Drew Cook Wins 2025 NPFL St. Lawrence River!

Cook delivered a commanding wire-to-wire performance, taking the lead early and never letting go.

NPFL Press Release

 It took three days and nearly 700 miles of running, but Drew Cook conquered the mighty St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, going wire to wire to earn his first NPFL victory and a cool $100,000.

With three calm and sunny days—something rare this spring and summer in New York—the NPFL arrived in Massena at the perfect time, and the anglers capitalized on it. Many chose to make the long run to the mouth of the lake, with some venturing into Ontario, setting new records in the process.

Running nearly the furthest and fishing a different area each day to stay on fresh fish, Drew Cook’s three-day total of 77-6 gave him a 2-11 margin of victory. In second place, Kyle Welcher fought to maintain his Progressive Angler of the Year lead. He spent the first two days in third place before moving up to second today, extending his lead from 5 to 7 points, unofficially, over Patrick Walters, who dropped to fourth. Andrew Upshaw capped off his event with his biggest bag on the final day, finishing in third.

South Carolina angler Patrick Walters finished in fourth with 71-13 and Alabama pro Justin Atkins finished fifth with 71-3.

Both Drew Cook and Jesse Wise shared the big bass honors, each landing a massive 6-pound, 10-ounce smallmouth on day two.

Cook Goes Wire-to-Wire

Committing to Lake Ontario and the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, Georgia pro Drew Cook earned his first NPFL victory with a three-day total of 77-6. He took the Day 1 lead with 27-2, the biggest bag of the tournament, and when most struggled to catch big bags on Day 2, he added 25-8 and extended his lead.

On the final day, Cook returned to the big lake and fished another new area, but it took a bit of time to get going. Once he settled around lunchtime, he got into a “newish” area and started catching fish.

“Today was a grind,” he said. “I had a few good fish, but I had to really keep moving to find bigger ones than the high 3s, low 4-pounders I was around. I fished different areas each day, but today I fished a new area I hadn’t been to yet, and caught three of my weigh fish from it.”

2023 Dakota Lithium Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain Day 1: Cody Huff Scores Lead!

Canadians Cory Johnston 18th, Chris Johnston 26th, Gallant 56th & Gustafson 70th

Cody Huff of Ava, Mo., is leading after Day 1 of the Dakota Lithium Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain with 23 pounds, 3 ounces.  (Photo Seigo Saito/BASS)

BASS PRESS RELEASE

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — Cody Huff knew he had options, but the second-year pro from Ava, Mo., stuck with his strength and sacked up 23 pounds, 3 ounces to lead Day 1 of the Dakota Lithium Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain.

 

Anchoring his bag with a 5-pound smallmouth, Huff leveraged his renowned forward-facing sonar skills to hunt down sizable bass in Champlain’s Inland Sea region.

 

“I would rather go out and use my electronics and spend my whole day throwing at fish, instead of just running the bank and casting,” Huff said. “I had an awesome day, but I didn’t expect that. I knew I was on some good ones, but whenever I got around, they got to biting.

 

“It’s kinda crazy here because there are so many fish, you don’t know if you’re going to catch a 3-pounder or a 5-pounder. They’re just all mixed together, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun.”

 

Huff said he worked an area of approximately one square mile with depths of 20 to 50 feet. The key, he said, was covering water and continuously hunting fish that were following bait schools.

 

“They’re really just moving a lot. They’re never on a waypoint,” Huff said. “They’re in an area swimming.”

 

Huff said his action started early and he was able to put himself in a good position within an hour of takeoff.

 

“I had 20 pounds by 8 o’clock and then I just picked off a few big ones throughout the day,” he said. “I caught a lot of bass and had a lot of fun.

Taku Ito Wins 2021 Bassmaster Elite St. Lawrence River!

Cory Johnston 4th  & Chris Johnston 5th

Ito captures 26lbs final limit and first Elite!
(Photo: BASS) 

BASS PRESS RELEASE

WADDINGTON, N.Y. — Saving the best for last may not have been his intention, but Taku Ito’s eye-popping 26-pound limit propelled the Japanese sensation to a convincing victory at the Farmers Insurance Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River with a four-day total of 90 pounds.

 

Hailing from Chiba, Japan, the second-year Elite placed 38th on Day 1 with 17-15, then improved to 11th with a second-round limit of 22-14. Day 3 saw Ito secure his Championship Sunday berth by adding 23-3 and improving to seventh.

 

Earning $100,000 for his Elite win, Ito anchored his third and fourth days’ limits with 6-pound smallmouth, both of which earned $1,000 daily awards for Phoenix Boats Big Bass.

 

“I love Waddington — I’m very, very happy,” Ito said with the engaging sincerity Elite audiences have come to love. “When I was 8 years old, I won the (Bassin’s Black Bass with Hank Parker) video game and now, on the St. Lawrence River, I won the Bassmaster Elite Series.

 

“Big Bass. Big Stage. Big Dreams. Bassmaster!”

 

Ito, who placed sixth at last year’s St. Lawrence River event, devoted all four days to Lake Ontario. The first two days, he fished rock structures in approximately 20 feet. On Saturday those areas failed to produce, so he relocated to a spot in 26 to 27 feet near Chaumont Bay.

 

Calling this spot “Taku Disneyland” for its abundance of fish, Ito caught his Day 3 limit there and started on the spot Sunday.

 

“I was driving about two hours (each way) and I had about two hours and 30 minutes of fishing time,” Ito said.

 

Arriving at his spot this morning, Ito thought his graph was malfunctioning when he saw what appeared to be a false bottom at 13 to 14 feet. To his delight, it was a massive school of Lake Ontario giants.

 

“Usually, smallmouth are on the bottom, but today there was a school of big smallmouth suspended,” Ito said.

Clent Davis Wins 2018 Forest Wood Cup Lake Ouachita with 36-13lbs!

Davis restarts career with FLW victory

by Sean Ostruszka

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Little less than a year ago Clent Davis was contemplating giving up the sport of professional bass fishing for good. Now, he’s the Forrest Wood Cup champion.

Big worm and topwater proves to be key baits on win.
(Photo: FLW)

Despite starting the final day at Lake Ouachita in 10th place, Davis crushed the largest bag of the tournament – 17 pounds, 13 ounces – to be the first angler to make up nine places on the final day of the Cup. His 36 pounds, 13 ounces was more than 7 pounds better than second-place pro James Niggemeyer.

“I don’t even know what to do or what I’m feeling,” a stunned Davis said on stage after day-two leader Wes Logan lifted his hand to show he had only one fish in his bag. “This is incredible.”

Davis’ run to becoming Cup champion started last November when FLW Senior Director of Tournament Operations Bill Taylor called Davis about returning to the Tour after being on the Bassmaster Elite Series the previous two seasons. Admittedly, Davis was burnt out on the sport, but the itch came back after that call.

Fast-forward to the Cup, and Davis knew there was only one way he was going to have a chance to win.

“I’m a decent offshore fisherman, but I think I’m a really good brush pile fisherman,” Davis says. “So that was the only thing I was going to do since day one.”

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.

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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.

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