Chris Johnston Wins 2018 Canadian Open Pro/Am with 50-96lbs!

Johnston Bros. 1st and 3rd. 
By Luigi De Rose 

Chris Johnston again proves he is a smallmouth master.
(Photo: John Whyte)

Under a historic cold front where the air temp dropped almost 20C and the wind kicked up after a week of hot, humid weather Lake Simcoe/ Lake Couchiching still illustrates why it is one of the best smallmouth lake on the planet.  Prefishing saw giant smallmouth cruising shallow shoals, glued to boulders and feeding on deep flats. Fresh off a stellar FLW Tour season, Chris Johnston put together two stellar 5-bass limits, 26-35lbs and 24-06lbs, to capture the Canadian Open Pro/Am. Second place went to Brian Huges who landed 50lbs. Newly minted dad, Cory Johnston grabbed third with 48-04lbs. Forth went to Simcoe ace John Whyte with 48-04lbs and Seb Roy finished 5th with 46-03lbs anchored by a 6-05lbs bass, the tournament's largest bass.

2018 Forrest Wood Cup: Full Field Announced

FLW PRESS RELEASE

With the conclusion of the 2018 FLW Tour season at Lake St. Clair today, the field of 56 for the Forrest Wood Cup is now final.

Qualifiers will compete for the $300,000 first-place prize Aug. 10-12 on Lake Ouachita in Hot Springs, Ark.

The field includes the 2017 FLW Tour Angler of the Year, the 2017 Forrest Wood Cup champion, the top 40 anglers in the 2018 FLW Tour AOY standings (invitations were extended down to 44th place due to double-qualifications by other means), the 2018 T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League All-American champion, the 2018 YETI FLW College Fishing National Championship winner, the 2018 The Bass Federation National Championship winner and qualifiers from the 2017 Costa FLW Series Championship, including the FLW Series International Division’s top finisher at the championship.

Full field below

Happy 4th of July

Mark Rose Grabs 2018 FLW Tour Angler of the Year!

Thrift, Martin, Johnston and Meyer round of Top 5 AOY

by Curtis Niedermier

FLW PRESS RELEASE

For fans, the Pennzoil Marine Angler of the Year race is over. For Mark Rose, the Pennzoil Marine Angler of the year race is finally over.

Faith and family guide Mark to another AOY win.
(Photo: FLW)

“Finally” is necessary to emphasize the relief that Rose felt after Scott Martin was bumped from the top 10 during today’s day-three weigh-in at the FLW Tour event presented by Mercury on Lake St. Clair. That Martin didn’t make the cut to Sunday meant that he could no longer catch Rose in the standings. When Joey Cifuentes weighed in and Martin dropped to 11th, the wait was over, and it became official: Mark Rose is the 2018 FLW Tour Angler of the Year.

Rose took over the lead in the standings at stop No. 5 at Smith Lake and was able to ride it out despite a mediocre 67th-place finish at St. Clair. He had a 64-point lead coming in and needed to finish 64th or better to guarantee no one could catch him.

Sixty-four places is a lot, but not really. Not on St. Clair, where 20 places can be separated by only ounces.

Rose knew that, and he knew it was far from a sure thing. And he was reminded about it often because, when you’re the AOY leader, everyone asks you about AOY. When you’re the AOY leader, bass writers crunch the numbers and figure the odds on whether or not you’ll win it. And when you leave the door open at the final tournament and have to wait it out on shore while Scott Martin, a former AOY himself, gets to fish on top-30 day, you’re forced to sit and watch and wonder about your fate.

Mark Daniels Jr. Wins 2018 Bassmaster Elite Lake Oahe with 69-09 lbs!

Bait fish and drop shot key to win. 

By James Hall

BASS PRESS RELEASE 

MDR's rookie season just improved a lot!
(Photo: BASS)

For the first time in four days, the wind and waves were calm on mighty Lake Oahe. Mark Daniels Jr. was not. The Alabama pro started Championship Monday with a lead of more than 6 pounds over the rest of the field.
 
However, he struggled to get bites from the bigger bass he needed, and it seemed the Berkley Bassmaster Elite at Lake Oahe presented by Abu Garcia was slipping through his hands.
 
Former Bassmaster Classic winner Casey Ashley was reported on Bassmaster.com to have caught up to Daniels. However, when the scales settled, Daniels’ last-round 13-pound, 3-ounce limit was enough to take home the big blue trophy. His final tally was 69-9, besting Ashley, the runner up, by more than 3 pounds.
 
“This is a special place in South Dakota! Beautiful place, beautiful people and an awesome fishery. There is nothing you can complain about here,” Daniels said before getting emotional over his very first Elite Series win. “I have literally dedicated my life to this sport. And I never gave up. And let me say one thing, if anyone out there has something they love, pursue it. I’m living proof you can live your dream if you are willing to work for it.”
 
And Daniels worked hard for it this week. He found an area where postspawn bass were congregating after the spawn, and he used finesse techniques to catch them. “I was fishing deep points adjacent to shallow flats. The fish were pretty finicky, so I relied heavily on a Finesse TRD soft-plastic bait by Z-Man with the mushroom head (Ned rig), and drop shotting a Z-Man Finesse WormZ,” Daniels explained.
 

Chad Grigsby Wins 2018 FLW Tour Lake St. Clair with 97-08lbs!

Monster limit seals 2nd FLW win. 

by Sean Ostruszka

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Tube and spy bait devastating 1, 2 punch.
(Photo: FLW) 

After the day-three weigh-in at the FLW Tour event presented by Mercury on Lake St. Clair, then-leader Dylan Hays said whoever cracked 25 pounds between he, Chad Grigsby and Brad Knight would win. He was right.

With all three fishing within earshot of one another, it was Grigsby who got to whoop it up the most today. He caught a 6-pounder early and never looked back, bringing in 26 pounds, 4 ounces to nearly crack the century mark on smallies and win the final FLW Tour stop of the 2018 season.

“This is awesome,” says Grigsby, who caught 97 pounds, 8 ounces total for his second Tour victory. “Winning the first one was great, but this one … I mean, you had to catch ’em every day this event. Fortunately, I just had a very special spot, and I had it all to myself.”

That spot was a 1/8-mile stretch on the southern Canadian side of St. Clair. It wasn’t far from where Hays and Knight were sharing a spot, but having this particular spot to himself was what Grigsby feels made a huge difference in being able to pull out the win.

While the spot didn’t seem like anything too different – an area with water 16 to 19 feet deep with a mixture of sand and patches of grass – what made it special was just how much bait was in there. Today, especially, Grigsby says when he pulled up he immediately noticed even more bait than had been in there all week.

“I saw that and knew something special was going to happen,” Grigsby recalls.

Just as in the previous days, Grigsby had to adjust to figure out what the fish wanted to eat. Willingness to adjust daily was the biggest reason for his victory.

On day one, he was catching some fish, but when the lake slicked off he picked up a Duo Realis Spinbait 80 spy bait – something he hadn’t thrown even in practice – and cracked his tournament-leading 25-13 bag.

The next day they wouldn’t eat the spy bait, and it was a switch to a 1/4-ounce black marabou jig that produced two big bites en route to maintaining his lead with 24-4. The spy bait was the deal again on day three, though Grigsby didn’t execute as well and lost a few fish that resulted in a 21-3 catch, which gave Hays an opening to slide into the lead.

Grigsby knew that if he could execute better with the spy bait his weight would skyrocket back up on the final day, and he proved himself right. While he started catching them on a Venom tube, he mixed in the spy bait, which produced most of his bigger bites.

“I really feel I stayed one step ahead of them all week,” Grigsby says. “Sometimes I’d go 45 minutes without a bite, and then I’d switch things up, adjust and start catching them again. I just had to keep making adjustments.”

The Minnesota pro grew up in Michigan and spent the first 25-plus years of his life fishing St. Clair, so Grigsby was confident he could win on the fishery. But he admits that confidence had wavered after the last few seasons.

“I’ve had to overcome a lot of my own demons,” Grigsby says. “I’ve had such a bad last two years I didn’t even feel comfortable fishing anymore. I had no confidence.

“Coming back to the Tour, especially these last four events, I finally feel relaxed, comfortable and confident in my abilities as an angler. And now winning here just blows everything out of the water.” 

Top 10 pros

1. Chad Grigsby – Maple Grove, Minn. – 97-8 (20) – $128,000 

2. Dylan Hays – Sheridan, Ark. – 95-5 (20) – $30,200

3. Brad Knight – Lancing, Tenn. – 92-5 (20) – $25,100

4. Scott Dobson – Clarkston, Mich. – 89-11 (20) – $20,000  

5. Bryan Thrift – Shelby, N.C. – 87-13 (20) – $19,000                      

6. Todd Castledine – Nacogdoches, Texas – 85-1 (20) – $18,000         

7. Cody Hahner – Wausau, Wis. – 84-11 (20) – $17,000

8. Jeremy Lawyer – Sarcoxie, Mo. – 82-14 (20) – $16,000

9. Ryan Chandler – Hebron, Ind. – 82-6 (20) – $15,500

10. Joey Cifuentes – Clinton, Ark. – 82-3 (20) – $14,000

2018 Bassmaster Elite Lake Oahe Day 3: MDJ Out in Front with 56-06 lbs!

Boyd Duckett 2nd, Casey Ashley 3rd. 

By James Hall

BASS PRESS RELEASE 

Drop shot key to Daniels' success.
(Photo: BASS)

Alabama’s Mark Daniels Jr., who vaulted to the lead in the Berkley Bassmaster Elite at Lake Oahe presented by Abu Garcia Saturday, distanced himself from the rest of the field today. The second-year Elite Series pro brought 17 pounds, 6 ounces to the scales for a three-day total of 56-6, which gives him a nearly 6 1/2-pound cushion going into Championship Monday.
 
“Man, it was tougher today. I need to get more bites,” Daniels said. “There is fishing pressure in the area, and I think the bass are starting to get hip to what’s going on. I had a lot of fish swim up and look at my bait and not bite today. The first day they would come eat it while it was sinking.”
 
Daniels is concerned that his school is almost fished out, so his impressive cushion does not make him overconfident. “Tomorrow, I’m going to expand on my area and probably try some new water. I need those 4-pound bites, and I feel like they will be pretty hard to come by if I stay where I’m at.”
 
Boyd Duckett made a huge surge to second place on the strength of a 16-pound, 6-ounce limit of smallmouth on Day 3. This pushed his total to 50-1. The Alabama pro and former Bassmaster Classic champion credits his success to fish management.
 
“During practice, I had found three schools of fish,” he said. “One was a community hole that a lot of guys found. One was a little less obvious. And my third was a little hidey hole that I was hoping nobody found.
 
“I started the first day on the community hole and then went and caught a couple on my second place. Yesterday I just fished my second spot and it had one other angler on it. Today, I finished out my limit on the hidey hole and nobody was on it. So, I feel good about starting there tomorrow.”
 

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

Enjoy a truly special Canada Day!

2018 Bassmaster Elite Lake Oahe Day 2: MDJ Grabs Lead with 39lbs!

Wind swept Oahe tougher than expected

By James Hall

BASS PRESS RELEASE 

Daniels ready for first BASS win.
(Photo: BASS)

Alabama’s Mark Daniels Jr., who was sitting in second place after the opening round Friday, vaulted to the lead on the strength of a monster 20-pound, 4-ounce limit today in the Berkley Bassmaster Elite at Lake Oahe presented by Abu Garcia.
 
However, before Daniels and the rest of the 107-angler field were able to make a single cast, they had to patiently wait through a 1 1/2- hour wind delay. A brutal storm passed through Pierre last night, pushing 70-mph winds and several inches of rain across the region, turning the 370,000-acre fishery into an angry ocean.
 
But once the water settled and the anglers were set free, Daniels started off the second round of competition just like he ended Day 1.
 
“Smallmouth are random. I fish randomly. Sometimes we just intersect,” explained Daniels, whose 20-4 worth of smallmouth gave him a two-day total of 39 pounds to take the event lead.
 
“I’m fishing transition areas where these big females are leaving spawning flats and chilling out before going deep,” the Alabama pro said. “I’m seeing a lot of the fish I’m catching on my Garmin Panoptix unit, doing the ‘video game deal.’ It’s how I like to fish.”
 
Daniels believes his fishing spots are replenishing daily with more big smallmouth. “The beauty of the areas I’m fishing is that postspawners should reload the spots. If I’m right, I should be able to bring in another 20 pounds tomorrow,” he said.
 
North Carolina pro David Fritts proved that his impressive first-day limit of Oahe smallmouth (19-7) was no fluke by bringing in an 18-pound, 1-ounce bag for Round 2. This gives the 1993 Bassmaster Classic champion a two-day total of 37-8, good enough for second place heading into Day 3.
 
“I’m proud of what I caught today, because where I was fishing, the wind was brutal. I had waves crashing over the bow of my boat all morning,” Fritts related. He believes this intense wave action has cost him the lead.