Brock Mosley of Mississippi won his first Bassmaster Elite Trophy Sunday along with $100,000 by winning the Folds of Honor Tournament on the Sabine River.
Mosley bagged 44-3, mainly fishing close to the Orange Boat Ramp, to earn his first win after finishing second five times on tour, including a second place the last time the Elites were here in 2021.
He used a variety of baits during the tournament. He would start the morning with a buzzbait and a Pop-R and follow that Texas rigging a four inch Senko.
Mosley grabbed his head and then put his hands on his knees after it was announced that he had enough weight for the win, beating Clark Wendlandt of Leander, Tx. Wendlandt finished second place, catching 41-6, including a 4-2, Sunday’s largest bass. He was also looking for his first Elite Series win.
Before he was handed the “big blue trophy” Mosley admitted he had never touched one before. He didn’t want to until he could touch his own.
Newcomer Matty Wong of Hawaii finished third and increased his fan base with his big smile and stage presence. He turned in 39-8 in his first top ten finish.
Most of the top 10 were also flipping and pitching with some type of creature bait. And they also used two Sabine River staples, the squarebill and the spinnerbait.
Interesting to note the home states of the top 10. Definitely an eclectic group from all over. Keith Poche and Kyle Welcher are from Alabama, Matt Robertson is from Kentucky and Hunter Shryock is from Tennessee. Alex Wetherell is from Connecticut, Kenta Kimura is from Japan, and Chad Pipkens is from Michigan.
Welcher’s finish jumped him five spots to the top of the Angler of the Year standings. Shryock jumped into the top ten with three tournaments in the northeast left on the Elite schedule.
Pipkens, the Day One leader, won and extra $2000 for the big bass (5-12) of the tournament. He also had the biggest one day bag of the tournament with 14-7 caught on Day One.
As of the end of the weigh-in, BASS had not announced whether Orange had beat its own attendance record.
On a side note, and something that should be interesting to all fishermen, we’ve learned why Josh Stracener was not allowed to fish in the tournament. The day before the tournament, BASS put out a short note saying Stracener would not be fishing because he wasn’t able to obtain a Texas Fishing License.
Stracener said of his DQ, “Last year on a pre practice trip to another state I received a ticket for having no fishing license (which is a crazy story) and by that states laws it means automatic license loss for one year in that state (which I did not know would happen). So fast forward to now, I found out this week of a law called compact interstate law that a handful of states participate in. Which means if you lose your license in one state then you lose it in the other states that’s a member of the compact, in which Texas is a member. So the only choice I had was to notify BASS officials and head back home. I couldn’t have dreamed up a situation like this could happen but it did.”
Mosley raised the trophy high and then celebrated by jumping off the stage and running through the crowd with the trophy.
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