Elite

Early Elite action on Seminole

See the Elites get started on the first day of the 2023 Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite at Lake Seminole!

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Photography by
Andy Crawford
See the Elites get started on the first day of the 2023 Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite at Lake Seminole!
Canada’s Cooper Gallant began the first day of the Bassmaster Elite at Lake Seminole on a spawning flat, working a soft plastic through the hydrilla.
He started with a 2-pounder.
And soon was hooked up again.
Another 2-pounder heads to the livewell.
A few casts later, he was hooked up again.
Not the size he was looking for, but it made the team.
Stetson Blaylock was working the same flat just up the lake.
Several casts away was Josh Douglas.
Hydrilla was thick on the flats, which was the perfect situation for anglers looking for bass.
Jason Williamsno was working one of small creeks off the lake.
We caught up with Clark Wendlandt in another creek. He was checking his electronics to ensure he was in the right spot.
His first target spawning bed was empty, so the angler put down his rod and started looking.
Beds were located in the thick vegetation lining the creek.
And then it was on to another area. Wendlandt told us he was making a big run down the lake.
Japan’s Kyoya Fujita was in the same little cut, and he was trolling the bank looking for bedding bass.
He was, predictably, using a little bait we had never seen.
Having spotted a bass, Fujita made the cast and set the hook.
The nice bass was soon in Fujita’s boat.
Luke Palmer was taking a different tack, working a spawning flat out in the main lake. “They won’t eat,” he told us. “I missed two back to back when I first got here.”
He hooked up a few casts after we arrived.
This bass made his fourth fish, but Palmer said only one of those was “a big one.”

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