Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Johnston Brothers Bassmaster Elites for 2019

Cory and Chris moving to BASS
By Luigi De Rose

From left to right: Cory Johnston, Jeff Gustafson, and Chris Johnston
(Photo by Jeff Gustafson)

Canadian fishing brothers Cory and Chris Johnston have made the decision to move to the Bassmaster Elite in 2019. Cory stated in his Facebook announcement that fishing in the Bassmaster Classic has been a childhood dream and this move to the Elites is a step in the right direction to fulfilling that dream. They will be joining fellow Canadian Jeff "Gussy" Gustafson who announced his decision two weeks ago. 

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Lane, Swindle & Avena Classic Bound!

3 more join 2019 Classic
By Brian Brasher
BASS PRESS RELEASE

Adrian Avena told his followers on social media Thursday night that Friday’s final round of the Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Classic Bracket on Carters Lake would be the most important six hours of his career.
 
Then he went out and made the most of the opportunity.
 
The New Jersey pro was one of three anglers — along with Gerald Swindle and Chris Lane of Alabama — who won their head-to-head matches during the Bracket finals to earn berths into the 2019 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.
 
Avena, who will be making his first trip to the Super Bowl of Professional Bass Fishing, caught a five-bass limit that weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces, to easily win his match with Japanese pro Shin Fukae, who boated only one keeper that weighed 1-5.
 
“Today was all about making a dream come true,” Avena said. “I’ve never had a day of fishing that meant more, and I’m so glad it happened the way it did for me.”
 

Friday, October 26, 2018

2018 Bassmaster Elite Classic Bracket Day 2: 6 Battles for 3 Classic Spots.

Final 6 ready to fish 
BASS PRESS RELEASE

The picture is steadily growing clearer at the Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Classic Bracket on Carters Lake, with the two-day semifinal round now complete and six anglers qualified for Friday’s finals.
A trio of head-to-head matchups on Friday will pit Gerald Swindle vs. Scott Rook, Chris Lane vs. Greg Vinson and Adrian Avena vs. Shin Fukae. The anglers’ weights will start back at zero, and they will fish from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET with the winners of each match advancing to the 2019 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.

Lane had one of the most impressive days Thursday, landing three big spotted bass that weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces. Combined with the 2-3 he caught Wednesday, it gave him a two-day total of 10-12 that was more than enough to win his match against Michigan angler Chad Pipkens, who finished with 7-11.
“Knowing I had a little bit of a lead allowed me to fish with an eye toward tomorrow,” said Lane, a former Bassmaster Classic winner who lives in Alabama. “Tomorrow’s going to be amazing with a Classic berth on the line. It’ll either be really exciting or really disappointing.”
Lane’s biggest bass came at 8:18 a.m. when he landed a gigantic 4-10 spotted bass near a boat dock. He added two more fish on a Whopper Plopper the rest of the way to seal the win.
Pipkens caught a nice bass on a jerkbait with just over 30 minutes remaining in the morning session to keep pressure on Lane. But it wasn’t enough.
“I don’t think I would have made any different decisions today except maybe picking up a jerkbait a little earlier,” Pipkens said. “But that’s the way it goes. I’m already looking forward to next year.”

Thursday, October 25, 2018

2018 Bassmaster Elite Classic Bracket Day 2: 12 Battles for 3 Classic Spots.

Stingy lake mean every bite counts
By Brian Brasher
BASS PRESS RELEASE



Twelve anglers took part in six head-to-head matchups during Wednesday’s semifinal round of the Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Classic Bracket on Carters Lake.
The lake was stingy — and that’s putting it mildly.
After a bright full moon that likely caused the bass to feed heavily throughout the previous night, Arkansas angler Fred Roumbanis turned in the biggest weight of the morning session, landing five bass that totaled a modest 6 pounds, 13 ounces.
That was more than enough to give the top-seeded Roumbanis the lead in his bracket-style matchup with 12th-seeded Scott Rook who zeroed for the morning. The seeding order was determined Tuesday during a one-day fish-off.
“With this full moon, the fish are feeding all night long and that makes them really finicky,” Roumbanis said. “Using Garmin LiveScope, I can see the bass down there and I can see exactly what they’re doing. But you still have to trick a fish that’s full into biting.”
The morning session featured six anglers in three head-to-head matchups that lasted from 8-11 a.m. ET. Roumbanis started early with a 13-ounce keeper and then finished his limit with a 1-11 spotted bass at 10:43 a.m.
“I’m just following big schools of bait in about 20 feet of water and catching suspended bass,” Roumbanis said. “It’s not easy to force a bite.”
Rook, who has already announced his intentions to retire after this season, focused primarily on topwater fishing and failed to put a keeper in the boat.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

2018 Bassmaster Elite Classic Bracket Day 1: Boom Boom Bested them with 16-01lbs!


Only 12 remain
By Brian Brasher
BASS PRESS RELEASE

 
Fred leads stingy bracket format tournament.
(Photo: BASS)
The first round of the Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Classic Bracket on Carters Lake was a one-day tournament to determine the seeding for three separate competitions that will each send an angler to the 2019 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.
With that one-day tournament in the history books, the stakes will now get higher every moment until the Classic Bracket concludes Friday.

After Tuesday’s opening round, 15 anglers were allowed to weigh their five biggest bass with the Top 12 advancing to the upcoming three-day, bracket-style competition. The anglers qualified in the following order: 1. Fred Roumbanis (16 pounds 1 ounce), 2. Greg Vinson (13-10), 3. Keith Combs (12-6), 4. Ray Hanselman Jr. (10-0), 5. Chris Lane (9-12), 6. Gerald Swindle (9-10), 7. Mike McClelland (9-0), 8. Chad Pipkens (8-8), 9. Adrian Avena (6-13), 10. Shin Fukae (6-11), 11. Dustin Connell (5-5) and 12. Scott Rook (5-4).

Marty Robinson (4-12), Takahiro Omori (1-15) and Bill Lowen (0-0) were eliminated.
“Today’s goal was just to advance,” said Hanselman, of Del Rio, Texas. “I just wanted to try and fish clean and make sure I made it into that Top 12. I figured a little something out (during Monday’s practice round), and it helped me today. But there aren’t a whole lot of places to do it on this lake.”

Starting Wednesday, the weights will go back to zero, and six matches will be held from 8-11 a.m. ET, pitting No. 1 vs. No. 12, No. 2 vs. No. 11 and No. 3 vs. No. 10. Then during the afternoon session from 12:30-3:30 p.m., three additional matches will pit No. 4 vs. No. 9, No. 5 vs. No. 8 and No. 6 vs. No. 7.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Gussy Becomes Elite


Jeff "Gussy" Gustafson will be moving to the Bassmaster Elites for the 2019 season. 
\Here's his official announcement. 


gussyoutdoors

Back in 2012 my friend Don Nelson who owned Krugerfarms.com asked me if I wanted to fish some pro bass tournaments and I told him it was a dream of mine. For sure!
I fished the four FLW Tour Opens, had a great season and qualified for the FLW Tour.
It’s been an amazing six years fishing the FLW Tour, I’ve learned a lot, made some amazing friends and had a lot of fun!
I was recently invited to fish the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2019 and I have accepted the invitation! It was a tough decision because I love the folks at FLW, especially the amazing media team but this is an opportunity that I’m very excited about so I’m going for it!
It will be hard separating from all of my buddies that I’ve become close with at FLW, especially @brandon_mcmillan_fishing !!!
I can’t wait to get to Florida in February and start this new chapter! 

Sunday, October 21, 2018

Jared Lintner Wins 2018 BASS PRO SHOP Bassmaster Open Championship with 37-00lbs!

Lintner Off to Classic!
By Craig Lamb

BASS PRESS RELEASE

Lintner's win earns him a spot in 2019 Classic!
(Photo: BASS)
Dialing into the details was the ticket to victory for Jared Lintner, winner of the 2018 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Championship on Table Rock Lake.
 
Linter of Arroyo Grande, Calif., added 10 pounds, 15 ounces of bass today to push his winning total weight to 37 pounds for three days of fishing. Brandon Lester of Fayetteville, Tenn., took second \with 34-11, and Derek Hudnall of Baton Rouge, La., was third with 34-1. Bobby Lane Jr. of Lakeland, Fla., was fourth with 32-7, and Scott Suggs of Alexander, Ark., took fifth with 32-3.  
 
Weather was a key factor throughout the three-day tournament. A chilly rain on Friday was braced by sunny, unseasonably warm weather on Thursday and Saturday. The best fishing occurred during the worst weather, when the bass were most active in the low-light conditions.
 
Everyone, especially including Lintner, knew the bass were in the fall transition, moving from deep to shallow water.
 
“I knew the bass were moving shallow, just not enough to put together a reliable pattern,” he said.
 
When the bites began Lintner, took note. He discovered greater concentrations of bass holding on steeper tapering shorelines used as migration routes.
 
“It started replicating itself so I went searching for similar areas,” he explained.
 

Friday, October 19, 2018

2018 BASS PRO SHOP Bassmaster Open Championship Day 1: Mark Rose Leads with 15-09lbs.

Cool weather heats up fishing
By Craig Lamb
BASS PRESS RELEASE
Mark Rose eye Championship crown. 
Fishing without any preconceived idea of a game plan is paying off for Mark Rose, who took the lead at the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Championship on Table Rock Lake.
Rose, of West Memphis, Ark., caught a 5-bass limit weighing 15 pounds, 9 ounces, to earn first place ahead of Caleb Sumrall. The New Iberia, La., angler took second with 15-1, while Tyler Rivet of Raceland, La., claimed third place with 14-6. Jared Lintner of Arroyo Grande, Calif., is fourth with 12-14. Ed Loughran III, of Mechanicsville, Va., is fifth with 12-12.
Transition. That word best describes fishing conditions this week on Table Rock. The transition occurs when fall cold snaps prompt the bass population to migrate from deep to shallow water, where the fish feed on roaming baitfish. The bass are moving shallower each day, posing a greater sporting challenge to this tournament. Keeping track of those moving bass is the goal.
“When it’s transition time that makes it tougher, but I’m the most instinctive fisherman that I know of,” said Rose. “It’s what I like to do the most.”
The fundamental of being instinctive is rooted in fishing with an open mind. Rose caught fish from the shoreline out to 35 feet deep, playing off the textbook conditions in play this week. He intentionally skipped the optional scouting period prior to the tournament.
“Table Rock and all these Ozarks lakes are very conditional,” he explained. “The patterns are textbook, very black and white, and you catch bass in shady areas during sunny conditions, on moving baits under cloudy skies.”

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Canadian's New All-Time Tournament Big Bass?







Matt Belzil (l) and Jason Clay(r)  and win the Barrie Bassmaster 
Simcoe event with 29.0lbs sporting a 8.35 lb giant kicker!

Coming later this week
Learn all about this pending new Canadian record smallmouth.
(Photo: Derek Strub)

Monday, October 15, 2018

Jeremy Lawyer Wins Costa FLW Series on Lake of the Ozarks with 46-03lbs!

Topwater and Jig Top on Ozark
by Kyle Wood
FLW PRESS RELEASE
New locations and topwaters key for Lawyer win.
(Photo: FLW)
Forgetting the past can be a hard thing for a bass fisherman to do. But for Jeremy Lawyer, it proved to be the right decision.
When Lawyer left the dock this morning for the final day of the Costa FLW Series event on Lake of the Ozarks presented by Evinrude, he was in fourth place and just 2 pounds, 8 ounces off the lead. Being that the top-10 weights were so close, the general consensus was that whoever caught the biggest limit on the final day would likely be crowned champion.
Lawyer hauled in a rare limit on Saturday worth 13-12 – also the heaviest of the day – and it proved to be more than enough to earn him his first FLW Series win with a total of 46-3 and $88,500 in winnings.
Fishing off instinct instead of history was the biggest key for the Sarcoxie, Mo., pro this week, and really for the entire season.
“Earlier in the year before the first Central Division event on Table Rock I erased all my waypoints there and had a good finish,” Lawyer says. “I just got a new Ranger before coming [to Lake of the Ozarks] and I didn’t transfer any of my waypoints over. You can get in trouble sometimes when you try to fish history and I just wanted to go fish what looks good and what’s right for the conditions.
“I’ve fished a lot of tournaments up here and have a lot of history and you can get stuck in a comfort zone, so I figured without my waypoints I wouldn’t have the pressure to try and fish that stuff. Sure, you remember good stretches of bank, but I wanted to be able to fish free. Really, fishing the (FLW) Tour has helped build my confidence to just fish because most of the lakes we go to I don’t have any history on.”
It all started this week when Lawyer ran to a stretch he hadn’t practiced on in the Gravois Arm and started catching fish flipping a prototype JaKKed shaky head (it will be his signature series jig) with a Zoom Magnum Trick Worm. He would then go on to cull up to 14-7 thanks to a River2Sea Whopper Plopper.

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Keep Florida Fishing Applauds Congressional Passage of America’s Water Infrastructure Act

Important Everglades Restoration Legislation Moves to the President’s Desk

 Keep Florida Fishing®, (KFF) an advocacy arm of the American Sportfishing Association, today praised the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives for passage of the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (S. 3021). The Act, which incorporates the biennial Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), includes authorization of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Storage Reservoir project and requires an expedited review of how Lake Okeechobee levels are managed under its regulation schedule. The legislation also supports restoration of the Kissimmee River and requires the development of a Harmful Algal Bloom technology program. All are important components that will help address South Florida’s water quality issues.

The U.S. House previously approved the compromise legislation on September 13th, the bill now heads to the President’s desk for his signature.

“Thank you to everyone who has contacted their representatives to support WRDA. This legislation is crucial to reducing the ongoing estuary discharges and algal blooms affecting the state. Passing WRDA is a monumental step in restoring the Everglades and providing clean water for our fisheries, and we greatly appreciate the leadership of Florida’s Congressional Delegation in securing its passage. We will continue to work with Congress to ensure that sufficient funding is available to carry out the Act’s provisions,” said Kellie Ralston, Southeast Fisheries Policy Director of the American Sportfishing Association.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

New Daiwa Tatula 100 with Ish Monroe

The Daiwa Tatula reels are one of the best selling reels in recent years. Listen to MLF and 2018 BASS Elite Champ Ish Monroe as he explains why the Daiwa Tatula 100 might be the best one made yet.

Monday, October 8, 2018

Friday, October 5, 2018

2019 COSTA FLW SERIES


FLW announced Wednesday the Costa FLW Series rules, entry fees and payouts for the 2019 season, including new Forrest Wood Cup advancement opportunities and larger first-place awards. The season will again consist of three events in five divisions to keep travel costs low plus the no-entry-fee Costa FLW Series Championship to be held on Lake Cumberland in Burnside, Kentucky. The FLW Series offers pros and co-anglers the highest payback for the lowest cost to compete of any national circuit, and new for 2019, the FLW Series provides co-anglers a pathway to fish as a pro in the 2020 FLW Cup.
The top two pros from each of the five FLW Series U.S. divisions and the top pro from the FLW Series International division along with the winning co-angler at the 2019 FLW Series Championship will advance to the 2020 FLW Cup, the world championship of bass fishing. An angler only has to beat 38 other pros from their division at the FLW Series Championship to punch their ticket to the Cup. The top five pros from each U.S. division in Angler of the Year standings also qualify to compete against the best anglers in the world in the 2020 FLW Tour, the world’s most competitive professional bass-fishing circuit.

PAYOUTS below

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Major League Fishing Announces 80 Anglers Set for New Bass Pro Tour

All set for 2019!

Major League Fishing (MLF) leadership today announced the official roster of the 80 anglers who have committed to compete in the new-for-2019 Bass Pro Tour and MLF Cup events. The final list was made public during an MLF meeting held this week at Big Cedar Lodge with several of its sponsors and anglers present to discuss plans in follow up to the league's recent announcement of significant expansion for the purpose of growing the sport.
 
"We understand how difficult this decision was for pro anglers ... everyone who has faced a potential career-changing move can relate to it, but the deadline has passed for the invitees and we now proudly have 80 individuals who have committed to a dream that goes beyond just a tournament payday," said MLF co-founder and PBTAA Vice President Boyd Duckett. "Sure, higher payouts are part of it, but for us this is not a competition we're in against other trails. It doesn't matter what B.A.S.S. or FLW does; our goal is different. These anglers know that and we're ecstatic to have them on board with the new MLF plans."
 
The full 80-man field includes Bassmaster Classic champions, FLW Forrest Wood Cup winners, Anglers of the Year and top tour performers from throughout the world of competitive bass fishing.
 
The 2019 MLF anglers are: Casey Ashley, Justin Atkins, Adrian Avena, Josh Bertrand, Tommy Biffle, Zack Birge, Stephen Browning, Brent Chapman, Jason Christie, Luke Clausen, Gary Clouse, Dustin Connell, Brandon Coulter, Cliff Crochet, Mark Daniels Jr., Mark Davis, Ott DeFoe, Boyd Duckett, Brent Ehrler, James Elam, Paul Elias, Edwin Evers, Todd Faircloth, Shinichi Fukae, Shaw Grigsby, Greg Hackney, Roy Hawk, Brett Hite, Tim Horton, Randy Howell, Mike Iaconelli, Alton Jones, Alton Jones Jr., Kelly Jordon, JT Kenney, Gary Klein, Jeff Kriet, Jason Lambert, Bobby Lane, Chris Lane, Russ Lane, Jordan Lee, Matt Lee, Dave Lefebre, Jared Litner, Justin Lucas, Aaron Martens, Mike McClelland, Cody Meyer, Ish Monroe, Andy Montgomery, Andy Morgan, John Murray, Britt Myers, Michael Neal, Takahiro Omori, Cliff Pace, Brandon Palaniuk, Keith Poche, Jacob Powroznik, Skeet Reese, Marty Robinson, Dean Rojas, Mark Rose, Fred Roumbanis, Bradley Roy, Terry Scroggins, Fletcher Shryock, Gerald Spohrer, Wesley Strader, Scott Suggs, Gerald Swindle, Randall Tharp, Jonathan VanDam, Kevin VanDam, Greg Vinson, David Walker, James Watson, Jacob Wheeler and Jesse Wiggins.
 

Monday, October 1, 2018

Advanced Drop Shot : John Murray's Favourite Baits for Drop Shotting Bass


John Murray is one the original West Coast killers. Being one of the first to use the drop shot here in American, he has developed a lot of tips and tricks on making a drop shot deadly. Listen to BASS Elite angler John Murray as he gives some advanced tips on drop shotting for bass.