2024 Lowrance Bassmaster Elite at Harris Chain of Lakes Day 1: Garret Scores Lead with 24-02lbs!

Canadians Chris Johnston 24th, Gustafson 28th, Cory Johnston 46th & Gallant 82nd

By David A. Brown

BASS PRESS Release

LEESBURG, Fla. — The combination of quantity and quality define bass tournament success, and John Garrett gladly sacrificed the former for the latter’s potential.

The Tennessee angler’s decision paid big dividends with a five-bass limit of 24 pounds, 2 ounces, which leads Day 1 of the Lowrance Bassmaster Elite at Harris Chain of Lakes.

“I only got seven bites today, but they were the right ones,” Garrett said. “This was a totally blessed day.”

After extreme weather postponed Thursday’s scheduled start, anglers fished under clear, sunny postfrontal conditions. Thankfully the front did not significantly drop air and water temperatures.

More importantly, the fish Garrett found in practice held their ground.

“I kinda gambled today; I went to an area that I knew had the right size fish in it,” he said. “There aren’t many fish there and they’re extremely hard to catch.”

Garrett said he made a long run from the take-off site on Lake Harris’ northwestern corner. The round-trip journey burned a big chunk of his day, but he said it was a calculated risk.

2023 AFTCO Bassmaster Elite at Santee Cooper Lakes: Luke Palmer Claims Day 3 Lead!

Canadians: Chris Johnston 23rd, Gallant 31st, Gustafson 42th 

BASS PRESS RELEASE

CLARENDON COUNTY, S.C. — Building on the momentum he established through a Friday adjustment, Luke Palmer stepped on the gas to sack up a Semifinal Saturday limit of 26 pounds, 3 ounces. He took over the lead at the AFTCO Bassmaster Elite at Santee Cooper Lakes with a three-day total of 70-15.

 

A fifth-year Elite from Coalgate, Okla., Palmer holds a lead of 3-8 over South Carolina’s Brandon Cobb (67-7) heading into Championship Sunday with a $100,000 first-place prize on the line.

 

“It has been a week; things have finally gone right,” said Palmer, who finished fourth at last year’s Elite at Santee Cooper. “I’ve never led one. It dang sure feels good, I’m not gonna lie about that.”

2022 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Lake Pickwick Day 2: Italian Gallelli Retains Lead!

SEAN OSTRUSZKA • TACKLE WAREHOUSE PRO CIRCUIT

COUNCE, Tenn. – When you’re in a good groove, you can seemingly do nothing wrong. Well, Jacopo Gallelli is definitely in a groove at Lithium Pros Stop 3 on Pickwick Lake Presented by Covercraft.

The Day 1 leader of the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by Fuel Me event admitted today that he felt he had burned up his best spots and had almost resigned himself to just trying to coast to a check.

Turns out, he was wrong on both fronts.

While a number of top pros from Day 1 struggled mightily on Day 2, the Italian pro continued to follow his gut and brought in the sixth-largest bag of the day, 16 pounds, 15 ounces, to extend his lead with 39-15 total for two days.

“Honestly, I was hoping to stay top 20 today,” Gallelli said. “So, to still be leading is as awesome as can be. And I feel I deserve to be because I had very sharp intuition today. Three of my fish were just intuition. Things that make you feel like you know what you’re doing.”

Part of the reason for that feeling is that he feels he finally is doing something he does best – finesse.

In all his events he’s fished since coming to the United States, including the Pro Circuit event he won last year on the Potomac River, Gallelli says he’s never been able to find a way to fish like he does back in Italy. Yet, this event, he finally found a pattern that’s just like what he does back home.

Now it’s just a matter of if that pattern will hold up, or even if he wants it to for Saturday, at least.

Thus far, he’s done the bulk of his damage from a key starting spot that produced a kicker smallmouth and even a large spotted bass today. From there, he’s been running a second pattern to get some kicker largemouth. That pattern produced a 5-pounder today, but he says he committed 3 hours of his day to catch that one fish, and he doesn’t feel he would have the luxury to do that on Sunday.

Fortunately, with him holding an 8-pound-plus lead over 10th place and the weights zeroing on the final day, Gallelli says he will actually try and lose the lead tomorrow in order to spend more time practicing for another solid pattern.

2022 Tackle Warehouse Tour Stop 2 on the Harris Chain of Lakes Day 2: Christian Greico Jumps into Lead!

 

By Jody White

Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Press Release 

LEESBURG, Fla.– Perfect Florida weather headlined Day 2 of Bass Boat Technologies Stop 2 on the Harris Chain of Lakes Presented by Frogg Toggs and many pros took full advantage. Weighing 22 pounds, 5 ounces today,  Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by Fuel Me rookie Christian Greico moved from 28th into the lead with an even 38 pounds. Behind him, Kerry Milner moved from third to second with a 36-3 total and Jason Reyes moved up from ninth to third with a 35-10 total.

Tomorrow, the Top 50 will duke it out for a chance to fish on the final day with zeroed weights for up to a $135,000 payday. With almost every lake in the chain producing now, and only about a 4-pound difference between 10th and 36th, it sure looks like Day 3 on Tuesday is going to be interesting from start to finish.

Today, Greico leaned on local knowledge and Florida savvy to move up the leaderboard in a big way. Hot as a pistol of late, Greico has banked four Top 10 finishes in the Sunshine State in the last two years.

“It feels really good,” said Greico after taking the lead. “When I saw the schedule and saw the Harris Chain was on there, I knew that was probably going to be my best shot at winning one of these.

“It was a good day out there,” he said. “Yesterday I figured something out in the last two hours and ran that a little bit today. I started off a little bit slow, but as the water heated up it got pretty good. I had about 18 pounds, and then I ran some other stuff and caught a 5-pounder. It just seemed like every decision worked out for me.”

Fishing mostly shell offshore, Greico added a 5-pounder late in the day flipping Kissimmee grass.

Top 10 Pros Below

2022 Bassmaster Elite on Harris Chain of Lakes Day 2: Buddy Gross Leaps into Lead!

Canadians: Cory Johnston 19th, Gustafson 42th & Chris Johnston 63rd.

Buddy Gross of Chattanooga, Tenn., is leading after Day 2 of the 2022 SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Harris Chain with a two-day total of 40 pounds, 7 ounces. (Photo by Seigo Saito/B.A.S.S.)

BASS PRESS RELEASE

LEESBURG, Fla. — Regrouping after an early disappointment and then replicating a specific scenario allowed Tennessee pro Buddy Gross to lead Day 2 of the SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Harris Chain with a two-day total of 40 pounds, 7 ounces.

 

After placing third on Day 1 with 22-12, Gross added 17-11 Friday. He will head into Saturday’s semifinal round with a lead of 1-3 over Ray Hanselman, but Gross said reaching this point was no easy task since the pattern he relied on for Day 1 vanished.

 

“Today, I had to work and run a lot of the lakes,” Gross said. “I went to Beauclair, Eustis and I stayed in Harris for a long time today. Yesterday, I stayed in Harris, but today that was not the case.

 

“I don’t know whether it was the cloudiness or they just moved. I think I was catching postspawners and they were schooled up yesterday. Today, I caught one fish off somewhere I could fish yesterday; everything else came off something new.”

 

Since Wednesday’s full moon coincided with a warming trend, many predicted an all-out spawning event. But while some anglers reported finding bass on beds, Gross said the lack of significant spawning activity did not hurt his game plan.

 

“I never do the spawning thing, if I can keep from it,” he said. “I’ll always try to find one or two in case I need them, but I’m not going to go to a tournament and just (focus on) spawning.”

 

Admitting that he was “winging it today,” Gross said he had two keepers at noon, four at 1:45 p.m. and finished his limit at 2:30. Gross held his cards low on that second pattern, but he said he believes it exists in many areas.

 

“I was still throwing reaction baits; I just changed up where and how,” he said. “I think it’s something I can take elsewhere, I just have to move around a little bit more tomorrow.

 

“It’s about a combination of three things. It has to have a little bit of those things for me to get bit. I’ll fish 10 places like that and won’t catch a fish, and then I’ll stop on one and catch three in five casts.”

 

Gross said he’ll begin Day 3 fishing the spots he identified Friday, but he suspects he’ll need to find more. With the field cut from 94 to 47 for Saturday, Gross will be able to fish more aggressively.

 

“Tomorrow I think I’ll be a little more specific and target places where I think I can catch a bigger bite and just swing,” Gross said. “Now, we’re in the Top 47 cut, so I have to try and stay in the Top 10 and that’s going to take some weight tomorrow.”

 

Hailing from Del Rio, Texas, Hanselman, is in second with 39-4. He placed fourth on Day 1 with 22 pounds and gained two spots with Friday’s limit of 17-4

 

Hanselman said success required fast, aggressive presentations that triggered bites. He accomplished that with a Strike King Hybrid Hunter, a rattling crankbait designed for an enticing action and a 5-inch Strike King Shadalicious swimbait.

 

“I rigged the swimbait on a 3/8-ounce belly-weighted hook, and I put a 3/8-ounce bullet weight on the front so I could keep it down and just grind it through that grass,” Hanselman said. “I used an 8-foot Power Tackle moderate swimbait rod for long casts, (efficient) hook sets and the power to rip that bait through the grass.

2021 Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain Day 1: Buddy Gross Snags Lead at Slugfest!

Gustafson 8th, Cory Johnston 38th & Chris Johnston 57th

Gross leads with 21-13lbs as 9 limits over 20 pounds hit the scales. 
(Photo: BASS)

BASS PRESS RELEASE

This time last month, Buddy Gross was struggling to walk after suffering a freak ankle injury while horseback riding.

 

His right ankle is still grotesquely swollen, but it didn’t slow him down on the water Thursday as he caught five bass that weighed 21 pounds, 13 ounces to take the opening-round lead in the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain.

 

“I made some good calls today,” said Gross, who weighed in four largemouth and one smallmouth. “I hit some stuff that I’d hit before and managed to catch a few.

 

“I had two smallmouth in my bag for the biggest part of my day, but I stopped on one more spot on the way in and caught another 4-pound largemouth to cull one of those fish.”

 

With three days left before the tournament is done, Gross didn’t go into specifics about where and how he was catching either species. But he did say he only hit about three of the 30 places he found to fish for largemouth during practice.

 

He had all but one of the bass he weighed in by noon.

 

“I’ve got a bunch of stuff left to fish, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be good,” said Gross, who picked up his first career Elite Series victory last year on Alabama’s Lake Eufaula. “They weren’t there like I expected them to be for most of practice, but they seem to be showing up now.

 

“If I can make it to Saturday when the sun is supposed to come out, I think it could be really good.”

 

Ott DeFoe Wins Lake Fork/Lake Athens MFL Event with 57-4lbs!

Last Period Charge Secures Win

By Tyler Binks

MLF Press Release

After five days watching the field battle with big bass at the General Tire Stage Three Presented by TrueTimber on Lake Fork, the Championship Round moved to Lake Athens.

Athens set up much differently than Fork and was a complete unknown to nearly every angler in the field. And while very little was known about this 1,799-acre lake located an hour south of Lake Fork, the day developed into one of the closest races seen in the final round of a Bass Pro Tour event.

That was until Ott DeFoe caught fire and turned a close tournament into an all-out blowout. His ascension to the top was quick and unrelenting.

With just over an hour to go, DeFoe found himself in fifth place with less than 20 pounds for the day, trailing then-leader Mark Daniels, Jr. by over 15 pounds. That’s when he turned things on and left the field in the dust.

In the end, he won by over 28 pounds.

DeFoe Rallies to a Landslide Win

DeFoe did most of his damage a short idle from takeoff, fishing near a bridge. He put on a clinic in the final 75 minutes of the day with a flotilla of bass boats, kayaks and pontoon boats getting a front-row seat to watch one of the best anglers in the world dominate the competition.

DeFoe’s fishing spot was so close to the ramp that he was easily the first angler back; when he put his boat on the trailer a few short minutes after lines-out, he was still trying to process what just happened.

This was surely what the other nine anglers were feeling.

DeFoe finished the day with 23 bass for 69 pounds, 12 ounces.

“That last hour was one of the more special hours that I have ever had in all of my time bass fishing,” DeFoe said.

He discovered his honey hole by watching his electronics, specifically side imaging.

2019 FLW Tour Lake Champlain Day 3: Tyler Stewart Making it 3 Days in a Row!

Canadians Sim 18th. 

by Curtis Niedermier

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Sunday will be the battle of Ticonderoga.
(Photo: FLW)

There’s a showdown looming on Lake Champlain tomorrow, and how it’s going to end up is anybody’s guess. 

Louisiana pro Tyler Stewart is in the lead for the third consecutive day at this week’s FLW Tour event, which is presented by T-H Marine. But Stewart, who weighed, 18 pounds, 5 ounces today, has been catching his fish down at Ticonderoga. That’s all he has, and he says a hurricane can’t keep him from making the long run to Ti tomorrow. 

Getting there doesn’t look to be an issue, but if the weather forecast is correct, getting home from Ti tomorrow afternoon could get a little dicey. The wind is supposed to blow out of the north at a clip that pro Daryl Biron, who’s fished Champlain for years, thinks might build big enough waves to more than double the normally 50-minute run down there. 

Stewart isn’t the only one making the run. Four of the top five and seven of the top 10 are fishing in Ticonderoga, including Biron in fifth, second-place pro Casey Scanlon and third-place pro Eric Jackson. The only one in the top five staying up north is Bryan Thrift, who’s in fourth. It’s highly likely that Thrift will have a limit in the boat before anyone fishing at Ti even gets to his starting spot – and that’s during the calm period forecast for the morning. The fact that Thrift is nipping at their heels and they’ll have a shorter day doesn’t seem to be dissuading any of the top pros from making the run to Ti. 

“I’ll zero tomorrow before I don’t go down there,” Stewart says.

The thing Stewart has in his favor this week is that Ti continues to churn out postspawn largemouths that exceed 4 pounds. A 4-pound bass is worth a lot of money in a tournament at Champlain. Stewart probably needs at least a few of them and another upper teens limit tomorrow if he wants to hold off the competition. So far, he’s weighed in 58-6 in three days.

“It started off kind of slow,” Stewart says of his morning today. “I got down there to my main places, and it was crowded. There was a tournament out of Ti, and on one of my main holes, there was a guy fishing it just fun fishing. 

“I didn’t get to fish that. I had two places that were covered up with people today – where I was really planning on smackin’ them today. I ended up catching a 4 1/2-pounder and got some momentum going and just grinded all day and ended up catching some good fish and just kept the wheels going.” 

Stewart had to adjust and run some new water on the fly to stay on the caliber of fish he’s been catching. His primary tactic all week has been flipping shallow cover on the main lake where the bass are keying on a particular type of baitfish. Today, he did get a few bites on a square-bill just “showing them something different,” which produced one of the keepers he brought to weigh-in. Then he lucked into a 3 1/2-pound smallmouth that culled one of his largemouths once he got back to Plattsburgh.

The leader says the smallmouth bites he’s gotten have been all luck, and he has no other pattern to run in the north end of the lake. He’s all in on the shallow largemouths in Ticonderoga, no matter the wind or waves. Stewart is gunning for his first-ever FLW Tour victory, and he’ll have to earn it in challenging conditions tomorrow.

2. Casey Scanlon – Lake Ozark, Mo. – 56-8 (15)

Midway through the day today, it looked like Missouri’s Casey Scanlon was on pace to overtake Stewart’s lead. Scanlon’s unofficial weight estimate was around 20 pounds, and it looked like Stewart might slip. 

As estimates sometimes go, the predictions were a little off. Scanlon weighed in 18 pounds, 13 ounces and will start day four 1 pound, 14 ounces behind Stewart.

Post-spawn magic

With a cool and wet spring the majority of the bass will be post-spawn for tomorrow's opening day of bass fishing in southern Ontario. One of the very best ways to catch bass during this calendar period is with a Senko style bait. Check out this video for some great ways to fish them.

Bradley Dortch Wins 2017 Walmart FLW Tour Harris Chain with 72-09lbs!

JT Kenney 2nd with mega limit
by Rob Newell

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Rookie FLW Tour pro Bradley Dortch of Atmore, Ala., seems to have a knack for the postspawn time of year when bass are retreating off beds and headed “out” to their late spring haunts. Last May, Dortch won his first Costa FLW Series event on Lake Wheeler by putting himself in front of bass that were leaving beds due to rising temperatures and falling water.

Dortch surpasses Cox and Kenney with rattle bait.
(Photo: FLW)

Dortch used that same postspawn strategy during the FLW Tour event presented by Ranger on the Harris Chain to take home his first Tour win Sunday with a five-bass final day limit of 22 pounds, 2 ounces that pushed his four-day total to 73 pounds, 9 ounces, good for a 1-pound, 13-ounce margin of victory over runner-up JT Kenney.

“I don’t know what to say, this is crazy,” Dortch says. “This is something I’ve been dreaming and working toward for years. It’s a dream come true – I can’t even believe I won it.”

After an unseasonably warm winter where Harris Chain bass got a head start on the reproductive process, the FLW Tour arrived just in time to catch the tail end of the spawn. While others took the headlines early in the event by sight-fishing, Dortch bet that the postspawn train would be coming down the track if he just waited them out at stations located on the outsides.  

2017 Walmart FLW Tour Harris Chain Day 3: Cox Leads with 54-14lbs!

Sight fishing battle becoming more difficult each day. 
by Rob Newell

FLW PRESS RELEASE
For two days, John Cox has been the king of the Harris Chain, dominating the FLW Tour event presented by Ranger at the Harris Chain with his favorite sight-fishing technique. But Saturday his sight-fish gave him the slip and now the outliers are moving in on him from all directions.

Local John Cox hunting every secret spot he has for nesting bass.
(Photo: FLW)

Cox posted a 10-pound, 4-ounce catch on day three and as a result his nearly 6-pound lead shrank to just over 2 pounds. He still leads the field with a 54-14 three-day total, but now pros from North Carolina, Texas and Alabama seriously threaten King Cox’s throne atop the leaderboard in his Florida domain.

“Would you like me to sum up the day for you?” Cox asks with a laugh. “Okay, well, I burned a lot of gas and I didn’t catch anything – how’s that?”

Cox’s frustration came from the fact that he ran many, many miles and burned a lot of trolling motor battery for his dismal catch.

“I only caught five keepers all day,” he says. “That’s it.”

Piling onto Cox’s disappointment is the fact that the wave he was hoping would move up with the impending full moon tomorrow doesn’t seem to be materializing.

“The fish were just acting so weird today,” he says. “I found one male that had a 5- or 6-pound female with it. I shook the male off several times, trying to catch her first. Then I went ahead and caught him and when I did, she just swam out to my boat, looked at me, and hit the highway – gone. It’s like she knew what was going on – those are the little signs that tell you it’s not really happening.

Brett Hite's New JackHammer Vibrating Jig from Evergreen.

Chatterbaits are king in spring!

By Luigi De Rose

Brett Hite with the new JackHammer. (Photo: James Overstreet)

The chatterbait has now claimed its second Bass Elite victory in a row and doesn't seem to be losing any steam. Any vibrating jig sporting a coffin shaped blade has been filing livewells across the south for over two months. When bass swim shallow its chatterbait time.

One angler who has built a career on the back of a vibrating jig has been Arizona angler Brett Hite. Hite needed to learn how to compete on grass lakes so he decided to learn the chatterbait. This investment had claimed both his FLW wins and another two victories on the BASS Elite Tour. Brett almost grabbed another win this past weekend at Winyah Bay but was edged out by Britt Myers who also fished a chatterbait to claim his first BASS trophy.

In the courts, Z-Man lures has received the rights to manufacture the Chatterbait and has laid claim to any versions of this popular lure. Choices have become very limited. Elite pro Brett Hite has turned to Japanese based Evergreen International, one of his sponsors, to craft his own version called the Jackhammer. We know almost nothing about this bait. All that has been released is that Morizo Shimizu and Brett Hite teamed up to create it and for many that is all that is needed to give it a seal of approval.

Don’t expect to find the JackHammer at your local bait shop. This is a web only purchase for now. If you like fishing something new or different than this is a great springtime purchase.