More than 200 anglers compete in FLW Toyota Series Championship on Lake Cumberland

Ohio resident Chris Malone wins by 1‑pound, 3‑ounce margin, takes home top prize of $235,000

BURNSIDE, Ky. (Dec. 5, 2020) – Pro Chris Mal­one of Iron­ton, Ohio, brought a five-bass lim­it to the stage weigh­ing 12 pounds, 5 ounces, Sat­ur­day to claim the title of Toy­ota Series Cham­pi­on at the 2020 Toy­ota Series Cham­pi­onship on Lake Cum­ber­land. Mal­one, with a three-day total of 15 bass for 41 pounds even, won by a 1‑pound, 3‑ounce mar­gin over sec­ond-place angler Cameron Line­back of Mount Airy, North Car­oli­na, who caught a three-day total of 15 bass weigh­ing 39–13. Mal­one held steady in third place the first two days of com­pe­ti­tion before shoot­ing to first on Sat­ur­day to walk away with $235,000, includ­ing the lucra­tive $35,000 FLW PHOENIX Bonus.

Saturday’s final weigh-in marked the finale of the 2020 Toy­ota Series sea­son, which fea­tured thou­sands of anglers from across the globe.

“I opened a boat shop in 2010 and took some time off from com­pet­i­tive fish­ing, but when I saw the cham­pi­onship was at Lake Cum­ber­land again, I knew I need­ed to fish the Toy­ota Series,” said Mal­one. “I want­ed to see if I could com­pete because I haven’t com­pet­ed against these guys for a long time.

“I real­ly thought Ryan David­son was going to win this tour­na­ment – he’s the best win­ter fish­er­man I’ve ever fished with. I told him that if I actu­al­ly won, I would pay his 2021 entry fees (to the Tack­le Ware­house Pro Cir­cuit). That $30,000 is a drop in the buck­et com­pared to how I feel right now.

“I’m on a high you can’t come off of – I hon­est­ly wasn’t going to fish next year, but how do you not fish after you just won a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars?”

Mal­one said he caught pret­ty much all of his fish this week on the main lake with main-riv­er chan­nel swings.

“The fish are super shal­low, but they are on top of 25 to 40 foot of water in some of these places,” Mal­one said. “I’ve been catch­ing them crank­ing and on a ½‑ounce Big Dad­dy Baits tail-spin­ner. After get­ting six or sev­en keep­ers, I picked up a big bull shad and tried to catch big ones for the last two hours. I used a G. Loomis IMX Pro rod with a Shi­mano Cura­do reel with 15-pound Seaguar InvizX line. I weighed in three on the RkCrawler and 12 on the spin­ner.

“I went for broke – I went to win,” said Mal­one.

The top 10 pros at the 2020 Toy­ota Series Cham­pi­onship on Lake Cum­ber­land fin­ished:

• 1st: Chris Mal­one, Iron­ton, Ohio, 15 bass, 41–0, $237,500
• 2nd: Cameron Line­back, Mount Airy, N.C., 15 bass, 39–13, $40,000
• 3rd: Drew Bog­gs, Lebanon, Tenn., 15 bass, 37–4, $30,000
• 4th: Dako­ta Ebare, Den­ham Springs, La., 12 bass, 35–11, $25,000
• 5th: Eric Olliv­er­son, Lampe, Mo., 13 bass, 34–15, $20,000
• 6th: Kurt Mitchell, Mil­ford, Del., 14 bass, 34–12, $14,000
• 7th: Michael Caru­so, Peo­ria, Ariz., 12 bass, 32–0, $13,000
• 8th: Trent Palmer, Cum­ming, Ga., 12 bass, 28–15, $12,000
• 9th: Hunter Eubanks, Inman, S.C., 11 bass, 28–7, $11,000
• 10th: Andrew Loberg, Rock­lin, Calif., 11 bass, 28–4, $10,000

Full results for the entire field can be found at FLWFishing.com.

Co-angler Matt Greene of Ven­tu­ra, Cal­i­for­nia, weighed in three bass total­ing 10 pounds, 3 ounces, Sat­ur­day to win the top co-angler prize of a new Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horse­pow­er out­board engine, with a three-day total of nine bass weigh­ing 24–6. Sec­ond place went to co-angler Mario Rio­jas of Blan­chard, Okla­homa, who weighed in a three-day total of nine bass weigh­ing 19–11, good for $12,500.

The top 10 co-anglers at the 2020 Toy­ota Series Cham­pi­onship on Lake Cum­ber­land fin­ished:

• 1st: Matt Greene, Ven­tu­ra, Calif., nine bass, 24–6, Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horse­pow­er out­board
• 2nd: Mario Rio­jas, Blan­chard, Okla., nine bass, 19–11, $12,500
• 3rd: Travis Otto, Jef­fer­son City, Mo., nine bass, 17–7, $10,000
• 4th: Lan­don Huff, Madi­son, Ga., nine bass, 16–3, $7,500
• 5th: Lar­ry Elliott, Enoree, S.C., eight bass, 15–4, $5,000
• 6th: Justin Kim­mel, Athens, Ga., five bass, 14–0, $4,000
• 7th: Don White, Colum­bus, Miss., six bass, 13–15, $3,500
• 8th: Mason Chap­man, Lake Quivi­ra, Kan., eight bass, 13–11, $3,000
• 9th: Mor­gan Brown, Span­ish Fort, Ala., six bass, 13–0, $3,000
• 10th: Jarvis Ellis, Albany, Ga., four bass, 12–3, $2,000

The 2020 Toy­ota Series Cham­pi­onship at Lake Cum­ber­land was host­ed by the Som­er­set Tourist & Con­ven­tion Com­mis­sion and the Burn­side Tourism Com­mis­sion. The three-day, no entry fee tour­na­ment fea­tured a field of 221 boaters and co-anglers from each of the eight Toy­ota Series divi­sions and tour­na­ment win­ners, the high­est fin­ish­ing boater and co-angler from each region­al at the All-Amer­i­can, the Col­lege Fish­ing Nation­al Cham­pi­ons and sec­ond-place team, and the top pros and co-anglers from the FLW Inter­na­tion­al Divi­sion.

“Som­er­set tourism in con­junc­tion with Burn­side tourism is thrilled to host the 2020 FLW Toy­ota Series Cham­pi­onship on Lake Cum­ber­land,” said Leslie Ikerd, direc­tor of tourism, Som­er­set & Con­ven­tion Com­mis­sion. “The excite­ment to host anglers from across our coun­try was palat­able and every­one we have encoun­tered has been so com­pli­men­ta­ry of our event staff and com­mu­ni­ty. The FLW team has been out­stand­ing and a com­plete joy to work along­side through­out this process – we look for­ward to hav­ing them back to Lake Cum­ber­land in the future.”

Lake Cum­ber­land boasts more shore­line than the coast of Flori­da and attracts over 4 mil­lion vis­i­tors per year.

“We love hav­ing the spot­light of the Unit­ed States and oth­er nations direct­ly on Lake Cum­ber­land, Burn­side and Som­er­set, Ken­tucky,” said Frank Crab­tree, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Burn­side Tourism and Recre­ation Com­mis­sion. “Lake Cum­ber­land con­tin­ues to grow as one of the best fish­eries and a top vaca­tion spot with­in a days’ dri­ve in the East­ern part of the nation. Launch­ing the 2020 Toy­ota Series Cham­pi­onship from the beau­ti­ful Burn­side Island con­tin­ues to show­case our eas­i­ly acces­si­ble nat­ur­al beau­ty and ameni­ties.”

For com­plete details and updat­ed infor­ma­tion vis­it FLWFishing.com.