WALKER, Minn. — The only thing that stood taller than Laker Howell at in north central Minnesota last week was the fishing rod he used to win the Leech Lake Bassmaster Open.
At 6-foot-5, the pro from Guntersville, Ala., armed himself with a 7-foot-9 medium-action Daiwa Kage swimbait rod and leaned on his largemouth prowess to tally a two-day total of 39 pounds, 13 ounces. Turning in daily weights of 19-10 and 20-3, Howell edged Texan Jace Lindsay by a pound. The event was shortened to two days due to windy conditions that forced day 1 to be canceled.
“I don’t even have the words; I gotta thank the Lord right now,” a tearful Howell said. “Everyone who does this for a living understands why I’m crying. There’s so much you put into it. All the emotion, all the hard work. The late nights, the early mornings, all the YouTube fishing videos you study.”
For his efforts, Howell took home the top prize of $47,000 and earned a berth in the 2026 Bassmaster Classic March 13-15 at the Tennessee River in Knoxvill, Tenn. Notably, his father, Bassmaster Elite Series pro Randy Howell, won the 2014 Bassmaster Classic at Lake Guntersville.
Howell committed his tournament to a football field size wild rice field near Boy Bay. Catching largemouth in 2 1/2 to 5 feet of water, he looked for deeper pockets with relatively clean bottom. Also important were obvious ambush spots such as a turn in rice edge.
“This area had the best looking rice with a mix of milfoil and a pad field zone,” Howell said. “All that mixing together with deep water turned into a good tournament.
“I caught them in the same place I caught them (during last year’s Open at Leech),” Howell said, in reference to his 2024 22nd-place finish. “Lord have mercy, I didn’t even have a clue this was a possibility.”
Throwing a Snagproof frog in the mossback color, Howell paired that 7-9 rod with a Daiwa Kage 150 reel, which afforded him plenty of spool capacity for 70-pound Daiwa Samurai braid. This outfit played a key role in reaching his fish, as the lake’s rice fields are off limits to recreational boats, due to their cultural significance to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
“I don’t understand these Minnesota smallmouth,” Howell said of his largemouth game plan. “They’re a lot smarter, this water is super clear, they get ’Scoped (forward facing sonar) a lot. There are a lot of variables that go into it.
“The majority of the field was doing that, so the way I saw it, I just fished my strength and went frogging, because that’s what I love to do. I made a check doing it (in 2024), so I came up here just to make a check and I made a pretty good one.”
Howell caught all of his Day 2 weight by about 9:30 a.m. The action started early and the sting of a deflating loss quickly faded with a day-making catch.
“This morning, I lost one that I really thought was going to cost me,” Howell said. “I threw my frog by the edge of some grass and rice and the fish just sucked it down. I set the hook and it started coming up, but it came off and I was like, ‘This is gonna haunt me later.’
“Two casts later, I caught a 5 1/4. I guess God said, ‘Now watch this. We’re gonna turn that around really quick.’”
Lindsay placed ninth on Day 1 with 20-10 and gained seven spots with his second-round bag that went 18-3. Fishing the jig head minnow application, he caught his fish on a Deps Sackamata Shad and a Z-Man Scented Jerk ShadZ.
“These smallmouth are really smart out here and I think the scent from that Z-Man Jerk ShadZ really helped me get couple of those extra bites,” Lindsay said. “It was a grind out there today. You’re fishing for five when there’s this much pressure on this place.”
Lindsay targeted boulders on slight drops. In his view, the boulders sitting on the offshore flats were getting so much pressure they were unlikely to hold up.
“I scooted off to the edge and luckily, it seemed like there was less pressure on my areas that were right on the drop,” Lindsay said. “I was targeting the biggest isolated boulders I could find.”
Sam Hanggi of Knoxville, Tenn., finished third with 38-3. Mounting an impressive comeback, Hanggi placed 57th on Day 1 with 16-1 and followed with a second-round limit of 22-2 — the event’s heaviest bag.
Targeting isolated boulders in 10 to 15 feet of water, Hanggi fished the lake’s north end on Day 1. When a wind shift left his area too exposed, he moved to a protected area on the east side.
“This morning, I went to the area I fished yesterday and I saw that the waves were crashing on it, so I called an audible mid-morning and ran to a new area,” Hanggi said. “I was tucked behind an island in a protected area.”
Hanggi caught all of his fish on a 1/4-ounce Evergreen tungsten finesse jig with a green pumpkin Z-Man T.R.D. trailer and a drop shot with a green pumpkin Megabass Hazedong.
The Top 50 anglers from Division 2 have qualified for the three-event Elite Qualifiers Series. With one event each in September, October and November, this series will determine the 10 anglers that receive invitations to the 2026 Bassmaster Elite Series.
Here's how the top 5 in Division 2 points looked at the end of the fourth event:
1. Pake South: 751
2. Fisher Anaya: 749
3. Tanner Hadden: 717
4. Laker Howell: 697
5. Nic Rand: 684
