2019 BASS Elite Lake Guntersville Day 2: Matt Arey Moves into Lead!

Canadians Chris Johnston 9th, Cory Johnston 20th & Gustafson 67th.
BASS PRESS RELEASE

Matt Arey scores 44lbs and lead.
(Photo: BASS)

Even after a solid start on Friday, North Carolina pro Matt Arey sounded less than confident heading out for Saturday’s second round of the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Elite at Lake Guntersville.

Guntersville, after all, is one of the most popular bass fishing lakes in the world — and since a Saturday in June usually means a crowded waterway, he was worried the areas he fished Friday would no longer be reachable.

His worries proved unnecessary, however, as he caught five bass that weighed 21 pounds, 6 ounces to take the lead with a two-day total of 44 pounds.

“There were a lot of boats out there for sure,” Arey said. “But it seemed like a lot of locals were staying off a lot of the obvious stuff, and I was really pleased with the way things played out.

“When I was running to my first spot, I probably saw 50 locals that were already out there before we blasted off. But you could tell they were fishermen — very respectful.”
 
Arey’s day didn’t start well at all. At 10:30 a.m., he only had two fish that he described as “two of the smallest 15-inchers in the lake.”
 
But since he’s fishing ledges in 15 to 20 feet of water — and those areas tend to be hit or miss throughout the day — he didn’t panic.
 

Mark Rose Wins 2017 Walmart FLW Tour Lake Guntersville with 79-11 lbs!

Rose milks Brown's creek for win.

by Rob Newell 

FLW PRESS RELESE

Coming into the FLW Tour event presented by Lowrance at Lake Guntersville, Mark Rose had quite a laundry list of reasons why he wanted to win the tournament.

First of all, Lake Guntersville has a rich history in the sport of professional bass fishing. Fishing legends such as Zell Rowland, George Cochran, Rick Clunn and David Fritts have all won national events on the historic lake. Rose has always wanted to put his name alongside such icons as a professional tournament winner on Guntersville.

Consistency key to Rose's win.
(Photo: FLW)

Second, Rose has been so close to victory in other events on Guntersville. He has finished runner-up in a Costa FLW Series event and a Tour event at the lake.

Rose is also well known for his deep-water prowess. He has earned his moniker as a “ledgemaster” through multiple offshore wins along the Tennessee River. With that, he felt like he had become almost pigeonholed as a deep-water specialist and was ready to prove to himself that he can win events in waist-deep water as well.

Finally, Rose was ready to erase a memory from Sam Rayburn Reservoir in 2014 when he lead an FLW Tour event going into the last day and faltered, letting none other than Bryan Thrift slip past him and grab the brass ring.