Lexington, S.C. – November 15, 2021 – The teams at Strike King and Lew’s are excited to announce the return of this fan favorite tournament series, formatted for family-friendly competition and designed for anglers of all ages and skill levels. 2022 will be bigger and better than ever featuring more tournaments, bigger payouts and greater opportunities to win.

“Last year we welcomed over 600 competitors to the Strike King Big Bass Challenge weigh-ins and gave away over $40,000 in awards and prizes.  We are gearing up for even more in 2022,” announced Strike King Vice President of Marketing Jason McKee.  “Whether you have never fished a tournament or you are a local weekend hero, find the Big Bass Challenge near you and come join the fun!”

For anglers who are new to the Big Bass format, it works like this:

• A single-day event with a weigh-in every two hours. Anglers are free to bring their biggest bass of the period to the scales in each period throughout the day.
• We will award cash prizes for the five biggest bass caught during each weigh period.
• Every angler who weighs a fish is entered into a drawing for prizes from Lew’s, Strike King, and partnering Big Bass Challenge sponsors.
• The angler who catches the biggest bass of the day will win the Grand Prize Bonus, a $5,000 total boat makeover of Lew’s and Strike King gear.

The excitement is not just on the water and at the weigh-in.  The mandatory Rules Briefing the night prior to the competition day at each event will provide attendees with an opportunity to hear from Strike King and Lew’s pro anglers and legends of the sport, as well as enter to win great prizes.  Additionally, the first 100 anglers to register for each event will receive a Strike King gift card valued at $50, available for pick-up at the Rules Briefing.

The 2022 line-up is as follows:

Lake Toho, FL                      January 30^th

Lake Cumberland, KY         March 27^th

Kentucky Lake, TN              April 3^rd

Lake Erie, OH                      April 24^th

Lake Murray, SC                 May 15^th

Table Rock Lake, MO          June 11^th

Anglers may register for upcoming Big Bass Challenge tournaments, download the rules and find additional information here at https://www.strikeking.com/en/learn/big-bass-challenge or at https://www.lews.com/en/learn/big-bass-challenge

About Rather Outdoors

Rather Outdoors is a global outdoors corporation uniting some of the most recognizable brands in the fishing space. With historic and iconic brands such as Lew’s, Strike King, Quantum, Zebco, Fox, Matrix, Salmo, and Fox Rage, Rather Outdoors provides a wide assortment of fishing products worldwide to enhance anglers’ success and the enjoyment of outdoor pursuits. To learn more about the Rather Outdoors brands, visit www.ratheroutdoors.com.

Well for the second year in a row the Canada, United States border has stopped Ontario Anglers from joining our New York and Pennsylvania state Federations from fishing together and creating great memories and friendships.

Ontario TBF members headed to Rice Lake Ontario, to fish one of the best fisheries in southern Ontario.

Rice Lake is renowned for big small mouth and kicker largemouth, to fill out a 5 bass limit with 20 plus pounds of bass required to cut a check in local tournaments.

With the combination of boater and angler keeping separate bags we opted for a four fish limit in hopes of making a conscious effort at being better stewards of the fishery.

Our host Adventure bay cottages were as excited to see the anglers rolling in for practice on Wednesday, as the anglers were to arrive and get down to figuring out the lake

At 7am Saturday morning the blast off began and at the end of the day some surprising results came to the scales, On the boater side Chris Walter and Theo Cheng we ounces apart with Chris weighing in his 4 bass for 12.57 lbs followed closely by Theo and his 4 at 12.48, close behind were Justin Fung with 11.46 and Doug Garrow with 11.01

On the co angler side only 2 limits were caught and the day one leader Lincoln Gagnon managed to bring 6.73 lbs to the scale followed by James Eckebrecht with 5.95 lbs and Jesse Krall with 4.87

Day one was without a doubt the worst start to any event we had seen. Realistically no one in the co angler field was out of the picture and certainly more than half the boaters had a chance Sunday to become a regional Champion

We woke up Sunday morning to frigid temperatures, but spirits were we high all boats blasted off at 7am and when it came time to check in at 3pm there was great deal of dock talk about who caught what and who would be our champion.

The co-angler side saw day one leader Lincoln Gagnon bring another limit to the scale of 12.45 lbs for a two day total of 19.18 with one co angler left James Eckebrecht needed a massive bag of more than 13.24 lbs to claim the co angler Championship. We soon learned what all the dock talk was about when James put 4 monster smallmouth on the scale for 18.14 lbs and claim the Co Angler Title with a two day weight of 24.09

Co-angler James Eckebrecht

With the bite being what you would expect on Rice Lake everyone seemed to be having a much better day. More limits bigger weights and bigger smiles. On the boater side the field was close to start the day first up to the scales was Justin Fung who started the day in 3^rd place. Justin put another 11.97lbs on the scale for the lead. Next Theo Cheng came to the scales and added 15.93 lbs to his day one weight for a total of 28.40. That left day one Leader Chris Walters needing 15 lbs to take the win. Chris was a little nervous coming to the scales and when it was all said and done he became our new Champion with a monster bag of 17.96 lbs for his 4 smallmouth.

Congratulations to Chris Walter a long time member and President of our Kawartha Lakes club.

Boater Champion Chris Walter

Our two 2022 Ontario TBF Champions Chris Walter and James Eckebrecht, We are excited for you both and know you will represent us well in 2022

D14 Ontario Champions Chris Walter and James Eckebrecht

Theo Cheng managed to capture the Ranger Bonus money while finishing second overall in the boater division congratulations Theo and thank you Ranger boats for your continued support

Theo Cheng Ranger Federation Bonus winner

Lastly I would like to thank all of our participants and our hosts Adventure Bay Cottages for making our event a fun filled weekend. Looking forward to hosting New York and Pennsylvania on Lake Erie in 2022 in Port Colborne Ontario.

District 18 National Semi-finals was held October 2-3, 2021 on 10 Mile Creek in Lakeside, OR. Pretty tough conditions but as always, a few managed to find and catch fish.  Oregon won the state pride by 4.81 pounds.

Todd Woolard from Oregon was the top boater overall for the weekend with 32.00. Peter Gobel, also from Oregon came in 2nd on the boater side with 28.66. Taking 3rd place on the boater side was Chris Lambert from Washington with 28.03. These three boaters will advance to the 2022 TBF Federation National Championship.

Todd Woolard

Dez Ruffin

National Qualifiers, Left to Right
Peter Gobel, Todd Woolard, Dez Ruffin, Chris Lambert, Dane Lawrence, Rocky Ward

On the co-angler side, coming in 1st place was Hernandez Ruffin, who is also the WA TBF State President, with 24.80. Dane Lawrence from Oregon took 2nd place with 20.86. And rounding out the Top 3 was Rocky Ward from Oregon with 19.44. They will also advance to the 2022 National Championship.

For complete results and more photos from this event CLICK HERE

The 2021 District 9 National Semi-final was held on September 25-26 on Sturgeon Bay.

Despite high winds and small craft advisories on day 1, Larry Hildebrandt and Scott Bonnema both managed to bring in over 20 lbs of Sturgeon bay smallmouth to lead the boater side of the tournament.  On the Co- Angler side, David Little brought in 16.05 lbs and Jeremy Eckes managed 15.15 lbs to lead the field.

On day 2 the winds settled down and the fish started biting.  Despite Mitch Van Ert dropping 21.94 on the scales, Scott Bonnema and Larry Hildebrandt were able to hold onto 1^st and 2^nd respectively.  On the Co- Angler side David Little was able to back up his day 1 total and finished in 2^nd place.  Max Stawinoga brought in 16.85 lbs and managed to jump from 4^th place to 1st place and secure his second consecutive trip to the National Championship.

In the end the anglers going to the National championship from the boater side are Scott Bonnema from MN and Larry Hildebrandt from WI.  On the co angler side it will be David Little from MN and Max Stowinoga from WI.

For full results and more photos for this event CLICK HERE