Missouri pro reels in $200K with three-day total of 41 pounds, 1 ounce, MLF Italy’s Giovanni Ceccarelli wins co-angler division
GROVE, Okla. (Nov. 8, 2025) – The final day of the 2025 Toyota Series Championship Presented by Phoenix Boats
on Grand Lake will go down as one the tightest of all-time. Entering Championship Saturday, four Ozark stalwarts were ounces apart – in theory shooting it out with jigs and spinnerbaits for the win. Then, the power-fishing bite crumbled, and Drew Gill, Tucker Smith and Riley Harris blitzed up the leaderboard, picking off fish after fish with forward-facing sonar.
At weigh-in, Smith and Gill both weighed over 14 pounds, by far the biggest bags of the day. But, with 11 pounds, 7 ounces, Roger Fitzpatrick had just enough to hang on, moving up from second to first with 41-1 and beating Gill for the win via tiebreak, which is previous day’s standing first and then heaviest single-day catch, both of which favored the veteran angler.
For the win, which is his 13th with MLF in nearly 250 events, Fitzpatrick took home $200,000 plus a berth in REDCREST 2026 – which just so happens to be at Table Rock Lake, where he’s won twice before with MLF. Though Fitzpatrick had come oh so close many times in the Phoenix Bass Fishing League All-American, he’d never won it or a Toyota Series event until now. Throw in a Fishing Clash Angler of the Year title in the Plains Division, and it’s clear that Fitzpatrick waited until age 61 to have his best year yet.
As someone who has been cashing checks with MLF/FLW since 1995, Fitzpatrick has plenty of experience when it comes to winning, but he’s probably going to need to fish for another 30 years or so to replicate this one.
“When I pulled into the buoys down here, I was hoping I would stay in the Top 10,” he said. “I was never nervous all day. The whole afternoon, I thought I needed at least one good fish to have a shot at this. I left biting fish on some docks – they weren’t big, but I had two fish in there that weren’t 2 pounds. When it was all said and done and was this close, I thought I probably messed up and didn’t cull those 2-pounders out.”
At the docks, with anglers bagging fish and swapping reports, Fitzpatrick realized that instead of a definite drop in the standings, he might have done enough to win, or at least make it close.
“People started saying how tough it was, and nobody had anything,” he said. “Toby Hartsell watched the livestream, and he said, ‘It’s going to be closer than you think.’”
On stage with weighmaster Chris Jones and Gill, Fitzpatrick watched the readout on the scale with rapt attention as Jones took his hand off the bag.
“Whenever he threw it down, it went 11-8, 11-7, 11-8, 11-7 – it wasn’t going 11-6,” said Fitzpatrick. “I was hoping he’d lock it at 11-8. I knew Justin [Luetkemeyer] didn’t have it. But when it locked in at 11-7, I was like ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”
With the top four finishers all separated by just 4 ounces, it’s almost certain that each of them (and perhaps others farther down the standings) lost a fish or two that cost them the ounces they needed to separate themselves from the rest of the pack, Fitzpatrick included. But regardless of the outcome, Fitzpatrick isn’t one to sweat the small stuff.
“I can’t believe there’s a God that’s so big that he listens to a prayer of a fisherman,” he said. “I give it all to Him. You can’t stop it if He’s in control. You can’t stop it. There’s no doubt He had His hand in every bit of it.”
The amount of money won on a spinnerbait in Oklahoma and the Ozark region is pretty much incalculable, but $200,000 was added to the tally this week. Near the end of practice, Fitzpatrick hit upon the pattern, which happened to be firmly in his wheelhouse.
“I got keyed in at 4 o’clock the last day of practice,” he said. “I pulled into a spot at the mouth of Wolf Creek out by the bridge, and I caught a 5-pounder on a spinnerbait. I thought, ‘That was a fluke.’ So, I went a little further, and I caught another one. I put a little rubber deal on my hook to not catch anymore, and I got two more bites. One of them didn’t drop it; he was a big one. My plan, until then, was fishing at the dam, 20-foot boat docks with a 3/4-ounce jig. That’s what I was all-in on until this happened.”
After a day of thinking it over, Fitzpatrick decided to abandon the deep docks. Instead, he spooled up some 7-foot, 4-inch St. Croix Legend Xtreme rods with 20-pound P-Line Fluorocarbon on 8.1:1 Daiwa Tatula reels and tied on a few 1-ounce Omega double-willow spinnerbaits with a big No. 7 blade to imitate gizzard shad.
Fishing shade and cables, Fitzpatrick went to work, poking his boat in and out of the many docks that Grand Lake offers.
“If it had a cable behind the dock, it was almost automatic,” he said. “They were laying on those cables. It’s an Ozark thing. The 1-ounce also was key. Late in the day, the first two days, they got real shallow; I probably didn’t need a 1-ounce. But until that time, they were out in 5 feet of water, and that 1-ounce hugs the bottom – it immediately goes to the bottom. I could cover more water with it.”
Fishing mostly near Wolf Creek, Fitzpatrick made it up into the Elk River a little as well. On the final day, he bolstered his bag with a few fish caught on a 1/2-ounce Omega Flippin’ Jig trailered with a Bojangle Baits Nos Craw.
For most of the final day, the conditions weren’t optimal for Fitzpatrick’s bite, even though the ‘Scope-friendly calm in the morning gave way to pre-frontal winds in the afternoon.
“It didn’t get here soon enough, I don’t think,” he said. “We had a morning where it was just glass out there, and it was high pressure for the most part. I had several fish nip the blades and just not eat it. This afternoon, I thought I might catch them because it did start to blow, but it was blowing a different direction than the banks I wanted to fish. When I caught them, it was a southeast wind, and it was blowing into one pocket where I started, where I caught several big fish, and the wind did not hit it at all today.”
Still, old-school Ozark skills got it done once again on Grand Lake. Now, Fitzpatrick already has his wheels spinning for REDCREST this coming spring. There, the veteran Ozark angler will have a chance to put on a show on the biggest stage yet.
“April can be touchy; it’s probably going to be close to the spawn, if not spawn,” he said. “So, it’s pretty much anybody’s game. I don’t think it’ll be a ‘Scopin’ deal so much. I’m looking forward to it. I can’t imagine I get to go. It’s outstanding.”
The top 25 pros at the 2025 Toyota Series Championship Presented by Phoenix Boats on Grand Lake finished:
1st: Roger Fitzpatrick, Eldon, Mo., 15 bass, 41-1, $200,000
2nd: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 15 bass, 41-1, $50,000
3rd: Tucker Smith, Birmingham, Ala., 15 bass, 40-15, $40,000
4th: Riley Harris, Orange, Texas, 15 bass, 40-13, $35,000
5th: Adam Boehle, Warrenton, Mo., 15 bass, 40-2, $21,000 (includes $1,000 Phoenix MLF Bonus)
6th: Hayden O’Barr, Scottsboro, Ala., 15 bass, 40-1, $24,000
7th: Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, 15 bass, 40-0, $23,000
8th: Banks Shaw, Harrison, Tenn., 15 bass, 39-3, $12,000
9th: Justin Luetkemeyer, Osage Beach, Mo., 15 bass, 38-14, $11,000
10th: Eli Brumnett, Wagoner, Okla., 15 bass, 38-11, $20,000
11th: Buddy Benson, Dahlonega, Ga., 15 bass, 38-10, $4,500
12th: Benjamin Travis, Guntersville, Ala., 15 bass, 38-5, $4,500
13th: Jack Daniel Williams, Kingsport, Tenn., 15 bass, 38-0, $4,500
14th: Broderick Luckey, Lynchburg, Va., 15 bass, 37-13, $4,500
15th: Bradley Sullivan, Shawnee, Okla., 15 bass, 37-10, $4,500
16th: Lee Livesay, Longview, Texas, 15 bass, 37-9, $3,500
17th: Dillon Falardeau, Hixson, Tenn., 15 bass, 37-4, $3,500
18th: Chance Shelby, Denham Springs, La., 15 bass, 37-2, $3,500
19th: T.J. Martin, Claremore, Okla., 15 bass, 37-0, $3,500
20th: Greg Bohannan, Bentonville, Ark., 14 bass, 36-15, $3,500
21st: Brody Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, 15 bass, 36-13, $3,000
22nd: Travis Pitt, Niceville, Fla., 14 bass, 36-8, $3,000
23rd: Carter Nutt, Nashville, Tenn., 15 bass, 36-1, $3,000
24th: Tyler Weberg, Eugene, Mo., 13 bass, 34-1, $3,000
25th: Shane Long, Willard, Mo., 11 bass, 31-7, $3,000
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
The top-finishing boater from each division (not including the winner) earned a $10,000 bonus. Those anglers included:
Central: Hayden O’Barr, Scottsboro, Ala., 6th place, $10,000
Northern: Tucker Smith, Birmingham, Ala., 3rd place, $10,000
Plains: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 2nd place, $10,000
Southern: Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, 7th place, $10,000
Southwestern: Riley Harris, Orange, Texas, 4th place, $10,000
Wild Card: Eli Brumnett, Wagoner, Okla., 10th place, $10,000
International: Luca Vittorio Della Ciana, Perugia, Italy, 46th place, $10,000
Overall, there were 118 bass weighing 267 pounds, 1 ounce caught by 25 pros Saturday. The catch included 21 five-bass limits.
MLF Italy’s Giovanni Ceccarelli brought four bass to the scale weighing 7 pounds, 1 ounce to win the co-angler division of the 2025 Toyota Series Championship and earn a new Phoenix 518 pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower outboard engine, worth $33,500.
Ceccarelli’s three-day total of 14 bass weighing 27-2 earned him the victory by a 14-ounce margin over second-place co-angler Jeremy Bouldin, who weighed in 10 bass weighing 26-4 over the three days of competition, good for the second-place prize of $12,600.
The top 25 co-anglers at the 2025 Toyota Series Championship Presented by Phoenix Boats on Grand Lake finished:
1st: Giovanni Ceccarelli, Rimini, Italy, 14 bass, 27-2, Phoenix 518 pro w/115-hp outboard
2nd: Jeremy Bouldin, Kings Mountain, N.C., 10 bass, 26-4, $12,600
3rd: Michael Luckey, Lynchburg, Va., 11 bass, 25-2, $10,000
4th: James Cobbs, Vinemont, Ala., 12 bass, 24-14, $7,500
5th: Glenn Hall, Wellsville, N.Y., 11 bass, 24-4, $5,000
6th: Jakob Labelle, Hinesburg, Vt., 11 bass, 24-2, $4,000
7th: Scott Standafer, Milford, Ohio, 12 bass, 23-13, $3,500
8th: Tommy Pritchard, Bargersville, Ind., 10 bass, 21-5, $3,000
9th: Ben Burk, Norman, Okla., nine bass, 20-11, $2,500
10th: Kade Wesner, Lancaster, Pa., 11 bass, 19-12, $2,000
11th: Brent Jones, Okeana, Ohio, eight bass, 19-6, $1,800
12th: Les Brandenburg, Springfield, Mo., 10 bass, 19-5, $1,500
13th: Jason Wiley, Swainsboro, Ga., nine bass, 18-9, $1,500
14th: Joshua Paul, Oliver Springs, Tenn., six bass, 17-9, $1,500
15th: Will Lancett, Jacksonville, Ark., eight bass, 17-6, $1,500
16th: Mark King, Gurdon, Ark., nine bass, 17-0, $1,000
17th: Alex Moore, Chester, Ill., seven bass, 16-13, $1,000
18th: Kenny Manning, Bethpage, Tenn., seven bass, 16-12, $1,000
19th: Kyle Malone, Troy, Ohio, eight bass, 16-9, $1,000
20th: Ryan Steinhoff, Beulah, Colo., eight bass, 16-4, $1,000
21st: DJ Pugh, Overland Park, Kan., eight bass, 15-10, $900
22nd: Pop Catalin, Cookeville, Tenn., eight bass, 15-10, $900
23rd: Brian Durham, Dinwiddie, Va., seven bass, 15-6, $900
24th: Noah Dickneite, Freeburg, Mo., seven bass, 13-8, $900
25th: David Johnson, Memphis, Tenn., seven bass, 13-3, $900
The 2025 Toyota Series Championship Presented by Phoenix Boats at Grand Lake was hosted by the City of Grove and the Grove Convention & Tourism Bureau . The three-day, no-entry-fee championship event featured more than 350 pros and co-anglers from around the world competing for the top cash award of up to $235,000, plus numerous contingency bonuses.
The 2025 Toyota Series Championship Presented by Phoenix Boats will air on VICE Sports January 4 and January 11, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET.
The full field of anglers competed on Days 1 and 2 of the event, with the top 25 pros and top 25 co-anglers based on cumulative weight from the first two days continuing to the third and final day. The 2025 Toyota Series champions were determined by the heaviest three-day total weight.
The 2025 Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats consisted of five divisions – Central, Northern, Plains, Southern and Southwestern – each holding three regular-season events, along with the MLF International division and the Wild Card. The highest finishing pro from each division at the championship will claim a $10,000 bonus. The bonus will go to the second-highest finishing pro in the division represented by the overall champion.
The 2025 Toyota Series Championship field featured the top 25 pros, top 25 co-anglers and tournament winners from each of the five divisions; the top 25 pros and 25 co-anglers from the Wild Card division plus tournament winners; the highest finishing boater and co-angler from each Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine Regional and the TBF at the All-American; the top three teams from the College Fishing National Championship; High School Fishing National Champions; TBF National Champions; and MLF International anglers from Canada, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and South Africa.
Fitzpatrick Wins 2025 Toyota Series Championship
