2026 FXR Bassmaster Elite at Lake Guntersville Day 2: Kyle Welcher Jump into Lead!

Canadians Gallant 9th, Cory Johnston 10th, Gustafson 16th, Evan Kung 17th & Chris Johnston 32nd. 

By David A. Brown

BASS Press Release

SCOTTSBORO, Ala. — Kyle Welcher doesn’t like to stay put, but switching off his core instinct and committing to one area delivered a big Day 2 improvement that put him atop the leaderboard for the FXR Bassmaster Elite at Lake Guntersville.

After placing 18th on Day 1 with 20 pounds, 7 ounces, the pro from Valley, Ala., sacked up 24-9 and surged into the lead with a two-day total of 45 pounds.

“The moral of the story was hunkering down and staying put,” Welcher said. “I did better than I did yesterday; I didn’t run around as much and that was the way to catch ’em.”

Welcher, who won the 2025 St. Croix Bassmaster Elite at Pasquotank River by parking in one key area, knew he’d have to employ the same uncomfortable strategy on Guntersville.

“It’s the hardest thing for me to do; it goes against everything that I want to do,” Welcher said. “But when it’s tough and it’s hard to run around and get bites, sometimes that’s the best thing to do.

“That’s something I’ve had to learn by fishing on the Elites. I didn’t have the patience whenever I first started out here.”

Welcher said he fished south of the takeoff site at Goose Pond and focused on a 3-acre stretch. He tried the same area he fished on Day 1, but when the bites failed to materialize, he repositioned and relocated his fish.

“They had slid 150 yards away and I caught them there today,” Welcher said. “The majority of what I’m fishing is eelgrass, but every now and then, I’ll pull up some coontail or some hydrilla, but it’s 90% eel grass.”

Welcher stuck with the same lipless bait/bladed jig combo that much of the field has been throwing. His choice was a 1/2-ounce Rapala Snare and an unnamed bladed jig with a Crush City Freeloader trailer.

Describing his presentations, Welcher said: “It was early-slow and late-fast. That was the biggest adjustment I’d make throughout the day. I think they get up higher in the water column as the sun gets up.”

A gloomy Day 1 brought mostly overcast skies, light breezes and air temperatures that struggled to reach the low 40s. By contrast, the second round saw bright, sunny conditions, stronger afternoon wind and a high of 61.

“I think the sun is the major thing, but the wind could’ve helped a little” Welcher said. “I caught a couple big ones after it started blowing today, but I caught most of the fish I weighed in before the wind started blowing. I definitely think the sun helps you get more bites.

2024 Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite at Toledo Bend Day 3: Schlapper Retains Lead!

Canadians Chris Johnston 7th, Gallant 9th, Cory Johnston 13th & Gustafson 23rd.

Wisconsin's Pat Schlapper maintains the lead on Day 3 of the Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite at Toledo Bend with a total of 78 pounds. (Photo: BASS/Andy Crawford) 

BASS Press Release

MANY, La. — Before this week, Pat Schlapper had never led a day of Bassmaster Elite Series competition. The Wisconsin pro has now led two-straight days of the Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite at Toledo Bend and will hold the pole position heading into Championship Sunday with a three-day total of 78 pounds.

 

Schlapper caught 22 pounds, 7 ounces on Day 3 to add to his 27-4 and 28-5 marks from the first two days. Japanese pro Kyoya Fujita follows in second with 72-0 and Tennessee rookie Robert Gee is third with 69-7. 

 

“I’m very thankful to have the bag I got. I worked hard for it. I’m happy to be in the position to have a chance,” Schlapper said. “It feels really good. I want to win so badly. It is so hard to get into a position to win.

 

“Last year, I had one opportunity on Seminole and I had a bad first day. So, I’m trying to concentrate and fish to the best of my ability and win. That is all that’s in my mind.”

 

Throughout the week, Schlapper has targeted bass roaming offshore on a warming Toledo Bend using his Garmin LiveScope, with one particular spot producing the bulk of his weight. He found that spot during his pre-fishing trip last month and then dialed in an exact pattern during practice this week.

 

The majority of his bass have been caught on one bait in 15 to 30 feet of water.

 

“Where I am at, a lot of fish are just passing through there,” he said. “So, every day I see new fish. I don’t think I’ve casted at the same fish in three days. They are constantly moving around, or they’re buried in the grass and then come out.”

Przekurat Makes History With 2022 Bassmaster Elite Series Win At St. Lawrence!

Cory Johnston breaks 100lbs!

Jay Przekurat of Stevens Point, Wis., has won the 2022 Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River with a four-day total of 102 pounds, 9 ounces. (Photo: BASS)

BASS PRESS RELEASE

CLAYTON, N.Y. — The question: could it happen?

 

Could an angler win a Bassmaster Elite Series event with a four-day limit of 20 smallmouth bass that weighed 100 pounds or more?

 

It was asked by many throughout the week, and rookie Jay Przekurat of Stevens Point, Wis., gladly answered with a four-day total of 102 pounds, 9 ounces that won the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River.

 

Prior to this event, no angler in recorded sportfishing history had ever reached 100 pounds solely with smallmouth. But with a rare stretch of calm, sunny weather and Wednesday’s super moon igniting the fish, Przekurat did just that.

 

His feat earned him a spot in the prestigious Bassmaster Century Club, which recognizes a four-day total of 100 pounds. It also earned him one of the most prestigious trophies in pro fishing and the $100,000 top prize.

 

“Trying to take in the moment during the day of the tournament is pretty hard because you’re just focused on catching 5-pounders out there,” Przekurat said. “You’re running back to the ramp and you start getting a little emotional. There’s no other feeling like it.”

 

Technically, second-place finisher Cory Johnston of Cavan, Canada, was the first to enter the Century Club with all smallmouth. Starting Championship Sunday in eighth place, Johnston took the stage before Przekurat and tallied 100-5.

 

Nevertheless, Przekurat said winning against a final field stacked with heavy hitters was particularly rewarding.

 

“One of my goals was to beat the Johnston brothers (Cory and sixth-place Chris),” Przekurat joked. “They’ve been coming to my home waters of Sturgeon Bay and taking our money for years, so I had to come over here and take theirs this time.”

 

Przekurat started the event with his biggest catch — a 26-13 limit that put him 1-2 behind Day 1 leader and fellow rookie Jacob Foutz of Charleston, Tenn. Adding 25-8 on Day 2 sent Przekurat into Semifinal Saturday with a 1-13 lead over Cory Johnston.

 

Weighing 24-12 on Day 3 extended his advantage to a margin of 2-15 over Bob Downey of Detroit Lakes, Minn. Przekurat surged across the finish line with a final catch of 25-8 and edged Johnston by 2-4.

2021 Bassmaster Elite St. Lawrence River Day 1: Bernie Schultz Leads with 25-05lbs!

Chris & Cory Johnston Tied for 2th & Gustafson 15th

Bernie Schultz, of Gainesville, Fla., is leading after Day 1 of the 2021 Farmers Insurance Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River with 25 pounds, 5 ounces. 

BASS PRESS RELEASE

WADDINGTON, N.Y. — A patient approach to what Bernie Schultz described as a slow area rewarded the Gainesville, Fla., pro with a five-bass limit that weighed 25 pounds, 5 ounces to lead Day 1 of the Farmers Insurance Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River.

 

“I found a spot near where I fished last year,” Schultz said of his upriver area, near Chippewa Bay. “I haven’t seen another tournament boat in two years and I hope I don’t — unless it’s a camera boat.”

 

Schultz, whose best finish on the St. Lawrence was sixth place in 2013, described his spot as a flat approximately 200 yards long with depths of 3 to 8 feet. Starting on one end of the flat in practice, he quickly caught a 4-pounder, and by the time he’d completed his drift, he had another 4- and two 3-pounders.

 

“It’s a really good area and it’s protected,” Schultz said. “That’s what I like about it — it has everything the fish want and it has everything I need to fish, no matter what the weather does.

 

“There are numerous islands and I’m cradled right in the middle of them. I decided to start there today and it was a good call. It started quickly and I left them biting.”

 

Despite an impressive performance, which included the day’s Phoenix Boats Big Bass — a 6-2 — Schultz said the spot he fished required such a laborious effort that he believes most anglers would have abandoned it.

 

“It’s a precise drift that I’m making,” he said. “It’s slow enough that if anyone practiced there, they probably would have gotten discouraged.

 

“The fish are in certain sections of the flat and I had to locate them today because they moved a little bit. I had a 5, that 6-2 and a 3-pounder pretty quickly, but after that I had to move around on the flat to find them.”

 

Schultz fished a diverse arsenal of baits including a 1/2-ounce Hildebrandt Drum Roller spinnerbait, a Shimano jerkbait (debuting next week at ICAST), a 1/8-ounce black Marabou jig, a drop shot with a green pumpkin Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm and a Ned rig with a 3-inch green pumpkin watermelon laminate Yamamoto Senko.

2018 FLW Tour Harris Chain Day 2: Chris Johnston Grabs Leads with 45-04lbs!

Gustafson 16th, Richardson 37th, Cory Johnston 105th
by Curt Neidermier

FLW PRESS RELEASE

It didn’t take long for Chris Johnston to get the action started during day two of the FLW Tour event presented by Lowrance on the Harris Chain this morning. Nor did it take long for him to rile up the weigh-in crowd. Johnston was one of the first to cross the stage, dropping more than 25 pounds in the weigh basket to take the lead with a two-day total of 45 pounds, 4 ounces.

Canadian Chris Johnston rockets to lead with 25lb limit.
(Photo: FLW)

Yesterday, Johnston went to Griffin in the morning and caught three of his five keepers there, then finished in Harris. With an early check-in time today, he figured he’d be better off avoiding lost time in the lock and staying in Harris, which is the lake where the field takes off from each morning. 

Smart decision.

“It started right off the bat this morning,” he says. “I went to the spot where I finished yesterday.”

Shortly after takeoff Johnston hooked a tiny bass – we’re talking 4 inches. As he was winding it in, the bass suddenly started fighting back and ducked under the boat. Johnston called for the net, just in case, and when his co-angler dipped the net into the lake he came back up with a 6-pounder. 

“The 6-pounder ate the small bass and the bait,” Johnston says. “They were both in the net, so that was crazy.”

Crazy, maybe, but definitely a good omen, as Johnston quickly landed a limit of bass.

His strategy was to park his Ranger on a 300-yard-long stretch of 12-foot-deep hydrilla packed with shad and pick it apart with a reaction bait.

“It’s definitely key to get them early in the hydrilla,” he says. “I think there’s a little bit of a shad spawn in the morning.

“I’m fishing a main-lake weed edge. There’s a little bit of an indentation in it, and there’s some wind blowing into it. I just hit the Spot-Lock [on the Minn Kota Ultrex] and sat there.”

Johnston caught about 30 bass without moving the boat. That was partly based on playing defense to keep other anglers off, and partly because he was dialed in on an isolated group of fish. He’s hoping this weekend he’ll be able to work up and down the edge more to try and locate more groups of fish. 

Most of his action came on one bait, which he declined to name, but he did make a big upgrade in the hydrilla at 9:30 with a key bait switch.

“That bite died, so I threw a ‘Trap in there and caught an 8-6.”

It was 10:30 until Johnston finally pulled the plug on his honey hole. He spent the rest of the day running some old water and hunting for a bonus kicker, which he got in the form of a 4-pounder that let him cull up to his final weight.

2018 FLW Tour Harris Chain Day 1: Jamie Horton Leads with 24-13lbs!

Chris Johnston 12th, Gustafson 21st, Richardson 32nd, Cory Johnston 88th

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Horton's 2 big bass pave way to lead.
(Photo: FLW)

They say you should make hay while the sun shines, and apparently the FLW Tour’s best pros already knew that. They steamed back to Florida’s Harris Chain for the second event of the season, which is presented by Lowrance, and enjoyed a sunny, breezy, all-around beautiful first day that resulted in 11 limits of more than 20 pounds. Their co-angler partners added four more 20-plus bags.

At the top of the heap is Alabama pro Jamie Horton, who weighed 24-13 to take the early lead over Florida’s Koby Kreiger. Kreiger, who was assessed a 2-pound penalty after he violated rule No. 9 by running the main motor while he was on the front deck, trails Horton by just 1 ounce.

Horton admits he didn’t really have a sound game plan coming into the day, but he had two patterns that he knew had the potential to produce limits of fish. Thankfully for Horton, he was able to put a few in the boat early to relieve some of the pressure caused by his uncertainty.

“I just caught a couple good ones this morning,” he says. “I tried to capitalize on the shad spawn, what little bit was going on.”

With what would eventually be his second-best kicker in the boat early, Horton switched his attention from shad eaters to spawners in an area where he’d found bedding fish in practice, but where he didn’t expect to see the quality he found during day one. Thankfully, the water had cleared a tad, allowing him a better visual approach, and he was able to slowly decipher what they were “sitting on.” From there he just chipped away at 24 pounds.

Chris and Cory Johnston Win 2017 B1 Team of the Year and St. Francis Event!

Brothers sack 49.03lbs on Lake St. Francis for win!
By Luigi De Rose 

Cory and Chris Johnston enjoy the windfall. (Photo: Cory Johnston)

The fishing was as red hot as the weather on Lake St. Francis in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec. The 108 two-man teams battled it out on one of the most specatular smallmouth bass fisheries on the planet. Unfortunately,  catching the huge smallmouth became a trying experience for most. With temperatures in the low 30C, the bass were not in their predictable early autumn locations. Many found the bass disinterested even with the best presented baits and blamed countless bass tournaments throughout the summer and early fall for the fickly bass. Regardless, the Johnston brothers displayed once again why they are top FLW Touring pros and sacked a tremendous two-day limit of 49.03lbs for ten bass. Day 1 leaders, Lenny Devos and Jeff Magee came the closest to dethrore the Johnston boys who just won the Emerald Isle tournament the weekend prior.
Along with grand prize of $20 000 cash, Cory and Chris also won a Ranger Boat package plus  additional Ranger Boat and Garmin contingency prizes. Quite a haul for the last B1 Event of 2017

Top 5

1. Chris and Cory Johnston 49.03 lbs
2. Lenny Devos and Jeff Magee 48.95 lbs
3. Mathieu Dansereau and Jean Charles Goulet  44.41 lbs
4. Ryan Thornton and Josh Lewis 44.41 lbs
5. Denny Andrade and Scott Nagy 44.19 lbs

Drop Shotting Tips with Cory Johnston FLW & Shimano Pro and IBASSIN

Learn from one of the best!
By Joel Isenberg



Do you want to catch big smallmouth bass? Then listen to Cory Johnston. One half of the Johnston brothers, he's a whizz at catching smallmouth bass anywhere they swim. Cory has won multiple tournaments on several of the Great Lakes plus is ripping up the FLW Tour. Listen to how he rigs a drop shot for smallmouth and you cannot go wrong!

David Mutual Wins the 2015 Rayovac FLW Series Northern Division Lake Erie!

North Pelee Is. bass turn on!
by David A. Brown
FLW PRESS RELEASE
Of all the angling axioms that drive our decisions, few top the wisdom of following the food. Exemplifying this simple, yet undeniably productive strategy, David Matual posted a three-day total of 65 pounds to win the final event of the Rayovac FLW Series Northern Division on Lake Erie.
Fishing Canadian waters, Matual targeted shallow reefs northwest of Pelee Island. He had three different areas, all within a few miles of one another.
The spots looked good, from a structural standpoint, but it was the presence of baitfish — a lot of baitfish — that convinced him to commit.

Mutual big bag secures win by a 1/2 pound. (Photo: FLW)

On day one, Matual noticed hordes of baitfish migrating into the shallow reefs — likely prompted by seasonal cooling, according to Matual. Smallmouth don’t miss much when it comes to filling their bellies and this buffet brought the brownies running with their mouths open.

“I was around a school of fish that were so jacked up that every morning when I got there, I saw them busting on the surface,” Matual says. “My spot just got better every day.
“I didn’t bring any topwater baits, but I wish I did; we had so many splashes.”
Initially, Matual fished the shallow reef areas in about 10 feet, but astute observation helped him dial in the sweet spots.

Brother's Johnston Win Casey Cup with Over 26 pounds of Smallmouth

By Luigi De Rose

Cory and Chris Johnston display why this team is one of Canada's best.
(Photo: Chris Johnston FB)

#	Angler	Co-Angler	Weight	BF	Points
1	Cory Johnston	Chris Johnston	26.3		200
2	Sean Lazary	Bill Lindsay	25.1		199
3	Dan Risorto	JP DeRose	24.7		198
4	Derek Strub	Mike Desforges	24.05	6.45	197
5	Chris Vandermeer	Jeff Slute	23.7	6.45	196
6	Nick Cousvis	Henry Vanderlaar	21.8		195
7	Fred Kerr	Oleg Lapidus	21.75		194
8	Gary Miller	Dean Lemcke	21.7		193
9	Erik Luzak	Tom Hardy	21.15	5.3	192
10	Ryan Johnson	Callum Johnson	20.85		191

Full Standings below