D.C. for Three! Alabama’s Dustin Connell Claims Third Championship Title at Bass Pro Shops REDCREST 2025 Presented by MillerTech Energy at Lake Guntersville

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The 2025 iteration of Bass Pro Shops REDCREST Presented by MillerTech on Lake Guntersville marked the third time Major League Fishing’s championship event has been held in the bass-fishing mecca of Alabama.

For the third time, pro Dustin Connell of Clanton, Alabama, is keeping the trophy in his home state.

Connell ran away from the field on Championship Sunday, both figuratively and literally. After making a roughly 70-mile trek away from the history- and largemouth-rich waters of lower Lake Guntersville to the tailrace below the Nickajack Dam, Connell stacked up 87 pounds, 11 ounces on 27 scorable bass. The best single-day total of any angler at the event (despite a 65-minute delay due to weather), that was enough to hold off a late charge from Wesley Strader by 8-5.

Connell earned $300,000 for the win and further cemented himself as the best big-event performer going. The only angler to win REDCREST multiple times, he’s claimed the title in back-to-back years and three times total – he previously won on Lake Eufaula in 2021 and Lay Lake in 2024. He’s now just the third angler ever with three tour championship titles. Only Bass Fishing Hall of Famers Kevin VanDam and Rick Clunn have won more with four apiece.

Link to Hi-Res Photo of REDCREST 2025 Champion Dustin Connell
Link to HD Video – Fish-Catch Highlights of REDCREST 2025 Day 4 on Lake Guntersville
Link to Photo Gallery of REDCREST 2025 Day 4 Afternoon Highlights

Connell started Day 1 trying to target spawning largemouth at the lower end of the fishery. Pre-tournament chatter suggested that would be the dominant pattern, but Connell caught just one scorable bass during the opening period of the event. He ran to Nickajack in Period 2, but strong winds made for a long trip. He only added one more fish during that period, and at the end of it, he sat in 47^th place out of 50 anglers.

“I just wasn’t catching them,” Connell said. “The wind was blowing again, and there was pollen everywhere. It just was not the deal.

“I get to the dam, and I caught 20-something pounds at the dam late in the day. So, I said, screw this; I’m fishing the whole tournament up there, good, bad or ugly.”

Connell attributed that rally to a bait change. After spending most of the day throwing a 2.5-inch CrushCity The Mayor swimbait, he switched to a CrushCity Mooch Minnow. Even without the aid of forward-facing sonar (he didn’t catch a bass all week that he first saw on his screen), he was able to shake it in the current breaks along the dam’s concrete walls and trigger bites.

“The sun was out, and they kind of quit biting,” Connell said. “I was initially catching them on a Mayor, and I was winding it down the walls. … Well, late in the day, I picked that rod up with a Mooch Minnow on there. And I made like three casts with it, and I caught two back-to-back. And I figured out the bait that they were really wanting, and the action of it.”

Even though he’s been there plenty of times before, Connell called this win extra special. In the moments after lines out, he sat on his front deck, and tears began to flow. He said he was “more shook up with this one” than any of his previous wins.

Connell admitted the start to his 2025 season on the Bass Pro Tour hadn’t been up to his standards. He finished 55^th at the Harris Chain of Lakes and 36^th at Lake Murray, and that wore on him. To not only bounce back but do so with his wife, Victoria, and nearly-one-year-old son, Trent, on hand to celebrate with him for the first time after one of his victories made this one particularly sweet. A dozen or so family members joined him on stage as he lifted the trophy.

“Lately, it ain’t been easy on me,” Connell said. “The last three tournaments, two tournaments I’ve had have been absolutely brutal. I go to Lake Murray, and it’s just a brutal tournament. Florida was brutal. And you’ve got all these people just hating on you and saying, ‘Oh, you can’t catch them without this and that,’ and it just weighs on you.

“I try to surround myself with positive people, and my family, my wife, my little boy – he was here last year, but he wasn’t where I could hold him. And to win this tournament with him and my family here, oh my gosh. I can’t believe it.”

The top 10 pros at REDCREST 2025 Presented by MillerTech Energy at Lake Guntersville finished:

1st: Dustin Connell, Clanton, Ala., 27 bass, 87-11, $300,000
2nd: Wesley Strader, Spring City, Tenn., 29 bass, 79-6, $50,000
3rd: Zack Birge, Blanchard, Okla., 17 bass, 44-12, $40,000
4th: Paul Marks Jr., Cumming, Ga., 15 bass, 43-5, $28,000
5th: Jake Lawrence, Paris, Tenn., 15 bass, 38-10, $25,000
6th: Chris Lane, Guntersville, Ala., 16 bass, 38-10, $20,000
7th: Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., 14 bass, 37-12, $18,000
8th: David Dudley, Lynchburg, Va., 10 bass, 33-8, $16,000
9th: Ron Nelson, Berrien Springs, Mich., six bass, 15-2, $14,500
10th: Bobby Lane, Lakeland, Fla., three bass, 8-5, $12,500

A complete list of results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 152 scorable bass weighing 427 pounds, 1 ounce caught by the final 10 pros on Sunday. Throughout the entire four-day event, the 50 competitors in REDCREST 2025 caught a total of 1,614 scorable bass weighing 4,456 pounds, 4 ounces.

Pro Brent Ehrler earned Sunday’s $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award with a 5-pound, 6-ounce largemouth bass that he caught in Period 1. Berkley awards $1,000 to the angler who weighs the heaviest bass each day.

Bass Pro Shops REDCREST 2025 Presented by MillerTech Energy at Lake Guntersville was hosted by the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association, and the Madison County Commission and showcased the top 50 MLF anglers from 2024.

Television coverage of MLF’s Bass Pro Shops REDCREST 2025 Presented by MillerTech Energy at Lake Guntersville will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. ET, on Saturday, July 5 on Discovery, with the Championship Round premiering on Saturday, July 19. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel and Vice TV.

Proud sponsors of the MLF Bass Pro Tour and REDCREST 2025 include: 7Brew Coffee, Abu Garcia, Athletic Brewing, Bass Force, B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, E3 Sports Apparel, Fishing Clash, Grizzly, Lowrance, Mercury, MillerTech Energy, Mossy Oak Fishing, NITRO, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala, Star brite, Suzuki Marine and Toyota.

About Major League Fishing

Major League Fishing (MLF) is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, producing more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America’s living rooms on CBS, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Channel, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world’s top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 20 countries. Since its founding in 2011, MLF has advanced the sport of competitive fishing through its premier television broadcasts and livestreams and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.