Ellijay, GA — Three Elite Series pros won their respective brackets to punch a ticket to the 2019 Bassmaster Classic.
Chris Lane, Gerald “G-man” Swindle, and New Jersey Pro Adrian Avena all won their head-to-head match ups to get the coveted invite to big show in Tennessee next year.
On Friday, Avena deployed a spoon which he hand-painted pink and white the evening before. By 10:30 am, he had caught a nice limit while his opponent struggled.
G-man took the kitchen sink approach to bring in an 11 pound, 6 ounce bag. That bag happened to also be the largest of the day.
“I used a River2Sea spoon, a DT10 crankbait, a jerkbait, a buzzbait and then a shaky head,” Swindle said. “The shaky head with a Zoom green pumpkin/blue flake trick worm was probably the biggest bait for me.”
Chris Lane focused on larger topwater presentations, which didn’t produce the same numbers, but on average did produce larger fish. His final limit weight was 10 pounds, 12 ounces.
We will see all three of these anglers compete in the Bassmaster Classic.