OLATHE, Kan. – Garmin International, Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN), today announced it’s the electronics choice of champions as Garmin-equipped anglers won all three top spots at the 2020 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk at Lake Guntersville, Mar. 6-8.
With a wire-to-wire lead, Garmin pro Hank Cherry Jr. topped the 50th annual Bassmaster Classic with a three-day total of 65 pounds 5 ounces. Runner-up Todd Auten finished with 58-10, followed by Stetson Blaylock with 58-1. All three of the event’s top anglers fished from boats exclusively equipped with Garmin ECHOMAP Ultra chartplotters and Panoptix LiveScope live-scanning sonar, and two of them – Cherry and Auten – were also using the Garmin Force trolling motor. Additionally, Lake Guntersville is one of the more than 145 LakeVü g3 Ultra lakes surveyed in the U.S. by Garmin, offering anglers an unprecedented level of detail with up to 1-foot contours, along with high-resolution relief shading for a clearer lake bottom profile.
“Thanks to the Garmin ECHOMAP Ultras with the Panoptix up front, I could see really good mapping so it was easy to see the indentions and the out spots on the causeway. With LiveScope, I could actually follow the herds of gizzard shad and I could tell when I would see a fish if it was going to bite or not,” said Cherry. “There were several key fish that I caught that I saw coming to get the bait because it’s happening right there in live action. If you do not have Garmin LiveScope, you are definitely missing out. It was a huge part of my championship run.”
For Auten, it was a combination of LiveScope, the Force trolling motor and the new g3 mapping that helped him secure his second place finish. “The Garmin Panoptix LiveScope helped me see the fish moving around in the grass in real time – it’s wild, like a video game. Once I found them, I relied on the Force trolling motor with its anchor lock feature to help me stay on point to catch more fish,” he said. “And the new LakeVü g3 Ultra mapping card with Navionics® data helped me find some of the detailed key areas that were the key to my success.”
On stage at the final weigh-in, Blaylock also commended LiveScope: “One of the keys to my success this week was running the Garmin LiveScope. The cool thing about running LiveScope for me was being able to find those grass edges, and not only that, but to see the bait and actually see the fish hanging out in that grass. I’ll tell you right now, if you don’t have it, you are behind.”
“We are incredibly proud of all the Garmin anglers who competed at this year’s Bassmaster Classic and would like to extend a huge congratulations to Hank, Todd and Stetson on their top-three finishes at the biggest event in bass fishing,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales. “It’s an honor to be a part of their success and it’s humbling to see what a difference using Garmin products, particularly LiveScope, is making for our anglers on high-profile stages like the Classic. We’re confident there will be many more top finishes for the Garmin team this season and beyond.”
To be competitive at this year’s Bassmaster Classic, the world championship of fishing, Garmin anglers relied on ECHOMAP Ultra keyed-assist touchscreen chartplotters with built-in support for Garmin’s crystal-clear Ultra High-Definition scanning sonar as well as the award-winning Panoptix LiveScope series that delivers live scanning sonar images of structure, bait and fish swimming below and around the boat in real time. The ECHOMAP Ultra series is preloaded with Garmin’s latest and most detail rich LakeVü g3 maps that blend the best of both Garmin and Navionics content together to deliver unparalleled coverage, detail and convenience to users.
