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Grand producing huge weights just before the 2024 Bassmaster Classic. Which is a great sign for the Super Bowl of Bass Fishing coming to Grove, Oklahoma which will be featured on FS1 and Bassmaster.com
Heather Herring and Kojak Cook won The World Fishing Tour - Team Championship that started qualifying last weekend and ran for eight days. One in five boats advanced to Championship Sunday which was held today on the iconic fishery in north-east Oklahoma.
We had anglers come to town from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma competing this week. Not to mention some that came to town to practice for the event but didn't find the quality they thought they needed.
Former Bassmaster Elite and Classic angler Harvey Horne made a couple appearances with co host of the basshub podcast and NPFL / Bass Opens Pro Stephanie Hemphill-Pellerin. Brock Bila hot off his 2nd place Logan Martin NPFL finish even made an appearance but fell one spot short of making it to Championship Sunday with his bait-wrx.com co-worker Jacob Welch.
Championship Day is always a blast. The set up starts with pregame interviews and staging the boats like a day 3 on the Elites and ends with an on stage livestreamed weigh in. Fans gallered around from local business owners like Jon and Val from thelakelodgegrandlake.com to local newspaper writer and infinity fishing guide on the lake Clint Baranowski just to name a couple. Look forward to Clints article next week.
This Championship had a stacked field. Heather and Kojak had to enter three times during qualifying to make the Championship. That resilience paid off this time. Doug Johnson fished solo for him and his teammate Stephen Whitesell. Who won the biggest bag of the week presented by Baitwrx.com for an extra $200 on top of thier 2nd place winnings.
3rd place was 2022 Grand Lake World
Fishing Tour Champions. Kyle Kitts and Travis Edwards who had big bass of the week until today with a #7.23 which would of earned them $1500 got knocked off by Herring and Cook 7.4 lbs bass. 4th place Chad Warren and Dalton Harbin weighed in #17.57
5th place was Austin Lowrey and Derrick Wright who had a terrible start to Championship Day. The big motor went out. So after being towed back into Wolfe creek they had to buckle down and grind it out.
6th place was TJ Martin and Steve Vann who qualified for the Bassmaster Team Championship last season fishing with WFT. 7th place was 2023 Table Rock Lake WFT Champion with a new to WFT partner but his normal team partner Brian Speer weighing in with 12lbs.
8th place was Micah Littlejohn and Adam Schnautz with #11.94. Paul and Cody Smith finished 9th with #11.59. We had a tie for 10th Micheal Furgurson and Kellen Davis who bought breakfast for all the anglers this morning. The team that tied them was Tim and Joe Luce.
Kevin Rich and Darren Anderson got 12th. Terry Cooper and Patrick Hatfield from Iowa/Nebraska got 13th and weighed in the biggest small mouth 4+ of the week. Last but not least because he did put in the effort practicing was Billy Gordon but just struggled on today's bite to keep up with his fish he had located. Said they are moving fast.
We had a blast at Grand Lake of the Cherokees in Grove, OK. Can't wait to be back for the B.A.S.S. Classic and the womensprobasstour.com LBAA Classic this Fall.
Here's the results from the Championship.
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