ABT 100 NEWS

Anything Can Happen as ABT 100 Heads to Neely Henry for Second Stop

By Jason Duran

The Alabama Bass Trail 100 Series rolls into Neely Henry Lake on June 6 for the second stop of the 2026 season, and if Bradley Jones and Kyle Dorsett have read this fishery correctly, the winning team could come from just about anywhere on the water.

That’s a loaded statement on a lake this size and this complex.

Fresh off a 12th-place finish at Smith Lake, the duo enters the weekend believing Neely Henry is primed for one of the most wide-open tournaments of the year. Stable current. Surprisingly clean water. Fish scattered from the bank to the bottom. The kind of setup where a team can run a completely different game plan than the boat next to them at the ramp and both still have a shot at the money.

“I think you could probably win all over the lake,” Dorsett said. “From the dam to the dam. Grass or offshore.”

While Neely Henry has long carried a reputation as a shallow-water, grass-bite fishery, Dorsett thinks offshore structure could factor more heavily than the field expects this week. That read is backed up by something most anglers don’t associate with the Coosa River system right now.

“The water’s actually fairly clean for that place,” Jones said.

Despite recent rainfall across north Alabama, current has remained relatively steady and water clarity is running better than normal. Cleaner water on Neely Henry changes the equation. It pulls fish off the grass lines and onto offshore schools and deeper structure, opening up a second tournament inside the tournament that many teams simply won’t be fishing.

The calendar may be the biggest factor of all. Both anglers pointed to the first week of June as one of the premier windows on the entire Coosa system, a brief stretch when the post-spawn transition settles out, bass get their heads right, and the lake becomes genuinely catchable in multiple ways at the same time.

“You can catch them from A to Z,” Jones said. “You can catch them any way you want to Saturday.”

Frogs. Spinnerbaits. Swim jigs. Chatterbaits. Crankbaits. Worms. Jigs. Forward-facing sonar and minnow presentations working offshore schools. The tackle box is wide open, with fish expected anywhere from a foot of water to 18 feet deep. The teams that stay locked into one pattern when the lake is offering this much variety could find themselves on the wrong side of the leaderboard by afternoon.

“I think it’s going to fish pretty big for this time of year,” Dorsett said.

The reduced field only sharpens the intrigue. Where a standard ABT division event packs 225 boats onto the water and compresses the entire fishery, the ABT 100 caps its field at 100 teams. That matters on a lake like Neely Henry, where the ability to run, cover water, and commit to a stretch of river without pressure breathing down your neck can be the difference between a limit and a grind.

Neely Henry has already produced one memorable Alabama Bass Trail event this season. When the North Division visited in April, anglers found stable conditions and limited current that allowed multiple patterns to flourish. Adam Bain and Kris Colley claimed that victory with 25.04 pounds, anchored by a 6.80-pound kicker. Jones and Dorsett believe the June ABT 100 could showcase an even broader range of patterns than that spring event, with more of the lake in play and the post-spawn bass in a more aggressive mood.

Neither angler put a hard number on the winning weight, but both agreed 20 pounds should be the baseline expectation. Local events have already been pushing that neighborhood. The field will be deep. The patterns will be varied. And somewhere out on that river, a limit of five quality bass is waiting for the team that makes the right calls at the right time.

But when pressed on what actually separates the Top 10 from the rest of the field, neither man needed a second to think.

“A five-pounder,” Jones said.

That’s Neely Henry in a sentence. On a river system where one giant largemouth can flip a leaderboard, execution matters, but so does being in the right pocket at the right moment when a fish that size decides to eat. The $1,000 Big Fish award makes that calculus even more interesting, turning a single quality bite into a meaningful payday on top of whatever the team puts on the scale.

Jones and Dorsett aren’t here to manage a points lead. The 12th at Smith Lake keeps them alive in the Angler of the Year conversation, but that’s not what drove them to circle June 6 on the calendar.

“That’s why we signed up for the One Hundreds,” Jones said. “To win.”

With $25,000 going to the champion, $12,500 to second, and $10,000 to third, the second stop of the ABT 100 Series represents one of the richest single-day payouts in Alabama team tournament fishing. One hundred boats. One hundred different game plans. And on a lake this unpredictable in early June, with fish stacked from the dam to the dam and the water running cleaner than anyone expected, the team that figures it out first could be cashing the biggest check of their season before the scales even close.

Alabama Bass Trail 100 Series

Neely Henry Lake

June 6, 2026

Launch & Weigh-In:

Coosa Landing | 1 Huff Drive | Gadsden, AL 35903

Launch: 5:00 A.M. or safe daylight

First flight due in: 2:30 P.M.

Watch four-plus hours of live on-the-water coverage and the weigh-in on the ABT Facebook page, YouTube, and ABT website.

Download and listen to the ABT Podcast presented by Phoenix Boats. New episodes featuring tournament previews, recaps, angler interviews, and stories from across the Alabama Bass Trail drop every Tuesday.

The Alabama Bass Trail 100 Series is made possible through the support of its sponsors: Phoenix Boats, AMFirst, Larry Puckett Chevrolet, 13 Fishing, Rapala, VMC, CRUSHCITY, Buffalo Rock, Academy Sports and Outdoors, Jack’s, Garmin, Thompson Tractor Company, PiranhO2, Alabama State Parks, Halo Fishing, Snag Proof, NetBait, Bait Fuel, Alfa Insurance Thomas ALFA MAN Shelton, TH Marine Supplies, Power Pole, Pro Guide Batteries, Yamaha, SCUM FROG, E3 Sports Apparel, FishAlabama.org, Sweet Home Alabama and Alabama Mountain Lakes.