Category Archives: Bass Fishing

Bass Fishing Information

Fishing Jackson Lake In December Trying To Get Points

 The first Sunday in December 12 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our November tournament at Jackson Lake. After 8.5 hours of casting, we brought 35 keeper bass weighing about 43 pounds to the scales. Most were 12-inch spotted bass. There were three five fish limits and no one zeroed.

    Jay Gerson won with five weighing 5.72 pounds, Zane Fleck placed second with five at 5.35 pounds and Sam Smith was third with five weighing 5.05 pounds. Niles Murray came in third with three weighing 4.31 pounds and Carl Heidle had big fish with a 2.78 pounder.

I think I set my goals too low. My goal each year is to win the point standings, and I had a comfortable lead going into this tournament, with just two left. In my mind I thought if I just landed a keeper in each of the last two tournaments I would win.

When I landed a 13-inch spot at 7:45 I relaxed, I had my keeper. Then it hit me that with 12 fishermen I could lose over half my lead with a last place finish.  So I started trying harder but could not figure anything out.  I finally caught my second keeper at 2:00 and came in 11th place.

That finish did cause me to lose almost half my lead. So, with one tournament left this year, I gotta do better next Sunday!

Fishing a November Tournament At Lake Lake Lanier Trying To Find A Pattern

On a Sunday in November a few years ago ten members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our November tournament at Lake Lanier.  After eight cold, windy, rainy hours we managed to land 11 keeper bass longer than 14 inches, all spotted bass. There were no limits, the most any one fisherman had was three.  Four fishermen did not have a keeper.  They weighed about 26 pounds.

    I managed to win with two keepers weighing 7.11 pounds and my 3.81-pound spot was big fish.  Alex
Gober had three weighing 5.44 pounds for second, Chuck Croft was third with three at 4.67 pounds and fourth was Don Gober with one keeper weighing 3.30 pounds.

    The windy, cloudy day seemed perfect for throwing a spinnerbait on windblown rocky points and banks, usually a very good pattern this time of year. 


I hit three places like that quickly that morning and on the third one, at 7:25 AM, I landed the 3.30 pound spot on one of Ryan Coleman’s Mini Me spinnerbaits. That fish jumped two feet out of the water when I hooked it, unusual for a big spot, and made my heart stop. 

    That got me excited that I had a good pattern going so I fished it hard until 11:30, trying spinnerbaits, jerk baits and crankbaits. All I caught was two 13-inch spots, no keepers.  At 11:00 I got tired and tried some brush piles out of the wind but got no bites.

    At 1:00 I went back to rocky points and fished a jig and pig, working areas out of wind since I was so tired.  I caught my bigger fish within five minutes and again got excited, thinking that pattern would work. But two hours later I had not gotten another bite trying that pattern.

    Those big spots at Lanier fight hard and are fun to catch but unless you fish the lake a lot they are difficult to pattern.  The day of our tournament a guide there, Lanier Jim, posted pictures of the big spots he and a client caught.  He knows the lake well and fishes it every day.  They caught about a dozen keepers and their best five weighed about 18 pounds. And they fished the same area of the lake I fished. Knowing the lake makes a huge difference!  

    The Sportsman Club is fishing our November tournament there next Sunday.  I’m sure it will be tough but fun if we manage to hook any of those magnum spots!

Note – I won it, too, with a limit weighing 12.65 pounds i caught off wind blown points on spinnerbaits early and had big fish with a four-pound spot that came off the same rock as the 3.71 above!!

Last Minute Catches In A January Tournament At Jackson Lake

Sunday, January 9, eight members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our January tournament at Jackson Lake. After casting from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM, we brought 23 keeper bass weighing about 26 pounds to the scales. There were three five-bass limits and one fisherman did not have a keeper.

Alex Gober won it all with five weighing 7.35 pounds and had a 1.80 pounder for big fish.  Niles Murray came in second with five at 5.52 pounds and
Doug Acree was third with five weighing 4.34. Lee Hancock came in fourth with two weighing 2.50 pounds, beating my two at 2.48 pounds by .02 pounds!

    It was a tough day. Niles said he caught his five in about an hour.  This time of year there is often a “bite window,” a short time when if you are in the right place at the right time you can catch fish.

New member Will McLean fished with me and we fished hard.  But at 2:46 with five minutes left to fish I had gotten only one bite, a four-inch crappie that hit a spoon.  I found fish in many places, some of them set up under baitfish and looked like perfect places to catch one. But it did not happen for either of us.

As time ran out Will and I were working around a rocky point. I told him I would make a couple of casts across the downstream side of the point then we had to go in, even without anything to weigh.

On three casts I landed two keepers and lost one at the boat on a DT 10 crankbait. On my Panoptix I could see baitfish all over the end of the point with fish moving around under them, like in a few other places, but they were feeding better.

I wish I could have made a few more casts but we pulled up at the ramp two minutes before being late!

Fishing Cold and Hot Weather in January

The Flint River Bass Club tournament scheduled for Sunday, January 15, 2017 was canceled.  Who knew it got cold in January!  I decided to go anyway and had what I consider a good winter day fishing.

    It was cold so I delayed going until later in the morning.  When I put the boat in the water there was a little ice on the ramp from a boat that was launched earlier but I had no problem launching. The only trouble I had was no water was coming out of the tattletale on my motor when I cranked it. 

    Usually a small stream of water comes out of the motor showing the water pump is working. My boat has a water pressure gauge and it showed the right pressure, so I knew the opening for the tattletale was frozen up. That does not really cause a problem but I idled to a nearby rocky point to start fishing rather than making a run.  Sure enough, after fishing for a few minutes I cranked up and the stream of water flowed like it should. The warm sun and motor heat melted the ice.

    Within a dozen cast with a crawfish DT 6 crankbait I hooked and landed a three-pound spotted bass.  The water temperature was 51 degrees so the fish were about as active as I could expect this time of year. By the time I quit fishing four hours later I had also landed a two pound largemouth, a keeper spot, three short fish and had two more pull off without seeing them.

    I never really got cold.  My hands were cold when I got out in the wind and tried to fish, but back in coves, out of the wind, I had to open my jacket because I was too warm with the sun beaming down. When I was running on plane I wore gloves so even my hands were comfortable.

    As I write this it is 74 degrees outside.  Potato Creek Bassmasters has a tournament scheduled for Saturday. I hope it is not canceled because it is too hot for January!

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Stupid Names Fishermen Use for Bass and Fishing

For some reason folks seem to want to make up weird words and names for things they do, especially in sports.  Nowhere do I see more of these stupid words than in bass fishing.  Some of them amaze me, others are just so disgusting I ignore them to the point I will not even “like” a post on Facebook containing one of them.

    I could understand using a more succinct name to save words, but when the new dumb name is as long or longer than simply saying “big bass” what is the sense?  I guess folks are just trying to be cute or trying to be different just like everybody else.

    Most of us do not catch big bass very often, so some think they need to show off by naming them something odd.  Growing up I might hear a big bass called a “hog,” which morphed into “Hawg” over the years, but there were few others.

One name used for years was catching “Ole Nellie” for a landing a big bass, but more often it was “I lost Ole Nellie” today, meaning anything from hooking a stump to feeling a tap on your bait, setting the hook and missing the bite, never seeing the fish.  But “Ole Nellie” was so common a Georgia tackle company used it for their name.

    Nicknames like “bucketmouth” have been around for a while, but somehow largemouth are often named “largeheads” now. Why? Seems stupid to me.  A largemouth head is no bigger than a spot or smallmouth, but it is used to delineate between the species.  Will those folks now call smallmouth “smallheads?”  What will they use for spotted bass? “Spothead” or “Medium Head” maybe since it seems to relate head to mouth size?

    The first time someone said they caught a “Slobber Knocker”” I thought they had taken a picture of a couple of ten-year-old boys fighting.  That image of a kid being hit in the nose and snot flying still comes to my mind rather than an image of a big bass.

    A similar silly name is “Swamp Donkey,” a term that seems to be favored by college fishermen.  My mind brings up someone putting out traps for a Sasquatch.  Folks using that term are almost always fishing on a lake, and donkey and bass just do not jive in my mind.

“Chunk” or “Toad” or “Tank” makes some sense to me since those words describe a big fat bass pretty good, as do “Sow” or “Lunker.”  I start getting lost when it goes to “Porker” or “Butterball” though.

I understand the term “green trout” for bass since bass were often called “trout” by some of my uncles.  But how did the made-up word “Slaunch” get associated with fishing.  I have heard “Slaunch Donkey,” 
(there’s that four-legged mammal again) or just a “Slaunce.”  If someone on the street said “Slaunce” in a conservation, would it make you want to call the mental hospital?

“Gorilla” makes a little sense but it makes me think of a zoo, not fishing.  But if you say “Hydrilla Gorilla” like one weigh-in guy on TV tournament shows, it rhymes a little, and makes some sense but is still silly. But how do you get “beefers” or “bulls” for a big bass?

Where in the world did “ditch pickle” come from?  I often hear it from Lake Lanier fishermen this time of year, and fishing ditches in the winter there is a good pattern, but a “pickle?”  I guess bass are green.

I try to have some respect for the game I kill and the fish I catch, and these names are just the opposite of respect.  It’s weird – some fanatical bass fishermen that go crazy if a bass they caught dies will say they want to “Rip Some Lips.”  That sounds like an effort to kill the bass. There is even on guide service called “Lipripper” and that name makes me ignore everything they say.

Fishing is supposed to be fun, even on those tough days when fish just do not bite. But I constantly hear fishermen say “It was a grind,’ or worse “I grinded it out to catch some.” Sounds like a miserable day at work to me. If it is that hard, why do it?  Go grind where you get a salary, not trying to win a bet on catching fish.

    The first time I saw a post that said “I got the dub on my home pond with this slaunch,” I ask the site to convert it to English, but it didn’t change.  I knew if had something to do with bass fishing since the picture was a four-pound bass.  I checked and it was posted by a college fisherman.

    I guess he was trying to be cute, or different like every other fisherman his age, by using “hip” words.  What he meant to say was “I got the win on Lake Logan
Martin with this nice bass.” 

I’ve already given my take on using “slaunch” for a bass. I don’t know if he was ashamed he was on Lake Logan Martin, trying to hid it or just being cute by calling it his “home pond.”  Without research no one knows where his “home” is and calling a 17,000-acre lake a “pond” is just odd.

It took me a minute to figure somehow new-speak turned “Win” into “W” then “Dub.’  Really strange, I wonder what he is going to do with the millisecond he saved by using “Dub” rather than “Win.”  Oh, wait, they are both three letters.

    I have lots of pet peeves. Growing up I thought beatnik slang was stupid, in college hippy talk was cool but now every new thing that comes along just seems dumb.  I guess my age is showing!

Bass Are Cold Blooded So Slow Down for Winter Bass

Slow Down for Winter Bass

By Billy Decoteau

from The Fishing Wire

Bass are cold-blooded creatures, meaning as the water temperature drops lower and lower, bass move slower and slower. Add in some ice chilling water temperatures and lethargic becomes the norm in the underwater world of Micropterus salmoides. (The scientific name for largemouth bass.)

Speaking of scientific, this is the perfect opportunity to employ Z-MAN’s cutting edge ElaZtech soft plastic technology. At no time does ‘Do-Nothing Dead-Sticking’ mean more. When nose hooked on a drop-shot rig, the 4-inch Finesse ShadZ coupled with its exceptional inherent buoyancy mimics the lifelike movement of lethargic baitfish in frigid water. This is also the time when vertical presentations out perform horizontal presentations.

Making the perfect vertical presentation requires anglers to first locate wintering areas with their electronic sonars. Chasing winter bass requires anglers to spend time idling slowly as they monitor their screen, logging waypoints, then dissecting these waypoints even slower with their trolling motors, inserting additional waypoints and pinpointing high percentage spots. High percentage areas may be in the form of vertical cover such as brush piles, rocks, large boulders and ledges or as pictured above structural contour changes. Add in deep vegetation and baitfish… and, you may have found a real winter honey-hole!

Utilize your trolling motor to position yourself above the baitfish/bass. This is when a trolling motor mounted sonar pays off big time. Allow your drop-shot rig to fall straight down to the bottom, as you monitor it falling on your sonar screen. If bass move towards your bait, this signals an active or aggressive school. If your bait misses the target you may need to attach a heavier drop-shot weight or adjust your boat position.

Remember both the water and air temperatures are cold. Pre-rigging several drop-shot rods and jighead rods prior to hitting the water makes life a whole lot easier when snags or bass break-off and re-tying becomes a cold on-the-water chore.

3″ Scented LeechZ™

Keep it simple and subtle when choosing baits for winter bass. More often than not when it comes to action ‘Less is Best’. The following Z-MAN 3″ to 4″ baits are excellent Winter Bass choices for Drop-Shot Rigs.

One important factor to increasing your drop-shot bites when fishing cold water is to keep your baits on or close to the bottom A short six-inch or less drop-shot leader allows your Z-MAN bait to float just off the bottom.

The same subtle action applies when choosing jig-head baits for winter bass. When it comes to the dead-sticking technique, Z-MAN ElaZtech plastics out perform all other plastic baits in my experience. Z-MAN ElaZtech’s inherent buoyancy allows your bait to imitate the movement of lethargic forage in cold water. The following Z-MAN 2.75″ and 4″ baits are excellent winter bass choices for jighead rigs.

2.75″ TRD TubeZ™

The above Z-MAN JigheadZ models allow for several versatile rigging options. For sliding or gliding applications as well as penetrating deep weedlines and vegetation, the pointed large wide-eye head of the Trout Eye jighead falls faster and characterizes a dying shad. Z-MAN’s Finesse ShroomZ matches perfectly as designed with all four of the above baits. While, both the Finesse ShroomZ and Shaky HeadZ may be inserted into the TRD TubeZ, rigging any of the baits by sliding them on the 4/0 Mustad Ultra Point Hook is the perfect Shaky Head combination.

The same vertical boat position over the bass/baitfish applies when descending a jighead presentation. Let your bait fall to the bottom and allow it to lay motionless for as long as you can stand it. Then apply a smooth upward jigging or stroking action allowing your bait to fall back to the bottom, then lay motionless before reeling in and making another cast. Change up your retrieve and cadence until you trigger strikes.

As the aggressive JigheadZ Bait hopping presentation becomes non-productive its time to return to finesse dead-stick and drop-shot techniques. I have caught bass in 34 degree water drop-shotting, when other sections of the lake were iced over! The key to success is downsizing both your line and baits as the water temperature drops. Bass become more lethargic as water temperatures decrease. This is the time for smaller do-nothing baits to entice big cold-water bass.

Fishing Griffin Georgia Bass Clubs

 Bass clubs have been an important part of my life for 48 years. Since Jim Berry invited me to join the Spalding County Sportsman Club in April 1974, I have missed few meetings or tournaments in that club. I joined the Flint River Bass Club a few years later, in 1978, then finally joined the Potato Creek Bassmasters about six years ago.

    Joining a bass club puts you in a group of fishermen that love bass fishing. We are at all levels, from beginners to a few that can compete on bigger money trails.  But the joy of a club is the camaraderie, learning experiences and fun, not the money you might win.

Right now is a great time to join a bass club. All three Griffin clubs are setting our schedules and starting our tournament years in January.  My goal each year is to do well in the point standings for the year, and it is hard to keep up if you miss a tournament. And fishing is often surprisingly good in January and February.

The Flint River Bass Club meets the first Tuesday of the month and fishes our tournament the following Sunday.  Potato Creek Bassmasters meets the Monday following the first Tuesday and fishes that Saturday.  Spalding County Sportsman Club meets the third Tuesday each month and fishes the following Sunday.     

All three clubs have some two-day tournaments, with two in Flint River, three in the Sportsman Club and four in Potato Creek.  All three meet at Panda Bear Restaurant.

Annual dues are $25 in Flint River and $50 in the other two. Monthly tournament entry fees are $25 to $30 with a variety of pots, like daily big fish at $5, that are voluntary. The Sportsman Club and Potato Creek both have year end Classics that members qualify for during the previous year.

We have a lot of fun at the meetings discussing fishing and telling some true stories about it. Tournaments are fun competition, mostly for bragging rights since entry fees are low and there is not enough money involved to really get serious about it.

There are many of us in each of the three clubs that often fish alone, so there is always room for new members without a boat. I am looking for someone to fish with me in Flint River tournaments.  If interested in joining one of the clubs call me at 770-789-6168 or email [email protected]. 

    The 2021 tournament year is done and point standings are complete.  In the Flint River Bass
Club 100 points are awarded to first place, 90 for second down to 10 for tenth place.  If you catch a fish but finish lower than 10th, you get five points.  You also get 10 points for attending a meeting and 20 points for fishing a tournament, even if you zero.

    Last year in the Flint River Club I won with 1150 points and 42 bass in 12 tournaments that weighed 70.44 pounds.  Don Gober was second with 780 points, 28 bass weighing 44.64 pounds in 10 tournaments. Third went to Don’s grandson, Alex Gober, with 610 points and 19 bass in 10 tournaments weighing 24.4 pounds.

    Niles Murray fished six tournaments but had 580 points and 24 bass weighing 44.77 pounds for fourth. Fifth went to Chuck Croft fishing six tournaments with 510 points 13 bass and 29.52 pounds. He also had big fish for the year with a 5.39 pound largemouth caught at West Point in May. Lee Hancock fished only three tournaments but came in sixth with 310 points and 18 bass weighing 29.21 pounds.

The Potato Creek Bassmasters uses the same point system as Flint River but has a lot more members, and more fish every month.  Sam Smith won with 785 points, 45 bass weighing 86.62 pounds and I placed second with 765 points, 61 bass and 103.24 pounds.  Third went to Raymond English with 700 points, 73 bass and 116.35 pounds and Kwong Yu came in fourth with 695 points, 65 bass and 116.55 pounds.

Fifth place for the year was won by Lee Hancock with 680 points, 55 bass and 98.08 pounds.  Sixth was Mitchell Cardell with 660 points, 50 bass and 96.52 pounds. Big fish for the year was won by Jamie Beasley with a beautiful 7.23 pound largemouth caught at Eufaula in March.

It was interesting that the 12 tournaments in this club were won by 11 different members!

In the Sportsman Club 25 points are awarded to first, 24 for second down to one for 25th.  Each fisherman weighing in a limit in a tournament gets a bonus point, as does big fish. And each fisherman gets one point for fishing a tournament, even if they zero, and one point for attending a meeting.

I had 294 points and 52 bass weighting 86.38 pounds for first, second was a tie with Raymond English and Jay Gerson both having 274 points. Raymond weighed in 45 bass weighing 87.71 pounds and Jay had 60 bass weighing 84.19 pounds.  Fourth went to Glenn
Anderson with 233 points, 35 bass and 48.28 pounds. All four of us fished all 12 tournaments.

Kwong Yu came in fifth with 214 points, 38 bass weighing 69.4 pounds.  Sixth place went to Wayne Teal with 168 points and 28 bass weighing 39.85 pounds.  Billy Roberts won big fish of the year with a 5.15 pound largemouth caught at Clarks Hill in April.

Join one, two or all three clubs and have some fun with us and show us how to catch fish!

Traveling Two Thousand Miles In A Week To Fish Lake Seminole and Lake Erie

Two thousand miles later, I know largemouth are biting at Lake Seminole and smallmouth are biting at Lake Erie!

   On a Thursday in Novmeber, 2016 I made the 200 mile trip to Wingates Lunker Lodge to meet Clint and Bowynn Brown to get information for the Georgia and Alabama Outdoor News December issues.  Clint and his son Bowynn live across the street from Wingates and Clint guides on the lake. Both fish tournaments there. Bowynn is a member of the Bainbridge Bass Cats High and Middle schools fishing teams.

    When I got there that afternoon they had been out fishing and had about ten bass in the live well. When they started pulling them out for pictures each held two up. Those four went from almost six pounds to about five pounds. And there was another five pounder still in the live well!

    We went out for a few hours looking at the ten spots to put on the map and talked about how to fish them.  Then I made the 200 mile return trip to Griffin, getting home about 11:00 PM.

    On Saturday Bowynn won his school tournament with three bass weighing seven pounds and Clint won a tournament with five weighing 18 pounds. Bass are feeding heavily at Seminole and it would be a great trip anytime until the water gets real cold around Christmas.

    Friday I left my house at 11:00 AM headed north. I thought leaving at that time would get me through Atlanta when traffic was not too bad. WRONG.  The traffic warning sign near I-20 on I-75 said there was a wreck at 17th street and all lanes were blocked.

    I started to try to go around it on surface streets downtown but I don’t really know my way around and was afraid I would get lost.  Sure enough I came to a stop near 10th Street.  It took me 30 minutes to get past the wreck on 17th Street. And apparently it had caused other wrecks, the police were working four wrecks between 14th and 17th Streets!

    The rest of the 400 mile drive to near Lexington, KY was uneventful and I spent the night at a Red Roof Inn. The next morning I drove to Lake Erie just south of Detroit, another 400 miles, and spent the night. I was within a mile of I-75, I took it all the way.

    Sunday morning when I got up just before daylight the windshield on my van was iced over. Not frost, solid ice. The air was at 36 degrees according to my phone weather report.  At 9:00 I met Bass Elite Pro Chad Pipkins and got my Cabella’s Guidewear, my heaviest winter suit, on.

    Chad said it was a nice day even if cold, and the wind was not bad. We put in at the boat ramp in a cove and rounded the point, and I said “I don’t think I’m in Georgia anymore.” There was nothing ahead of us but water as far as I could see.

    The waves seemed pretty big to me but Chad said it was not a bad day.  We stopped on a rock pile in 15 feet of water and he got on the front of the boat.  Every tenth wave or so broke over the front of the boat, soaking his feet and putting several gallons of water in the boat.

    He said on a bad day every wave would do that!

    We fished for about an hour and each of us caught a smallmouth on drop shot rigs. We then went back into the ramp cove and he showed me all the bells and whistles on the boat.  Pros at that level have an amazing array of extras on their boats. This one had four top end Hummingbird depthfinders on it!

    We took the boat our and I headed home. The boat followed me!  I hope Linda will let me keep it and give it a good home!

    I called and made reservations at the same motel in Kentucky where I had stayed two nights before.  When I got to Cincinnati I came to a stop about two miles from where I-75 splits and goes over the river.  Nobody was going the other way into town. Four miles and 90 minutes later traffic sped up to about 50 miles per hour and thinned. I never saw a wreck or any other reason for the traffic jam.

    Pulling a new boat through all that mess worried me a little but everything went fine until I came into Atlanta. As usual traffic was jammed up where I-75 and I-85 join, even at 1:00 on a Monday afternoon. One lane would stop while the one next to it moved, then that lane would stop while the other one moved.

    Even though the boat trailer has surge brakes I tried to leave several car lengths ahead of me, you do not stop immediately when pulling a boat. At one point the lane to my left was stopped and I was moving at about 20 miles an hour.  Some crazy woman in a tiny red car decided to pull into my lane just about the time my front bumper was even with her back bumper. I managed to slam on brakes and miss her.  If I had hit her with my big van it would have crushed her little car.

    She went about 50 feet to where the lane we were in was stopped, then jumped back into the left lane between two cars as it started to move, almost hitting them, too.  I saw her change lanes like that four more times in the next half mile or so.  She was about ten car lengths ahead of where she was when she first pulled out in front of me.

    Strangely enough, the most expensive gas on the whole trip was right here in Griffin, Georgia! I wonder why.  Long trip, 400 miles each of five days in a row, 800 of them pulling a boat, and I am glad to be home!

St Croix Rods Official Sponsors of Bassmasters Opens

St. Croix Announced as Title Sponsor of 2022 Bassmaster Opens Series
PARK FALLS, WISC. – B.A.S.S. officials announced in October the slate for the 2022 Bassmaster Opens Series, with nine tournaments in three divisions covering nine states as the pathway to some of the most-coveted invitations in all of professional bass fishing. Today, B.A.S.S. and St. Croix Rods, handcrafters of the Best Rods on Earth® for nearly 75 years, are pleased to announce St. Croix’s title sponsorship of the 2022 Bassmaster Opens Series. In addition to St. Croix’s title sponsorship, the St. Croix Rods Rewards Program will award an extra $1,000 to an angler who wins a St. Croix Bassmaster Opens tournament fishing St. Croix rods, or $500 to the highest-finishing top-10 angler fishing St. Croix rods.

Review of St Croix Rods.

The 2022 St. Croix Bassmaster Opens Series will return to a regular schedule this season with the first tournament, a Southern Division event, set for February 3-5 on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in Kissimmee, Florida. From there, the Opens will wind through Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, New York, and Maryland.“The Opens have always been a critical proving ground for tournament anglers,” says Hank Weldon, tournament director for the Bassmaster Opens. “Current Bassmaster Elite anglers and St. Croix pro-staffers like Caleb Kuphall, Bob Downey, and Pat Schlapper have all leveraged their success in the Opens to ascend to bass-fishing’s biggest stages, the Bassmaster Elite Series and the Bassmaster Classic. This year, the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens combine Elite invitations, Classic spots and a ton of coverage for new anglers on FOX Sports and the B.A.S.S. platforms. All of that has led to record-breaking registration numbers as anglers try to get one of the 225 boater spots for each 2022 event. We’re thrilled to welcome St. Croix – America’s premier, family-owned rod company – onboard this year as our title sponsor to help us spotlight the future stars of our sport. The competition is going to be fierce.”
Bob Downey of Hudson, Wisconsin began fishing Junior B.A.S.S. Nation tournaments as a teenager. “I remember watching KVD win the 2001 Bassmaster Classic on the Louisiana Delta when I was 14,” he recalls. “That sparked my interest in wanting to try and do the same thing someday.” After experiencing success at the junior level, Bob attended the University of Iowa, where he continued his tournament angling. Downey signed on to fish the Bassmaster Central Opens in 2019, claiming a check in all four events and qualifying for the 2020 Bassmaster Classic by winning the final event of the season at Grand Lake, Oklahoma. He also qualified for the Elite Series by finishing fifth in the 2019 AOY standings. Downey has fished the Bassmaster Elite Series for the past two seasons. “Bassmaster – and specifically the Bassmaster Opens – provided the platform for me to get to where I’m at today,” he says.
The same is true for St. Croix pro, Pat Schlapper of Eleva, Wisconsin. Schlapper left a stable career to fish full time in 2019, signing up to fish the 2020 Bassmaster Eastern Opens, and also qualified for the 2021 Classic by virtue of his 2020 TNT Fireworks B.A.S.S. Nation National Championship win. Schlapper’s performances on both tournament trails double qualified him for the 2021 Bassmaster Elites.
Caleb Kuphall, a recent addition to the St. Croix pro staff, is another angler who’s made a lot of waves in Bassmaster events the past three years. Of the 23 Bassmaster events the Mukwonago, Wisconsin angler has entered, he’s had four top 10s and finished in the money 22 times. He spent just one season fishing the Opens in 2019, when he won the 2019 Central Open at Lewis Smith Lake to qualify for the 2020 Bassmaster Classic and finished second in the Central division points race, earning a spot on the Elite Series. Earlier this year, in just his second year fishing the Elites, he won the Bassmaster Elite tournament at Lake Guntersville.

“St. Croix exists to give every angler the upper hand, and that philosophy extends well beyond simply providing them with the Best Rods on Earth®,” says St. Croix Vice President of Marketing, Jesse Simpkins. “We couldn’t be more pleased to extend our support to the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens Series, which provides hope and opportunity for so many talented and aspiring tournament anglers. It’s a chance to prove to themselves that they can compete with the very best and a realistic pathway they can follow – applying their skills along the way – that can quickly ascend them to the ultimate levels of bass-fishing competition. Caleb, Bob, Pat and others on our own staff here at St. Croix have proven that, as have dozens of other talented and driven anglers.”The winners of all nine 2022 Opens will earn a berth into the 2023 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk, provided they have fished all three events in the division where their win occurred.

Follow all of the action of the 2022 St. Croix Bassmaster Opens Series at https://www.bassmaster.com/bass-pro-shops-bassmaster-opens.

Last Tournaments of the Year At Jackson

Two weekends ago all three local bass clubs ended our tournament years at Jackson Lake. Saturday the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished from 7:00 – 3:30 and on Sunday the Flint River Bass Club and Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our annual two-club tournament from 7:30 – 3:30.

Saturday 21 of us weighed in 42 keeper bass weighing about 59 pounds. There were three five-bass limits and eight people didn’t catch a keeper.

Lee Hancock won with five bass weighing 7.35 pounds, Tom Tanner placed second with five at 5.53 pounds, Mitchell Cardell had four weighing 5.37 pounds for third and Mike Cox placed fourth with five weighing 5.15 pounds. Sport Hulon had a 4.08-pound largemouth for big fish.

On Sunday, ten members of the two clubs landed 31 keeper bass weighing about 41 pounds. There were three five fish limits and one person zeroed.

My five weighing 6.51 pounds was first, Niles Murray had four at 6.10 pounds for second, third was Don Gober with three weighing 5.69 pounds and fourth went to Jay Gerson with five at 5.64 pounds. Raymond
English had big fish with a 2.89 pound largemouth.

Fishing seemed much better Sunday with a lot fewer boats on the lake. Saturday was crowded with other fishermen, pleasure boaters and even skidoos. Weather both days was about the same, with cool cloudy weather and water temperatures in the mid-50s.