the expanded boundaries to chase a more favorable tide elsewhere.
Roy and Vinson chose patience.
Working roughly a 100- to 150-yard stretch in Accokeek Creek, the longtime friends repeatedly cycled through the same water, primarily fishing drop-shot rigs around wood, subtle depth changes and other cover. Rather than fading as the tide changed, the area continued replenishing with fish.
“We ended the second period feeling good, but we knew those guys behind us could pull into something just like we had and start wrecking them,” Roy said. “We just tried to keep the hammer down and put as much distance as we could between us and second. We kept making the same pass over and over, and it was like those fish were moving up and down with the tide. We caught three right before the last period, so we decided we weren’t leaving until they quit biting.”
They never did.
Team Seaguar BRAWLR continued piling bass onto SCORETRACKER® through the final period, turning a 7-pound advantage after Period 1 into a runaway Championship Round victory. Their 92-5 total was more than 40 pounds heavier than any single-day team total posted during the rest of the week, with Vinson accounting for nearly 49 pounds individually.
“We thought we had something special, but we didn’t know it was going to be like that,” Roy said. “It was just an awesome day.”
For Vinson, the victory was even sweeter because of the teammate standing beside him. He and Roy have been travel roommates for roughly 17 years and have spent countless hours discussing tournament strategy and breaking down fisheries, but the Team Series has provided a rare opportunity to apply that shared knowledge from the same boat.
“I’m just thankful it worked out,” Vinson said. “Bradley is one of my best friends, and we’ve talked fishing, talked about what we would do and how we’d break things down, but normally we’re at tournaments fishing individually and competing against each other. To finally get to do it together as a team and walk away with two beautiful trophies after an unbelievable day of fishing – you couldn’t script it any better.”
Roy agreed that their years of familiarity made the team dynamic almost instinctive.
“This Team Series is so much fun,” Roy said. “We’ve spent 17 years talking about fishing and we think alike about things, so finally having the opportunity to get in the same boat and put it all together is pretty special. We kind of know what the other guy is feeling – whether we need to turn around, stay another pass or go somewhere else. It was fun to finally put all of that together.”
Although no team seriously threatened Seaguar BRAWLR’s massive lead down the stretch, Team YETI provided the final drama of Championship Day. Sprague and Thrift entered the final period in fourth place before returning to the docks on the northern end of the fishery that had fueled their Knockout Round comeback one day earlier.
The move paid off again. Sprague generated several quality bites with a vibrating jig while Thrift followed behind with a drop-shot rig, and the former Patriot Cup champions steadily climbed SCORETRACKER® from fourth into second. Their late surge wasn’t enough to challenge Roy and Vinson’s commanding total, but it secured the runner-up finish in this event and gave the Team YETI duo of Sprague and Thrift a first- or second-place finish in two of the three Patriot Cups the duo has competed in.
