Elite

Big bass of Lake Oahe

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Captions by
Mike Suchan
Behind several big bass and the biggest bag of the week, Austin Felix totaled 71 pounds, 9 ounces to win the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Lake Oahe. The huge South Dakota smallmouth fishery wasn’t yielding the 20-plus pound bags reported a year earlier in prescouting, but big bass played big roles as the following images in the Jack Link’s Hook the Beast gallery tell.
Many of the 90 Elites reported the three-day practice period leading up to the Aug. 19, Day 1 was trying, yet many still found success on competition days. Clifford Pirch, the highest returning finisher from the 2018 Oahe Elite, brought in a 5-pounder on Day 1. However, his four other fish only gave him a total of 12-8. Pirch ended up making the cut, but 44th was a far lower finish than his third in 2018.
KJ Queen had a 5-8 in bag of 19-1 that put him sixth, but the fickle nature of Oahe struck the Catawba, N.C., pro on Day 2, when he only landed two fish. His Day 1 weight was big enough to help him get inside the Top 47 cut, but he fell to 38th.
Frank “The Tank” Talley landed the second biggest bass on Day 1, a 5-10 that helped him to 18-0. The Texas pro couldn’t manage to top 13 pounds the next two days but posted a respectable finish of 15th.
Brandon Cobb has a reputation of catching big bass, and he did it again on Oahe with this 5-12, which stood all four days as the Phoenix Boats Big Bass. Cobb was eighth with 18-13, but he fell to 32nd after a Day 3 limit (5-7) less than his big ’un that earned him $2,000 in bonuses.
Smallmouth fishing wasn’t totally new to Saluda, S.C.’s, Brian New, and he certainly didn’t show it with a Day 1 bag of 19-5 that put him fifth. New suffered a slower second day but climbed back to reach Championship Sunday and finish eighth.
Canadian Jeff Gustafson was a pretournament favorite, and he didn’t disappoint on Day 1 with 19-4 to start fourth, but he couldn’t find similar quality again and dropped to finish 21st.
Working on his smallmouth game paid off for Patrick Walter of Summerville, S.C., who started third with 20-5 after making a 70-mile run to the south end of Oahe. It was one of three bags topping 20 pounds on the day, tying all four days of the 2018 event. With a biggest bass of 4-15, Walters showed finding consistently bigger fish could lead to success, like his sixth-place finish.
Drew Cook was an ounce better than Walters to hold second. The Cairo, Ga., pro reported having a school of smallmouth rise toward his boat as he reeled one in. However, the dumb smallmouth must have got educated in a hurry as Cook had only a touch more than half his 20-6 on Day 1 then only coaxed three bites on Day 3, falling to 28th.
Brandon Card of Salisbury, N.C., had a big bass of only 4-14 and several others close in size in his Day 1 leading limit of 21-10, besting the top weight from 2018. On Day 1, 78 of the 90 Elites filled their limits, totaling 428 fish for 1,120 pounds, 3 ounces and an average fish weight of almost 2-10.
Day 2 was a different story for Card, who did salvage his slow day with a 5-2, but his 12-10 total dropped him to sixth. And Day 3 got even tougher as he managed only three fish for 4-15 to take 27th, way lower than his hopes after Thursday’s round.
While things got worse for some, others improved. Jason Williamson started 88th with three fish, so the only place he could go was up. If he qualifies for his sixth Classic, he can point to this 5-9 smallmouth that bolstered his 14-12 limit. Williamson started the event 40th in the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings, but he fell way outside the Classic cut in 51st. He rallied to finish 63rd in the event, and the 25-point gain on Day 2 pushed him back to 44th in points, which is the current last man in the Classic.
Marc Frazier was 17th after Day 1 but came in with one of the three 20-plus pound bags on Day 3. His 20-2 jumped Frazier to fourth, where he eventually finished with 66-6. It was Frazier’s second Top 10 this season, and his biggest payout ever in B.A.S.S. at $25,000.
Wisconsin’s Caleb Kuphall made the climb from 27th to fifth on Day 2 after his 21-6 limit, which included a 4-12. On the Day, there were 69 limits, 25 less fish and 200 less pounds caught than Day 1, and the average dropped to 2-5. Kuphall landed one of the 39 limits on Day 3, but his average was well below the 2-7 for the day, and his 7-2 saw him slip to 14th.
Elite rookie Masayuki Matsushita from Japan had one way above the average, and his 5-11 won the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the day. Matsushita’s consistent weights increased each day, from 13-12 to 14-3 to 15-13, giving him a 12th-place finish.
Austin Felix was among those pre-tournament favorites, and he even had a Bassmaster LIVE camera in his boat on Day 1, where he lost a big fish that would have put him a bit higher than 14-2 for 34th place. On Day 2, Felix and Lee Livesay fished alongside one another to great success. With 19-1, Livesay made a major climb from 56th to 18th, but Felix started with a 5-8 early and finished with the VMC Monster Bag of 23-3 to jump into second place. 
Chris Johnston, the first Canadian to win an Elite, was shooting for his second title. He backed his Day 1 18-15 with 18-13 to take the lead heading into Day 3. Things got rough though, as Johnston could only cull to 13-12 on Semifinal Saturday while Felix had 18-1 to lead with 55-6 heading into Championship Sunday.
Cody Huff of Ava, Mo., got some traction on his rookie season with a second at Pickwick Lake, and he fought to his second top 10 at Oahe after 16-4 and 15-9 on Days 2 and 3. He finished 10th with 54-15 and solidified his second-place spot in the Falcon Rods Bassmaster Rookie of the Year race.
Jay Przekurat, who won last month’s Elite at the St. Lawrence River in record fashion, heads into the final event at the Mississippi River in his home state of Wisconsin with a 64-point lead in the ROY race. He had lost 25 points to Huff after Day 2 at Oahe, but behind a 5-6 in his Day 3 best bag of 19-10, Przekurat climbed to finish 13th, minimizing Huff’s gain to three points. If Huff were to earn the 100 points awarded the winner at La Crosse, Przekurat would need to finish better than 65th to avoid a tie for ROY.
Matt Robertson was already in ninth place when he busted one of the biggest bags on Day 3. His 19-0, including a big bass of 4-6, put him second but 12-1 on Sunday saw him fall to fifth.
Minnesota’s Seth Feider was a favorite for Oahe, and he stood 21st before Day 3’s second-best bag of 19-5 catapulted him into seventh, where he finished. The reigning Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year said he was nervous about qualifying for the Classic. He came into Oahe 35th in points, where a bomb might have knocked him out of Classic contention. Hs Top 10 finish has him comfortable in 25th and saying he can go for broke on the Mississippi River, site of a second-place finish in 2016 that helped him continue his fishing career.
Japan’s Taku Ito was another pretournament favorite who contended throughout the event and finished third. He started with 17-4 before dipping slightly with 16-13 and 15-6. Ito finished Championship Sunday strong with 18-6, the biggest limit of the day, and his 4-8 tied for big bass. With his sixth cut and first Top 10, Ito is ninth in the AOY standings and primed for his third Classic berth.
Chris Johnston also had a 4-8 in his Day 4 limit of 16-14, which put him second with 68-6. He and his brother Cory can look at the third day of events as their demise this season. Cory had 21 pounds on Semifinal Saturday at the St. Lawrence River, well below his other days, and took second to Pzrekurat by 2-4 despite earning a Century Belt with smallmouth. Chris was 5 pounds behind the pace on his first two days and ended up second, 3-3 from Felix’s weight.
Austin Felix stuck with his Championship Sunday plan of waiting to fish his primary spot. After his move, Felix culled several times to 16-3, giving him the winning weight of 71-9. Usually low-key, Felix was demonstrative in his victory celebration, especially when his parents approached the stage. They surprised him by driving 400 miles that day from Eden Prairie, Minn. The 2020 Rookie of the Year posted his first Elite win and in the process climbed from 46th in the AOY standings to 33rd, well inside position to qualify to his third Classic.

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