Author: jcarrigan

FORT WORTH, Texas — Hank Cherry now occupies some rare air in the sport of professional bass fishing, and he has the bank statements to prove it.

The Lincolnton, N.C., pro, caught five bass Sunday that weighed 13 pounds, 1 ounce and won the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk with a three-day total of 50 pounds, 15 ounces.

He is only the fourth angler in the 51-year history of the Super Bowl of Professional Bass Fishing to win the event in back-to-back years. He earned another of the iconic Classic trophies and his second $300,000 check in 18 months.

Another North Carolina pro, Matt Arey, finished second with 49-1 and lost at least one big bass on Championship Sunday that might have put him over the top.

“I feel bad for Matt, and I told him I’ve been where he was,” Cherry said. “I had the same thing happen to me and mine happened a lot closer to the boat.

“I’m not giving it back — not apologizing for it. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

Cherry, a nine-year veteran of the Bassmaster Elite Series, finished third in his first Classic back in 2013 on Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees. Like Arey, he lost a crucial fish in that event that would have given him the trophy.

He went through a tough stretch in the Classic after that, finishing no higher than 27th in three tries. But then he put the bad memories of 2013 behind him last year on Lake Guntersville when he caught 29-3 on the first day and rode that mammoth bag to a wire-to-wire victory.

He didn’t quite go wire-to-wire this year, starting in third place on the first day with a limit of 20-4. But as suffocating heat moved into the area, the fishing got tougher and Cherry remained consistent enough to stay on top with a Day 2 catch of 17-10 and a final-round bag of 13-1 that was just enough.

He caught the bulk of his weight during the week flipping flooded bushes along the shoreline and throwing a jerkbait around riprap along the dam.

“The bite in the bushes is going away,” Cherry said. “It’s so hot out there right now. The water temperature was 71 degrees when we got here for practice, and I saw it as high as 87 today. A lot of those bushes are starting to break down, and those fish just don’t want to be there.

“I was fortunate to get enough out of them to win.”

For flipping the bushes, Cherry used a 3/4-ounce tungsten weight with a 4/0 flipping hook and a variety of soft-plastic baits, including a Berkley Pit Boss, a craw lure and a beaver-style bait.

“I would just alternate between five or six baits, back and forth,” he said. “That probably wasn’t as much for the fish as it was for me. Whatever I was using, I was doing the same thing. But it felt like I was doing something different.”

When the bass got extremely lethargic in the 99-degree heat Sunday, Cherry did actually make a change to his flipping setup, switching to a 1/4-ounce tungsten weight with a 3/0 hook. He had two fish in his livewell at the time but caught three bass to fill his limit within 30 minutes after making the switch.

“I caught maybe the dumbest bass in the lake,” Cherry said. “I flipped into a bush and instead of going into the bush, that lighter bait kind of ricocheted off of it. The bass actually swam out of the bush to get the bait and swam back in with it.”

That fish weighed almost 4 1/2 pounds and helped Cherry recharge on a day when he said sweat was constantly rolling into his eyes and blinding him.

When Cherry fished the rocks along the dam, he used a new jerkbait called a Berkley Stunna in the stealth shad color. He believes he caught the tail end of the jerkbait bite, just as he did with the flipping bite.

“The bushes I was fishing, if the lake was at normal pool, they wouldn’t even be in the water,” Cherry said. “So, you know the fish are probably itching to move away from there and go offshore.

“I think the same is true around those rocks. The heat is just radiating off those things — and if it makes us miserable, you know it probably makes them miserable, too.”

Cherry joins Rick Clunn (1976-77), Kevin VanDam (2010-11) and Jordan Lee (2017-18) as the only back-to-back Classic winners. This marks his fourth victory with B.A.S.S., including last year’s Classic, an Opens win on Smith Lake in 2012 and an Elite Series victory on Muskegon and White Lakes in 2013. He was the 2013 Bassmaster Elite Series Rookie of the Year.

Cherry said he enjoyed his reign as the 2020 Classic champion even though the year was marred by the COVID-19 pandemic and many of the personal appearances he might have made as Classic champ didn’t happen.

Whether this next reign will be different, he couldn’t say for sure.

“I don’t know what to expect, I really don’t,” Cherry said. “I’ll just take it as it comes — and I’ll never doubt just how blessed I am.”

Frank Talley of Temple, Texas, took home Berkley Big Bass honors and an additional $2,500 for his 8-3 caught on Day 1. 

As part of the Yamaha Power Pay program, sixth-place finisher Scott Canterbury of Odenville, Ala., earned a $20,000 bonus.

Cherry took home an additional $7,500 for being the highest-placing entrant in the Toyota Bonus Bucks program, and Chris Jones of Bokoshe, Okla., earned $2,500 for being the second-highest placing entrant.

The Bassmaster Classic was hosted by the Fort Worth Sports Commission and Visit Fort Worth.

FORT WORTH, Texas — The 54 anglers competing in the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk had planned to start fast and take advantage of an early-morning shad spawn bite that has been extremely reliable this week on Lake Ray Roberts.

But Mother Nature threw up an electric stop sign.

Freak thunderstorms with dangerous lightning delayed the tournament by more than two hours and negated much of the morning bite. While many of the Day 1 leaders struggled, North Carolina pro Hank Cherry landed 17 pounds, 10 ounces to move from third place into the lead with a two-day total of 37-14.

The winner of last year’s Classic on Alabama’s Lake Guntersville, Cherry will now begin Championship Sunday with nearly a 5-pound lead and a chance to become only the fourth angler in the 51-year history of the event to claim back-to-back titles.

“There was definitely more pressure to win the first one last year,” Cherry said. “Winning is one thing, but to win it twice, it’s got to all go right.

“What’s eerie about this is that it’s the same feeling as last year. I’m out there on the dam today and people are stopped all the way down the dam getting out watching me fish — it just feels the same.”

Despite the late takeoff, Cherry got off to a fast start, catching two bass in the 4-pound range flipping a jig into wooden structure. The fish came only four or five casts apart and gave Cherry the shot in the arm he needed to fish confidently all day.

That was especially important when he lost a big bass later in the day on a jerkbait.

“Of course, Day 2, in Hank Cherry fashion, I lose the biggest fish I’ve hooked in the two days of competition and it breaks me off on a jerkbait,” Cherry said. “I don’t know how big it was, but I’ve caught thousands of them on a jerkbait and I know when they bite how big they are. When I set the hook, it didn’t move. When it started diving down, I knew it was gonna go right to the rock and brush.

“It would have been a great fish to have, but I didn’t let it bother me.”

Cherry said he’s taking the same approach with the pressure of leading the Classic once again going into the final day.

“I’ve played in a lot of big games,” Cherry said. “I’ve won this big game — and I’m not going to cry if I don’t win it tomorrow.

“I’ve got my trophy at home. I’ll hand the trophy to the winner tomorrow and go hard at it again next year.”

The biggest mover of the day was B.A.S.S. Nation qualifier Justin Kerr, who rose from 22nd place to second with four bass that weighed 19-12. Kerr put together the day’s biggest limit flipping submerged bushes and using an Evergreen JackHammer ChatterBait.

Though his bag was one shy of a limit, one of his bass weighed 7-2 and another weighed 6-12.

“I have this one area that has a bunch of big ones in it, and I got two bites there yesterday and lost one of them,” Kerr said. “Today, with the half day that we had, I was hoping for two bites that would put me in the 11-pound range, but they just happened to be 7-pounders.”

An Arizona resident and longtime successful angler in the western United States, Kerr has not been exploiting the early-morning shad spawn bite like much of the field. That’s a big part of why he weighed in only a small five-bass limit (13-6) on Day 1 and missed a limit on Day 2.

But he believes he’s around the bass to win — he said he’s seen another bass in the 10-pound range this week — and he realizes the gravity of his situation.

Kerr is vying to become just the second Nation qualifier ever to win professional fishing’s biggest event. Connecticut angler Bryan Kerchal claimed the title in 1994 on North Carolina’s High Rock Lake but was killed in a plane crash months later.

“To represent the Nation this way is an awesome deal,” he said. “It shows that people like me who don’t get the opportunity to fish the Elites or get on tour because of financial or personal reasons … It doesn’t matter who you are, you can get a chance to compete in the Classic.

“It’s a pretty humbling experience to be in this position, for sure.”

Perhaps no one was hurt more by the late start than Auburn, Ala., pro Steve Kennedy.

After catching a big limit of 23 pounds — mostly before 7 a.m. — on Day 1, Kennedy managed just four bass that weighed 9-11 Saturday and tumbled to third with 32-11. He said he plans to spend all day on Championship Sunday fishing for deep suspended bass he found in practice.

He lost a bass he estimated at 8 pounds fishing that way Saturday.

“It was on a jig on standing timber out in the middle of the lake,” Kennedy said. “I got him to the boat without a problem, and the way I remember it, he just kind of laid there for a second like he wasn’t even going to fight. Then he took off and pulled off. Huge fish.”

Though Kennedy had major success fishing the early-morning shad spawn bite on Day 1, he said he may mostly forego that action Sunday to target those big suspended bass.

“I may spend 30 minutes up shallow,” Kennedy said. “But I’ve had this other deal in my back pocket, and you only get so many chances like this. There aren’t big numbers out there, but those big females are there.

“Those are the ones I want to fish for.”

Frank Talley of Temple, Texas, still holds the lead for Berkley Big Bass of the week with the 8-3 largemouth he caught on Day 1. Chad Pipkens of Holt, Mich., came close to topping that mark Saturday with an 8-1.

The Top 25 anglers will take off at 6:15 a.m. CT Sunday from Lake Ray Roberts State Park – Isle du Bois Unit in Pilot Point, Texas. The weigh-in will be held at 4 p.m. at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.

The winning angler will claim a life-changing title, a $300,000 first-place check and the iconic trophy that only a handful anglers have ever had the privilege to hold.

The final day of the annual Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo will be held Sunday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Exhibitors are on-site selling a variety of merchandise for fishing, hunting, camping and more. As part of the Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo, the Go Out{side} Experience will offer fun options for families, including inflatable archery, cornhole, jumping dogs and knot tying. Kids can even catch their first fish at an on-site catfish pond.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Steve Kennedy caught a five-bass limit that weighed 23 pounds Friday to take the lead during the opening round of the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk.

And the scary thing is, he said he didn’t even get to go to the biggest bass he found in practice.

The Auburn, Ala., pro made the most of an early-morning shad spawn bite, putting the bulk of his limit in the livewell before 7 a.m. Then with the winds blowing hard across Lake Ray Roberts, he decided he wouldn’t be able to proceed with the second part of his game plan.

On Saturday, he hopes to exploit that morning bite again — and hopefully move on to Phase 2.

“I kind of got stuck up on one end of the lake because the wind was blowing so hard,” said Kennedy, a 10-time Classic qualifier who has finished as high as second in the event. “I didn’t go anywhere near where I was planning on fishing my second deal.

“Maybe I will tomorrow. Maybe I won’t have to. If I don’t have to show that until the final day, I sure don’t want to.”

During Kennedy’s final day of practice, he said he got 18 bites the first two hours of the morning. But those came during cloudy conditions — and since he didn’t know if there would be cloud cover Friday, he said he tried to cover water as quickly as he could.

“I was trying to condense that two hours into 30 minutes,” he said. “I was fishing a jig, and they were just eating it like crazy. The morning went just like I had hoped it would.”

After the morning bite died down, Kennedy had hoped to move to deeper water and target larger bass with big glide baits. But the weather nixed those plans.

“It was extremely rough,” he said. “My core was hurting. There were times when I was on my tippy-toes and times when I was on my heels trying not to go over.

“I was headed to my other fish and taking waves over the bow. If I had gone all the way there, I might not have been able to stand up.”

South Carolina pro Patrick Walters is right on Kennedy’s heels in second place with 22-7 — and like Kennedy, Walters found the morning conditions much more favorable.

“I was really hoping for an afternoon bite, but the wind made that nonexistent,” said Walters, who earned his first Bassmaster Elite Series victory last season on Lake Fork in Texas and finished second in another event on Fork earlier this year. “I planned to spend the entire afternoon fishing offshore, but you really couldn’t position on the fish and present your bait the way you needed to.”

That left him to rely on the early-morning bite — and, as it was for most of the field, that was short-lived.

“The shallow bite is good first thing,” Walters said. “But then about 9 o’clock, it cuts off like a light switch. I don’t know what happens, if they just move out or what. But you have until about 9, and then you have to go do something different.”

Walters — who earned Bassmaster Century Belts in both Fork events with four-day limits that weighed more than 100 pounds — did so by targeting big suspended bass in standing timber. He said Ray Roberts features a different kind of structure than Fork, but he’s counting on those same suspended fish to earn the biggest win of his career.

“You have to cover so much water out there offshore just to get a bite or two,” Walters said. “If you can’t fish efficiently, it’s just not worth it.”

But if conditions allow, Walters said the tournament could certainly be won offshore.

“You’re talking about isolated bass that are eating white bass and crappie instead of the ones up shallow that are eating little shad,” Walters said. “A fish that suspends owns the water column. When they get up that high in the water column, they’re usually pretty big fish — and in Texas, they’re especially big.

“I only need 15 fish to win this tournament, so those are the ones I’m looking for.”

A familiar name — reigning Classic champ Hank Cherry of North Carolina — finished the day in third after landing five bass that weighed 20-4.

“This was actually my worst day since I’ve been here,” said Cherry, who caught 29-3 on the first day of last year’s Classic at Lake Guntersville. “I never got comfortable today. The situation, the water color, the wind.

“I kept second-guessing myself and thinking I should be somewhere else.”

It was a midmorning revelation that finally made Cherry feel at home.

“I kind of slowed down and started kind of retracking how the morning went and noticing that I got more bites on the trees than I did in the bushes,” Cherry said. “So, I picked up a jig and kind of went back to that and started getting bit.”

Though he weighed in 20-plus pounds, Cherry said fans shouldn’t confuse Friday’s bag with the big opening-round total he weighed in last year’s event.

“This was a lot of work,” he said. “I spent a lot of time wondering what was going on, and I tried to force it. I tried to get up on some of those shallower points and really fish it, but I just wasn’t comfortable there.

“I figured out what I needed to be doing, and I’m not leaving the area I fished today.”

The full field of 54 anglers will take off again at 6:15 a.m. CT Saturday from Lake Ray Roberts State Park – Isle du Bois in Pilot Point, Texas. The weigh-in will be held at 4 p.m. CT at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth. After Saturday’s weigh-in, only the Top 25 anglers will advance to Championship Sunday with a chance at the $300,000 first-place prize.

FOX network will broadcast four hours of live coverage with tournament leaders beginning at 7 a.m., and full event coverage is available on Bassmaster.com.

The annual Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo will be held Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Exhibitors are on-site selling a variety of merchandise for fishing, hunting, camping and more. As part of the Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo, the Go Out{side} Experience will offer fun options for families, including inflatable archery, cornhole, jumping dogs and knot tying. Kids can even catch their first fish at an on-site catfish pond.

The Bassmaster Classic is being hosted by the Fort Worth Sports Commission and Visit Fort Worth.

Angler                   Hometown              No./lbs-oz  Pts   Total $$$

1.  Steve Kennedy          Auburn, AL               5  23-00    0
  Day 1: 5   23-00   
2.  Patrick Walters        Summerville, SC          5  22-07    0
  Day 1: 5   22-07   
3.  Hank Cherry Jr         Lincolnton, NC           5  20-04    0
  Day 1: 5   20-04   
4.  Chris Jones            Bokoshe, OK              5  17-02    0
  Day 1: 5   17-02   
5.  Drew Cook              Cairo, GA                5  16-10    0
  Day 1: 5   16-10   
6.  Jamie Hartman          Newport, NY              5  16-04    0
  Day 1: 5   16-04   
6.  Matt Robertson         Kuttawa, KY              5  16-04    0
  Day 1: 5   16-04   
8.  Jordan Wiggins         Cullman, AL              5  16-03    0
  Day 1: 5   16-03   
9.  Cory Johnston          Cavan CANADA             5  16-02    0
  Day 1: 5   16-02   
10. Chris Johnston         Otonabee Ontario CANADA  5  16-00    0
  Day 1: 5   16-00   
11. Drew Benton            Blakely, GA              5  15-14    0
  Day 1: 5   15-14   
11. Hunter Shryock         Ooltewah, TN             5  15-14    0
  Day 1: 5   15-14   
13. Todd Auten             Lake Wylie, SC           5  15-12    0
  Day 1: 5   15-12   
14. Frank Talley           Temple, TX               4  15-10    0
  Day 1: 4   15-10   
15. Cody Bird              Granbury, TX             5  15-08    0
  Day 1: 5   15-08   
16. Ed Loughran III        Richmond, VA             5  15-08    0
  Day 1: 5   15-08   
17. Matt Arey              Shelby, NC               5  15-05    0
  Day 1: 5   15-05   
18. Paul Mueller           Naugatuck, CT            5  15-01    0
  Day 1: 5   15-01   
19. Scott Canterbury       Odenville, AL            5  14-11    0
  Day 1: 5   14-11   
20. Brandon Palaniuk       Rathdrum, ID             5  14-04    0
  Day 1: 5   14-04   
21. Chris Zaldain          Fort Worth, TX           4  13-11    0
  Day 1: 4   13-11   
22. Justin Kerr            Lake Havasu, AZ          5  13-06    0
  Day 1: 5   13-06   
22. Luke Palmer            Coalgate, OK             5  13-06    0
  Day 1: 5   13-06   
24. David Mullins          Mt Carmel, TN            5  13-03    0
  Day 1: 5   13-03   
25. Austin Felix           Eden Prairie, MN         4  12-15    0
  Day 1: 4   12-15   
26. Stetson Blaylock       Benton, AR               5  12-13    0
  Day 1: 5   12-13   
27. Trevor McKinney        Benton, IL               5  12-12    0
  Day 1: 5   12-12   
28. Clent Davis            Montevallo, AL           5  12-11    0
  Day 1: 5   12-11   
29. Seth Feider            New Market, MN           5  12-10    0
  Day 1: 5   12-10   
30. Jason Williamson       Wagener, SC              5  12-07    0
  Day 1: 5   12-07   
31. Chad Pipkens           Dewitt, MI               4  12-05    0
  Day 1: 4   12-05   
32. Brandon Card           Salisbury, NC            5  12-02    0
  Day 1: 5   12-02   
33. Taku Ito               Chiba JAPAN              3  12-02    0
  Day 1: 3   12-02   
34. Kyle Welcher           Opelika, AL              4  11-14    0
  Day 1: 4   11-14   
35. Bryan New              Belmont, NC              4  11-08    0
  Day 1: 4   11-08   
36. Clark Wendlandt        Leander, TX              5  11-01    0
  Day 1: 5   11-01   
37. Keith Carson           DeBary, FL               5  10-15    0
  Day 1: 5   10-15   
38. Shane LeHew            Catawba, NC              5  10-11    0
  Day 1: 5   10-11   
39. Chad Morgenthaler      Reeds Spring, MO         5  10-03    0
  Day 1: 5   10-03   
40. Matt Herren            Ashville, AL             4  10-02    0
  Day 1: 4   10-02   
41. Brock Mosley           Collinsville, MS         4  08-10    0
  Day 1: 4   08-10   
42. Jeff Gustafson         Keewatin Ontario CANADA  4  08-08    0
  Day 1: 4   08-08   
43. Bill Lowen             Brookville, IN           3  08-04    0
  Day 1: 3   08-04   
44. Brandon Cobb           Greenwood, SC            3  07-05    0
  Day 1: 3   07-05   
45. Brandon Lester         Fayetteville, TN         2  05-15    0
  Day 1: 2   05-15   
46. Jake Whitaker          Fairview, NC             2  05-10    0
  Day 1: 2   05-10   
47. Masayuki Matsushita    Tokoname-Shi JAPAN       3  05-09    0
  Day 1: 3   05-09   
48. Buddy Gross            Chickamauga, GA          2  05-08    0
  Day 1: 2   05-08   
49. Brad Whatley           Bivins, TX               2  04-10    0
  Day 1: 2   04-10   
50. John Cox               Debary, FL               3  04-00    0
  Day 1: 3   04-00   
51. Pat Schlapper          Eleva, WI                2  03-09    0
  Day 1: 2   03-09   
52. Micah Frazier          Newnan, GA               2  03-00    0
  Day 1: 2   03-00   
53. Tommy Williams         Shepherdsville, KY       1  01-05    0
  Day 1: 1   01-05   
54. Blake Sylvester        Plaquemine, LA           0  00-00    0
  Day 1: 0   00-00   
———————————————————————–
Totals
Day   #Limits    #Fish      Weight
 1        32       224       648-05
———————————-
          32       224       648-05