By Andrew Canulatte
BASS PRESS RELEASE
Cody
Hollen had a feeling that his favorite lipless crankbait would be a
difference-maker during Friday’s final round of the TNT
Fireworks B.A.S.S. Nation Championship.
Boy, was he ever right.
The 35-year old angler from Beaverton, Ore., caught the heaviest
bag of the tournament — a five-bass limit that weighed 13 pounds, 12 ounces —
to vault from 10th place to the tournament title here on Lake Hartwell in the
northwest corner of the Palmetto State.
Hollen finished with a three-day total of 32-12, and he reaped a
wealth of spoils with the victory. Not only did he grab a berth in the 2020 Academy
Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk, he also won a
Skeeter/Yamaha cash award of $20,000, an invitation to fish the 2020 Bassmaster
Elite Series and paid entry into the 2020 Basspro.com
Bassmaster Opens division of his choice.
He was one of 59 boaters and 115 total anglers who qualified for
the championship at Hartwell. Competitors hailed from 47 states and 11 foreign
countries, and they competed for a total of $140,300 in prize money this week.
Hollen made the final push to jump ahead of all of them, and it
was his decision to fish exclusively with a Yo-Zuri lipless crankbait in the
chrome with a blue back color that paid dividends, he said. He tried other
lures earlier in the tournament, but he eventually decided to forego variety
for what was working best.
“I had confidence coming into today,” Hollen said. “I had five
or six cane piles way down lake where the water was cleaner than it was up
here. They were in those cane piles. I was setting myself up maybe 30 yards
back of them and casting into them.
“The bait would hit the cane pile and the fish would hit it
hard.”
Hollen was in 19th place after Day 1 with a limit that weighed 9-2, and he
followed with a 9-14 limit on Day 2 to make the cut. He entered the final day
in 10th place, but he trailed leader Justy Varkevisser of South Africa by only
3-5.
