PLATTSBURGH, N.Y., Aug. 12,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Entering Championship
Monday at the Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain,
Day 3 leader Ed Loughran
III thought he needed another 20-pound bag to win his
first blue trophy. So, when he finished with a 16-pound, 14-ounce
limit of smallmouth, he was just hoping he would still finish in
the Top 5.
It turned out he had the exact weight he needed.
With a four-day total of 80-12, the veteran angler from
Richmond, Va., notched his first
Elite Series title, edging out Canada's Chris
Johnston by 1 ounce to earn the $100,000 check and a blue trophy.
The 2011 Toledo Bend Elite Series event has been the only
other Elite Series event settled by a 1-ounce difference in total
weight.
"I had zero thought that I had won. I was hoping to just stay in
the Top 5," Loughran said. "It's unbelievable. I've never won a big
tournament. I've had Top 5s in big tournaments … but I'm always a
little short. I didn't have any realistic expectation of winning
one, but after yesterday I thought I might have a chance.
"The money will come and go, but that trophy will not go
anywhere."
Opening the tournament in 38th with 19-1, Loughran landed bags
of largemouth weighing 22-15 and 21-14 to jump into the lead on
Semi-Final Sunday. But if he didn't make a critical move on Day 4,
Loughran feels he wouldn't have won.
Toward the end of the day, Loughran left his primary area and
moved uplake to a spot he had not yet fished in the tournament.
Just before he reached the spot he was intending to fish, he
noticed a group of smallmouth on his forward-facing sonar that were
piled up around several rocks.
"I sat there and caught a dozen fish," Loughran said. "One was a
3-10 and I caught two other 3-pounders. Had that not happened, I
would not have won. It is nuts. I hadn't even fished it yet this
week."
A tidal river aficionado, Loughran started fishing Lake
Champlain in 1991 and has grown to love the lake. This week, after
missing the last two Elites due to medical issues, he traveled
south to an area he had never fished before in an attempt to stay
away from competitors fishing for Progressive Insurance Bassmaster
Angler of the Year points.
Loughran described his best area as a rock ridge in 5 to 10 feet
of water with milfoil beds in the vicinity. Using his Garmin
LiveScope, he identified three high spots on the ridge that were
holding the majority of the bass. The best part: he had the area
all to himself.
"There was a lot going on. You had some creeks coming in and
some milfoil beds around. You've got several high spots with chunk
rock and grass mixed in," he explained. "It was pretty protected,
too. All of that offers really good habitat.
"If there was another angler in there, I wouldn't have won and I
wouldn't have gotten a check."
Smallmouth and largemouth inhabited the area, but the smallmouth
stayed on one side of the ridge while the largemouth hunkered down
on the other side. Loughran landed a mixed bag on Day 1, but on the
second and third days he brought all largemouth to the scales,
including a 5-12 on Day 3.
To generate most of his bites, Loughran dragged either a ½-ounce
green pumpkin Missile Baits Ike's Mini Flip or a ⅜-ounce homemade
jig paired with either a Missile Baits Craw Father or Missile Baits
Chunky D. He trimmed down the Chunky D to match the profile he felt
the bass were eating.
He pitched those jigs using a 7-foot-6 heavy Shimano Expride rod
paired with a Shimano Chronarch MGL 8:1:1 baitcasting reel and
20-pound Berkley fluorocarbon.
"I think these fish are eating on small crayfish," Loughran
said.
He also landed several key bass on a ½-ounce green pumpkin Z-Man
Evergreen Chatterbait JackHammer with a Missile Baits Spunk Shad
trailer in the goby bite color.
Once Loughran reached his primary area on the final day, the
Virginia pro landed three smallmouth on
consecutive casts around 8:45 a.m.
After a short lull, he picked up a topwater walking bait and filled
out his limit with two more smallmouth.
From there, however, the bite slowed down tremendously before
Loughran executed his last-minute heroics with a drop shot rigged
with a Missile Baits Bomb Shot in goby bite.
"The lake was off today for whatever reason," he said. "I had
one largemouth bite all day. It was terrible. Before, I was
catching 20. Smallmouth had come in and taken over."
Johnston, meanwhile, was just an ounce away from claiming his
second career Elite Series trophy with bags of 20-0, 21-14,
19-8 and 19-5, totaling 80-11. There were several bass that came
unglued this week that would have carried him past Loughran.
"I'm regretting a couple of the fish I lost the last two days,"
the five-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier said. "Any of them
would have done it for me. Being that close, it sucks. I'd rather
lose by 5 pounds, to be honest. It is what it is. That's fishing,
and I'll try to catch them next week."
Most of the week, Johnston targeted smallmouth on deeper breaks
in the northern section of Lake Champlain. Using his forward-facing
sonar, he would comb large areas searching for quality smallmouth
with a 4-inch minnow rigged on either a ⅜-ounce or ½-ounce
head.
Johnston's bass were feeding on perch and would move between 15
and 50 feet of water.
The smallmouth bite did not produce first thing on Day 4, so
Johnston decided to fish for largemouth and lost two, one of which
he believed would have helped his bag. He returned to his
smallmouth waters and wrangled up an 18-pound limit before
returning to a stretch of shallow reeds in an attempt to catch a
kicker largemouth.
"(The smallmouth deal) wasn't working. I probably gave it too
long in hindsight," he said. "The last hour I went back largemouth
fishing and caught a 4-pounder that was pretty damn close, but not
enough. One perch it spit up would have done it for me."
Tennessee's Robert Gee finished third with a total of
80-9, his third Top 5 of the season. Targeting smallmouth in the
Inland Sea and Malletts Bay, the Knoxville rookie never left the
Top 10 with bags of 21-1, 19-15, 19-13 and 19-12.
Ridges dropping from 35 feet to 50 feet with perch or alewives
were the key areas for Gee. The bigger bass, Gee said, were eating
the perch close to the bottom of the lake. He mid-strolled a 5-inch
Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm on a ¼-ounce jighead to catch the majority
of his smallies. A Juices Jig crappie/bass hair jig in the
Tennessee shad color landed a couple of
key bass as well.
Gee experienced his best day of smallmouth fishing on Monday
morning. He has no idea how many bass he caught, but he quickly
reached the 18-pound mark and was able to make several more key
culls. Unfortunately, he could not find a 5-pound bass on the final
day that would have lifted him to victory.
"It was probably the best day of smallmouth fishing I've ever
had, numbers wise," Gee said.
Canada's Cory Johnston landed the Phoenix
Boats Big Bass of Day 4, a 5-5 largemouth. New York rookie Kyle
Patrick claimed Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the
Tournament honors with a 6-2 largemouth he caught on Day 1, earning
a total of 3,000 in bonuses. Patrick also claimed the $1,000 BassTrakk Contingency bonus for accurate
weight recording.
Day 1 leader Seth
Feider claimed the $2,000
bonus for the CrushCity Monster Bag of the Tournament with his
23-11 limit of largemouth from the first day.
Alabama's Will Davis Jr took home an additional
$3,000 for being the highest-placing
entrant in the Toyota Bonus Bucks program, while Texas' Chris
Zaldain earned $2,000 for
being the second-highest placing entrant.
As part of the Yamaha Power Pay program, Gee earned an
additional $4,000 while South Carolina's Patrick
Walters claimed an additional $1,500 for being the second-highest placing
entrant.
With one event remaining on the Elite Series schedule, 2024 Bass
Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Jockey
Outdoors champion Justin
Hamner still holds the lead in the Progressive
Insurance Bassmaster Angler of the Year race with 671 points
while Johnston is second with 658 points. Tennessee's Jacob
Foutz is third with 652 points, South Carolina rookie JT Thompkins is fourth
with 634 points and Illinois rookie
Trey McKinney is fifth with 633
points.
Thompkins leads the Dakota Lithium Elite Series Rookie of the
Year race followed by McKinney in second. Tennessee's John
Garrett is third with 622 points, Alabama's Wesley
Gore is fourth with 621 points and Tyler Williams is fifth with 594
points.
The Adirondack Coast and City of Plattsburgh are hosting the
tournament.
Contact:
Chad Gay
cgay@bassmaster.com
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