Then he went out and made the most of the opportunity.

The New Jersey pro was one of three anglers — along with Gerald Swindle and Chris Lane of Alabama — who won their head-to-head matches during the Bracket finals to earn berths into the 2019 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.

Avena, who will be making his first trip to the Super Bowl of Professional Bass Fishing, caught a five-bass limit that weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces, to easily win his match with Japanese pro Shin Fukae, who boated only one keeper that weighed 1-5.

“Today was all about making a dream come true,” Avena said. “I’ve never had a day of fishing that meant more, and I’m so glad it happened the way it did for me.”

The pressure of the moment was so immense that Avena had trouble sleeping Thursday night, and he used that insomnia to his advantage to make some adjustments to a bait that would be the key to his success Friday.

Avena hand-painted a 1 1/2-ounce spoon pink and white at midnight Thursday and rigged it with a size No. 2 Berkley Fusion treble hook. He then used the bait to catch a good limit of spotted bass by 10:30 a.m. Friday.

With Fukae struggling, the match was essentially over at that point.

“I used basically three techniques this week, and they were all important,” Avena said. “I used a drop shot with a 4-inch hand-poured worm, and I used a longer 2-foot leader because I was fishing for suspended fish. I also used a jerkbait, which served as a great search tool, and then I caught most of my fish today on the spoon.”

Swindle also threw several baits to catch his Friday limit of five bass that weighed 11 pounds, 6 ounces.

He caught a 12-ounce keeper just five minutes into the competition on a Rapala DT10 crankbait and then added 1-6 keeper less than an hour later on a buzzbait. For the rest of the day, in cloudy conditions that were ideal for a surface or near-surface bite, he used a jerkbait to fill out his limit.

His match was also a bit anticlimactic because his opponent, Arkansas pro Scott Rook, struggled for most of the day. Rook caught just one bass that weighed 1-14.

“I used a little bit of everything this week,” Swindle said. “I used a River2Sea spoon, a DT10 crankbait, a jerkbait, a buzzbait and then a shaky head.

“The shaky head with a Zoom green pumpkin/blue flake trick worm was probably the biggest bait for me — and most of the fish I caught on it came from 35 to 45 feet of water.”

Lane fished all week with larger topwater presentations that produced only a few bites, but larger fish on average. He stuck with that approach Friday and landed the biggest limit of the day — five bass that weighed 10-12.

His first keeper was a 2-3 spot that bit a Luck-E-Strike jerkbait at 8:09 a.m. He added a 2-9 on the same lure at 8:58 and a 3-11 at 9:01 during a furious stretch that put his match with fellow Alabama pro Greg Vinson out of reach.

Vinson finished with five bass that weighed 5-14.

“It all happened on top for me this week,” Lane said. “I switched from a wakebait to a Whopper Plopper and then I really just switched up today to that Luck-E-Strike jerkbait. The name of the game was cover, cover, cover — just cover a lot of water.”

One of the key moments for Lane came when he tied into a big fish that actually came unhooked.

“That big fish came off and then another one grabbed it,” Lane said. “If I had gotten that fish up next to the boat and then it came off, I might not have had that shot.”

Photo by: B.A.S.S.

With that one-day tournament in the history books, the stakes will now get higher every moment until the Classic Bracket concludes Friday.

After Tuesday’s opening round, 15 anglers were allowed to weigh their five biggest bass with the Top 12 advancing to the upcoming three-day, bracket-style competition. The anglers qualified in the following order: 1. Fred Roumbanis (16 pounds 1 ounce), 2. Greg Vinson (13-10), 3. Keith Combs (12-6), 4. Ray Hanselman Jr. (10-0), 5. Chris Lane (9-12), 6. Gerald Swindle (9-10), 7. Mike McClelland (9-0), 8. Chad Pipkens (8-8), 9. Adrian Avena (6-13), 10. Shin Fukae (6-11), 11. Dustin Connell (5-5) and 12. Scott Rook (5-4).

Marty Robinson (4-12), Takahiro Omori (1-15) and Bill Lowen (0-0) were eliminated.

“Today’s goal was just to advance,” said Hanselman, of Del Rio, Texas. “I just wanted to try and fish clean and make sure I made it into that Top 12. I figured a little something out (during Monday’s practice round), and it helped me today. But there aren’t a whole lot of places to do it on this lake.”

Starting Wednesday, the weights will go back to zero, and six matches will be held from 8-11 a.m. ET, pitting No. 1 vs. No. 12, No. 2 vs. No. 11 and No. 3 vs. No. 10. Then during the afternoon session from 12:30-3:30 p.m., three additional matches will pit No. 4 vs. No. 9, No. 5 vs. No. 8 and No. 6 vs. No. 7.

Wednesday’s weights will carry over to Thursday when the morning and evening lineups will be flipped. After Thursday’s round of 12, the six advancing anglers will fish head-to-head on Friday with their weights back at zero once again.

Friday’s three winners will advance to the 2019 Bassmaster Classic.

Carters Lake is a 3,200-acre highland reservoir known for big spotted bass that gorge themselves on the lake’s abundant population of blueback herring. Schools of herring sometimes cause the bass to congregate in large numbers along the surface, allowing anglers to catch big limits quickly.

But that wasn’t the case for most of the 15-angler field Tuesday.

“I didn’t get too many bites out there today,” said Elite Series pro Keith Combs of Texas. “But when I did get them, they were good ones. I usually try to cover a lot of water. But today I kind of punted on that, and at least it got me the five fish I needed.”

Chad Pipkens, an Elite Series angler from Michigan, said the lake could change a lot during the next three days.

“It’s anybody’s game out there,” he said. “The fish are moving around so much. I think I caught one bass today where I caught them in practice.”

Pipkens said having only three hours to fish the next three days will make things tough.

“I tried to learn a little bit more today and add that to what I learned in practice,” he said. “You’ve just got to put your bait in places where they live — and with only three hours to fish, you’ll have to do it right away.”

Since B.A.S.S. is using a catch-weigh-release format for the event, there will be no weigh-ins the rest of the week. All fish will be weighed by onboard judges and released immediately.

All of the action will be carried live on Bassmaster.com.

Linter of Arroyo Grande, Calif., added 10 pounds, 15 ounces of bass today to push his winning total weight to 37 pounds for three days of fishing. Brandon Lester of Fayetteville, Tenn., took second \with 34-11, and Derek Hudnall of Baton Rouge, La., was third with 34-1. Bobby Lane Jr. of Lakeland, Fla., was fourth with 32-7, and Scott Suggs of Alexander, Ark., took fifth with 32-3.

The weather was a key factor throughout the three-day tournament. A chilly rain on Friday was braced by sunny, unseasonably warm weather on Thursday and Saturday. The best fishing occurred during the worst weather when the bass were most active in the low-light conditions.

Everyone, especially including Lintner, knew the bass were in the fall transition, moving from deep to shallow water.

“I knew the bass were moving shallow, just not enough to put together a reliable pattern,” he said.

When the bites began Lintner, took note. He discovered greater concentrations of bass holding on steeper tapering shorelines used as migration routes.

“It started replicating itself so I went searching for similar areas,” he explained.

The steep dropoffs near shorelines where Lintner initially discovered the pattern were a 45-mile run from the launch site. Table Rock is a big lake, and Lintner decided to search nearer the weigh-in site. After two days, he found enough of the steep transition areas to complete a pattern. Lintner could spend more time fishing, allowing the continually moving bass to come to him.

On Thursday, Lintner moved into fourth place with 12-14, a respectable catch compared to the rest of the field. The next day, rain and overcast skies made the bite better, producing a limit weighing 13-3.

Today, the sun came out and the post-frontal funk set in. Lintner caught his limit by 8:30 a.m. The sun grew brighter, the wind went calm and the bite shut down.

“The low light compensated for the lack of wind, which made the pattern really click,” he said. “Without wind, the fish could see lures from farther away in the clearer water.”

By midday, the wind picked up but the bite did not for Lintner. That made the early morning bite the saving grace for the Californian.

Lintner alternated between a Spro Mike McClelland RkCrawler 55 crankbait, and a Jackall MC/60. He also used a 3/4-ounce jig with a Strike King Rage Bug. He flipped the latter setup when encountering isolated cedar trees near the transition areas.

Lester used a technique that is popular on his native middle Tennessee bass fisheries during the wintertime. Called tight lining, it involves methodically fishing a lightweight jig across deepwater structure. Very little movement is necessary to make the fish bite.

“I found bass at the ends of bluffs but couldn’t make them bite anything,” he said. “I thought of tight lining and it worked.”

Lester used a 3.75-inch X Zone Lures Shiver Shad on a 1/8-ounce jighead for his tight-lining rig fished on 10-pound braid with a 6-pound test leader.

He further dialed into the pattern by finding bass staging where deep bluffs transitioned into other forms of structure, such as rocky points or gravel shorelines.

The Opens Championship was the climax of a year featuring eight events in as many states. The Top 28 pro and co-anglers in the point standings from the Central and Eastern divisions qualified for the championship.

Lintner and the Top 3 pro anglers in points from each division were invited to bass fishing’s premier event, the 2019 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods. Frank Talley, Brad Whatley and Derek Hudnall advanced from the Central Division, while Brandon Lester, Bobby Lane Jr., and Garrett Paquette qualified from the Eastern Division. The Classic is set for March 15-17 in Knoxville, Tenn. Lester won the Eastern points title, while Frank Talley of Temple, Texas, won the Central title.

Lintner earned a Classic berth, $10,000 bonus cash and a Triton 19 TrX with Mercury 200 Pro XS and accessories worth $45,000.

Winning the $750 Phoenix Big Bass Award on the pro side was Mark Rose of Wynne, Ark., with a largemouth weighing 6-1. Alex Heintz of Denham Springs, La., won the co-angler $250 Phoenix Big Bass Award with a largemouth weighing 4-7.

Lane earned the Power-Pole Captain’s Cash Award of $500 on the pro side for being the highest-placing angler who is registered and eligible and uses client-approved product on his boat.

The Top 28 pro and co-anglers from the regular-season standings will fish Oct. 18-20, with daily takeoffs at 7:15 a.m. CT from Long Creek Marina. Weigh-ins the first two days will be back at the marina at 3:15 p.m., with the final-day weigh-in shifting to the Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, Mo., at 4:30 p.m.

All three bass species — largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass — could play a role in deciding the seven berths that are at stake for the Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.

“The lake is full of fish, but it’s like fall fishing anywhere else,” said Brock Mosley, a Bassmaster Elite Series pro from Collinsville, Miss. “You can expect a lot of bites. But with the 15-inch minimum size limit, it can be hard to find keepers.

“You’ll catch a mixture of all three species — and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some 15-pound bags that have at least one of each.”

That diversity in the bass population will force competitors to make difficult choices, and no one can say for sure which anglers’ strengths will play best.

If smallmouth and spots are the dominant species, deep-water specialists could locate big schools of offshore fish and grab center stage. But shallow-water anglers might also dial in a largemouth bite that gives them an advantage.

Another wild card could be the weather. Fall is trying to take hold in the area with temperatures expected to be in the low 30s Monday night, but then back into the mid-60s by Saturday.

“This is not going to be a straight, down-the-line, this-is-what-will-happen kind of tournament,” said Carl Jocumsen, an Australian-born angler who now lives in Texas. “The lake is going to change every day at this time of year. Keeping an open mind and keeping an eye on the conditions is going to be a massive part of this tournament.”

The regular-season Opens circuit included four tournaments each in the Central and Eastern divisions. The Top 10 from the season points standings in each division qualified for the championship, along with the winners of all eight events.

When the dust settles at Table Rock, the overall winner of the Opens Championship will receive a Classic berth, plus $10,000 cash and a Triton 19 TrX with Mercury 200 Pro XS package worth $45,000. The Top co-angler receives a Nitro Z18 with a Mercury 150 Pro XS outboard.

The Top 3 pro anglers in points from each division following the championship will also be invited to the Classic.

Frank Talley, Brad Whatley and Toby Hartsell currently occupy the Top 3 spots in the Central Division standings, while Bobby Lane, Brandon Lester and Garrett Paquette lead the Eastern Division.

John Cox, a Florida pro who finished the regular season fourth in the Eastern standings, said a Classic berth is his main objective — and he doesn’t believe it’ll happen unless he hoists the Opens Championship trophy.

“The way the standings line up, there’s no way I’m going to make it into the Top 3 in points,” Cox said. “So really, the only way I’m going to make it into the Classic is if one of the guys in front of me wins or if I win.

“So, it would be nice to take some of the mystery out of it and just win.”

Jocumsen said he’ll be working from a similar game plan.

“This is the best tournament I’m ever going to fish because it’s win or nothing,” he said. “I have to win to get that Classic berth. There’s no other option. There’s no risk in doing that. I have to do that.

“That makes it fun.”

B.A.S.S. officials announced Thursday that the B.A.S.S. Nation, the popular grass-roots organization with affiliated clubs in 47 states and 10 nations worldwide, will once again hold three regional events and a year-end championship in 2019.

The Nation will visit Alabama’s Lake Guntersville for the Central Regional on April 17-19, California’s Lake Shasta for the Western Regional on May 8-10 and Sebago Lake in Maine for the Eastern Regional on Sept. 11-13.

The season will then culminate with the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship, which will be held on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell at a date to be determined — most likely in October.

“We’re excited to have a schedule that includes well-known bass-fishing havens like Lake Guntersville, Lake Shasta, and Lake Hartwell,” said B.A.S.S. Nation Director Jon Stewart. “Obviously, the tradition that B.A.S.S. has with those three lakes speaks for itself.

“But we’re also really excited about holding a B.A.S.S. Nation Regional event at a great site like Sebago Lake. It’s a place that we’ve visited for smaller divisional tournaments before, but a place that may be a lot of people aren’t as familiar with as some of the others.”

The timing of the Guntersville event — right in heart of spring — should make for good weather and excellent fishing on a 69,000-acre Tennessee River fishery that is known for producing giant largemouth. The tournament will feature a field of 190 boats with 418 anglers, including alternates.

Guntersville has hosted 22 major B.A.S.S. tournaments, including the 1976 and 2014 Bassmaster Classics and Bassmaster Megabucks events in 1990 and 1992.

“All you have to say is ‘Guntersville,’ and bass fishermen perk up,” Stewart said. “Bass anglers of all skill levels understand what an opportunity it is to fish a lake like Guntersville, especially during the spring.”

The Lake Shasta tournament, which will be held in Redding, Calif., will have a field of 110 boats with 242 anglers — and history says it could be a spotted bass slugfest. “When we were out there for the Nation Regional in 2017, anglers were saying you could pull up to any place you wanted to, throw any bait you wanted to throw and expect to catch fish,” Stewart said. “We had some incredible fish weighed in, mostly big spots. We hit it just right — and hopefully, we will again.”

The final regional of the year, on Sebago Lake, will feature 180 boats with 396 anglers leaving from Point Sebago, Maine. The 30,000-acre fishery, which is the state’s second-deepest lake at 316 feet, has excellent populations of largemouth and smallmouth bass as well as landlocked salmon and lake trout.

Unlike 2018, when the site of the Nation Championship was announced well after the regional lineup, Lake Hartwell has already been identified as the site of the 2019 year-end event. The 56,000-acre fishery on the Georgia/South Carolina border has hosted three Bassmaster Classics, including the 2018 event that drew a record total attendance of 143,323.

The event will be hosted by Visit Anderson.

“Our team at Anderson county could not be more excited about hosting the 2019 B.A.S.S. Nation Championship again at Green Pond Landing and Lake Hartwell,” said Neil Paul, executive director of Visit Anderson. “Our community enjoys a tremendous amount of success whenever we’re hosting the great folks at B.A.S.S. We owe a great deal of credit to B.A.S.S. for their part in helping to make Lake Hartwell a championship fishery and Green Pond Landing one of the top facilities in the nation.

“We look forward to welcoming the anglers, their families and the entire B.A.S.S. Nation in 2019.”

The Top 3 finishers from the 2019 Nation Championship will earn a spot in the 2020 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods, and the overall Championship winner will receive an invitation to fish the 2020 Bassmaster Elite Series.

“When we refer to the B.A.S.S. Nation as a grass-roots organization, we mean exactly that,” said B.A.S.S. CEO Bruce Akin. “It’s an organization that gives anglers from all walks of life an opportunity to fish at the highest level of professional bass fishing.

“That’s what makes it truly special — and that’s why it’s still growing after 50 years.”

B.A.S.S. Nation Releases Full Four-Tournament Schedule

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. —Paramount Outdoors, a division of Paramount Apparel International, Inc. (“PAi”), has signed a ground-breaking licensing agreement with B.A.S.S. and is debuting a full line of Bassmaster branded apparel, headwear and accessories for the Spring 2019 season.

Paramount Outdoors’ cutting-edge Engineered Angling Gear (EAG) line of technical performance fishing apparel, headwear and accessories features Bassmaster’s branded goods as part of its unique “one-stop shop” platform for major retail partners in all channels of distribution.

“Paramount Outdoors is blessed and honored to feature Bassmaster branded technical performance and casual lifestyle apparel, headwear and accessories in our expansive Engineered Angling Gear line-up,” said Tim Berry, Paramount Outdoors’ Divisional Vice President of Sales & Merchandising. “We couldn’t ask for a better partner and stronger conservation organization partner than B.A.S.S. and Bassmaster.

“Adding Bassmaster to our best-in-class and industry-leading line-up of top five camo partners and major conservation organizations only bolsters our ability to fully service our retail partners through our unique platform of apparel, headwear and accessories.”

Under the deal announced today, PAi will design and sell the Bassmaster line to its customer base. The line will feature Bassmaster branded apparel, headwear and accessories and will appeal to all anglers.

“The more than 500,000 B.A.S.S. members worldwide and the millions of fans who follow the Bassmaster Elite Series demand performance and lifestyle clothing that not only feels good and protects them against the elements but also sets them apart as passionate about their outdoor sports,” said Bruce Akin, B.A.S.S. CEO. “We are proud to partner with Paramount Outdoors by licensing the Bassmaster brand to their leading-edge clothing and accessories lines.”