Brandon Cobb Wins 2019 Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest with Massive 114lbs!

Canadians Gustafson 5th & Cory Johnston 5^th.

By Bryan Brasher

BASS PRESS RELEASE

 Brandon Cobb takes home the title at Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest benefiting Texas Parks and Wildlife Department on Lake Fork after catching an impressive four-day total of 114 pounds. This is his second win of the 2019 Elite Series season.
(Photo: BASS)

Big Bass. Big Stage. Big Dreams. It’s the inspiring mantra B.A.S.S. unveiled before the 2019 Bassmaster Elite Series season, and it perfectly sums up the last two months for Brandon Cobb.

After earning his first Elite Series victory in April on Lake Hartwell in his home state of South Carolina, Cobb caught one big bass after another at Texas’ Lake Fork to amass a four-day total of 114 pounds. It earned him his second six-figure first-place prize of the season on one of the biggest stages in bass fishing — the Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest benefiting Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

He’s living his dream — big time.

“It’s absolutely been an amazing season for me,” said Cobb, who also earned an automatic berth into the 2020 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods with the victory. “I had a lot of success on the FLW Tour, but I never could quite put together a win.

“For so many things to go right this season, it’s just been a dream come true.”

Cobb went into the day with nearly an 8-pound advantage over his closest competitor. But after a slow start, he actually lost the lead for a while to Georgia pro Micah Frazier.

Then Cobb, a 29-year-old former college angler at Clemson University, started working the magic that helped him grab the lead during Sunday’s semifinal round with a catch of 37-15.

Cobb put a three-pounder in his livewell at 8:23 a.m. and then added a 4-13 and a 6-5 in the span of six minutes between 9:07 a.m. and 9:13. He added a 3-15 at 9:38 and a 6-2 at 9:43. At that point, he had 24-13 and the tournament seemed to be over.

He kept culling until his five biggest fish weighed 6-5, 6-2, 6-2, 5-10 and 5-12 for total weight of 29-15. All fish were weighed on the water and immediately released.

“It was really boring until you’d run into them,” he said. “Then when you’d hit them, it was amazing.”

Cobb caught the bulk of his weight all week fishing around shallow shellbeds where bass were feeding on spawning shad. His primary bait was a Dual Hardcore Minnow Flat 110 SP jerkbait in ghost pro blue.

“I was basically running points and flats, and the areas I was fishing might be 6 feet deep for 200 yards,” he said. “But the fish, when they were eating, were in 1 to 2 1/2 feet of water up on the tops of the shellbeds.

“I’ve got mud all over me because I had to pick mud off my jerkbait bill just about every cast. I was literally jerking it into the bottom.”

Surface activity always signaled Cobb that the fishing was about to get good.

Justin Atkins Wins 2017 FLW CUP Championship with 59-04lbs!

Topwater and schoolers key to win. 

By Jody White

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Saves biggest limit for last day!
(Photo: FLW)

Justin Atkins weighed 21 pounds, 5 ounces on day one of the 2017 Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Murray to take the early lead. After a brief stumble of “only” 15-14 on day two bumped him back to second place, the young Alabama pro stormed back on Sunday with the largest bag of the tournament, a whopping 22 pounds, 1 ounce, to earn the first win of his career.

With a total of 59-4, Atkins earned $300,000 and the title of Forrest Wood Cup Champion, handily making up for near misses in the T-H Marine BFL All-American, where he finished third, and the FLW Tour Rookie of the Year race in which he finished runner-up.

Starting the year at Lake Guntersville, near home in Florence, Ala., Atkins made a top 10 in his first-ever Tour event. From there, he competed all year long for the Rookie of the Year title and capped a stellar season with one of the most superlative Forrest Wood Cup performances in recent memory. Atkins fished for Mississippi State in college, and has come up through the ranks with a herd of other young pros. All season, he said he was living his dream, doing what he was meant to do.

“When I say I feel like this is what I’m meant to do I don’t mean that in any kind of arrogant way,” says Atkins. “I just went out on a limb of faith this year. I didn’t have the money to fish the full Tour when I started. I had enough money to fish about four events, and I was hoping I would make it. I felt like God had a plan, and that’s what I was supposed to be doing. I just went out there and fished, and today signed off that I was supposed to be there.”

 All week long, Atkins targeted cane piles and the fat blueback herring-eating largemouths that hung around them, but his success story actually started back in college, when he fished in consecutive College Bass National Championships on Lake Chatuge, a spotted bass fishery in north Georgia and North Carolina. There, Atkins learned some hard lessons, but in the post-game, he was able to pick up some herring skills from fellow competitors Brad Rutherford and Patrick Walters.

“They did really well, and they were catching them on top and calling them out of brush,” says Atkins. “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I was friends with them before the tournament ever started, but learning from them how they managed to succeed, that taught me a lot.”

Because of that, Atkins was prepared to look for cane-dwelling largemouths in practice, but he was the one to put it together, demonstrating just how quickly today’s pros can master a bite.

Atkins had about 60 to 80 waypoints on cane piles he liked, and he accumulated most of them after some early struggles in pre-practice.

“It took me two days to get my graphs dialed in,” says Atkins. “That cane is hard to see. It’s real narrow. So I had to sit there and play with settings. I was here an afternoon and a full day before I finally found one pile. I went over it, and I saw it on the sonar and marked it, and I could barely see it on my down-view – just a little bit. I ended up graphing for a while and fishing some and never found any. The next morning I went to that spot and went around and around and around that pile. I turned my sensitivity up, my contrast and all that, until I finally got to where I could see it and knew what it was on my side-scan. After that I probably found 100 piles in my next six days of practice.”

Besides cranking up his sensitivity and contrast, Atkins also sped up his chart speed, which made the narrow cane piles appear larger and much more visible. Once he was dialed in, Atkins could mark cane piles up to 100 feet out to either side of his boat.

After some success in pre-practice, Atkins started on an innocuous pile on the first day of official practice and caught a 3-pounder on his first cast. Once he’d marked plenty of fish, he committed almost solely to the cane-pile pattern and continued to expand on it throughout practice.

Most of the piles topped out about 8 to 10 feet below the surface, rising up from about 20 or 22 feet deep. The fresher and “bushier” the pile was, the more fish were in it.

Of the 15 bass Atkins weighed, every one of them came on an ima Little Stick 135 in chrome, fished with a 7:1 gear ratio Abu Garcia reel, 30-pound-test braid and a 7-5 medium-heavy composite rod. Mostly he fired over and roughly around his cane piles, but he did catch some fish that were actively schooling near the piles. He figures he weighed in 11 bass that he “called up” and four that were actively busting.

2017 FLW CUP Championship Lake Murray Day 2: Brandon Cobb Leads with 39lbs!

Schoolers key to best limits. 

By Jody White

FLW PRESS RELEASE
Cracking another 19-pound bag on day two of the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Murray, Brandon Cobb moved into the lead with a total of 39 pounds even. Staying steadier than anyone else in the top group has helped the young South Carolina pro make his third straight Forrest Wood Cup top 10, and he is now driving hard for his first FLW win above the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League level. In second place, Cobb’s roommate Justin Atkins fell off the lead and is 1 pound, 13 ounces behind.

Cobb and roommate Atkins are 1,2 in standings.
(Photo: FLW)

Growing up on Clarks Hill and Lake Hartwell, Cobb has plenty of experience fishing for bass that chow down on blueback herring. That experience, along with his love of August fishing and a surprising ability to deal with the high pressure of the Cup, has Cobb on the hunt in a big way this week.

“Today actually seemed bad. I know 19 pounds doesn’t seem bad, but I kinda got in a bad rotation today,” says Cobb. “I got behind Justin [Atkins], and I got behind somebody else, and I felt like I was fishing spots right after they left. I felt like I was in the right place at the wrong time all day today.”

After an early morning change to his routine, Cobb started to get going, and though he only caught about seven keepers on the day (with one lost 4-pounder), he caught plenty of quality.

Throwing three different topwater baits and a Zoom Fluke, Cobb says he hit about 40 different places, 20 of which he counts as his “prime” spots. Mostly, Cobb is running from one cane pile to the next on the lower end of Murray, but he’s also fishing some more subtle drops and rock features where he’s located schools of herring-eating bass.

TOP 10 BELOW

2017 FLW CUP Championship Lake Murray Day 1: Justin Atkins Leads with 21-05lbs!

Schooling bass key to many leaders
By Jody White
FLW PRESS RELEASE

Calm, cloudy morning key to many of the leader's success.
(Photo: FLW)

Sacking up a monumental catch of 21 pounds, 5 ounces, Justin Atkins of Florence, Ala., established a slim 4-ounce lead over Anthony Gagliardi on day one of the Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Murray. Atkins finished runner-up in the Rookie of the Year race on the FLW Tour in 2017 and third in the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League All-American this summer. Now, the 27-year-old pro is leading the race for one of the biggest titles in fishing.

Lake Murray has a reputation as a fickle fishery in the summertime, but today the schooling and offshore bite on the lower end of the lake shined bright, with Atkins, Gagliardi and most of the rest of the top 10 pros taking advantage of willing bass feeding on blueback herring.

Atkins fished for schooling bass some, but a lot of his fish came from fairly specific places that didn’t take many casts to cover. He says he caught all his fish on a topwater, but tossed a worm and a few other baits as well.

TOP 10 BELOW

2015 Forrest L. Wood Cup Lake Ouachita Day 1: Jacob Wheeler Takes Lead!

All or northing at Ouchita for Cup anglers
By Luigi De Rose

Wheeler is all smiles on Day 1 (Photo: FLW)

Day 1 is a wrap with Jacob Wheeler taking the lead with 16-2 lbs just over a pound ahead of two-tour pro Ish Monroe. The next top nine anglers are within striking range and this tournament will be an endurance race. One big day might make or break a career here at Ouchita. Many anglers are working established patterns but size is a huge problem. Most of the field has under ten pounds for a five bass limit. Spotted bass are more plentiful but tend to be slim and fail to amass enough weight to make a big difference. Expect tomorrow's top anglers to try to duplicate their first day and the rest of the field to make adjustments.

Here is the top 10.

1	JACOB WHEELER	INDIANAPOLIS, IN	16 - 2 (5)
2	ISHAMA MONROE	HUGHSON, CA	15 - 0 (5)
3	BRANDON COBB	GREENWOOD, SC	14 - 10 (5)
4	SCOTT MARTIN	CLEWISTON, FL	14 - 6 (5)
5	BRAD KNIGHT	LANCING, TN	14 - 4 (5)
6	CHRIS BAUMGARDNER	GASTONIA, NC	13 - 8 (5)
7	RAMIE COLSON JR	CADIZ, KY	13 - 3 (5)
8	LUKE CLAUSEN	SPOKANE, WA	13 - 1 (5)
9	MARK DANIELS JR	TUSKEGEE, AL	12 - 15 (5)
10	JOHN COX	DEBARY, FL	12 - 0 (4)