Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches (Clausen/Hunter) catches 36 largemouth weighing 62 pounds, 1 ounce to pace field, winning teams head to Knockout Round on Wednesday and Thursday

ERIE, Pa. (Aug. 27, 2024) – The third group of two-man teams took to the water Tuesday on Erie’s Presque Isle Bay for the 2024 General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops.

Similar to the two days prior at the B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by Toyota, most of the teams  started out Tuesday morning along the Erie waterfront, fishing the riprap banks and targeting seawalls with grass blown up around them. However, after two days of fierce competition, the fish in those areas had been depleted, making for a tough bite and forcing anglers to move around to try to find fish.

The match was the tightest of the event so far, with several teams battling for the top spot throughout the day and nearly every team in close contention to make the cut to the Knockout Round.

But it was Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches, made up of pros Luke Clausen of Spokane, Washington, and John Hunter of Shelbyville, Kentucky , who finished atop the leaderboard when the time ran out, catching 36 largemouth bass weighing 62 pounds, 1 ounce, to earn the win after the Elimination Round Match 3. Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches will now advance to the Knockout Round, along with the second-place finishing Team Star Tron – pros Bobby Lane of Lakeland, Florida, and Jacob Wall of New Hope, Alabama – who caught 35 bass weighing 57-6 to finish the day in second.

The top six teams from the last three Elimination Round matches now advance to the Knockout Rounds on Wednesday and Thursday. Team Star Tron (Bobby Lane/Jacob Wall) will join Team REDCON1 (Cole Floyd/Andy Morgan) and Team U.S. Air Force (Stephen Browning/Anthony Gagliardi) in the Knockout Round on Wednesday, while Team Smokey Mountain (Luke Clausen/John Hunter) will join Team Coign (Drew Gill/Matthew Stefan) and Team B&W Trailer Hitches (Matt Becker/Spencer Shuffield) in the Knockout Round on Thursday.

After the Knockout Rounds are complete, the top four teams from the two days of competition will advance to Friday’s Championship Round.

The Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches team started the morning on the Erie waterfront, pitching bait around some of the seawalls, break walls and riprap shorelines. They caught a few fish early on, but really keyed in on the bite after Hunter threw a vibrating jig in the offshore grass beds. They dialed that in the rest of the day, catching most of their fish on vibrating jigs, and a few on stick worms.

“That was fun, especially there at the end,” said Clausen. “It started off rocky though. We figured some stuff out through the day that just made the whole day line out right. If we’d missed a key bite here or there, it could have gone downhill quick.

“We fished there this morning and caught a couple, but left because the other teams were catching quite a few and we thought we could find something better,” Clausen continued. “We scrambled around thinking we were going to find glory and ironically we just ran away from a really good place, we just didn’t know it this morning.”

The duo rose to the top of the leaderboard at the end of the second period and held onto the top spot for most of the afternoon.

“I’m pretty proud of how we figured them out today, just settling in on these clumps of milfoil grass with little openings in them,” said Clausen. “We were able to identify that there were multiple fish – pretty much every time we caught one we could pick up a piece of plastic and throw it and catch another one.”

Hunter said the main focus today was trying to manage the little sweet spots that they found.

“Every time we circled back to one of those spots, we’d get another bite or two, but you don’t want to go back to them too quick,” said Hunter. “So, we basically just went through the spots, then worked the outside edge of them, trying to find a new spot or two, then came back through once they’ve had some time to rest.”

Clausen said the Z-Man Tungsten ChatterBait Elite Evo accounted for a lot of their fish.

“I scored 23 bass and probably 20 of them were caught on that bait,” said Clausen. “It falls quick, coming out of this grass, and it reacts quicker, so you get a lot more movement out of your bait.”

Clausen said he threw the ChatterBait on a Phenix M1 7-foot, 4-inch medium-heavy rod with a 7.3:1 gear ratio.

“The ChatterBait was definitely the star of the day,” said Clausen. “We probably both could have guessed that before we got out here this morning, but we had a ton of rods on the deck and pretty much tried them all in the first period. That didn’t go very well. The ‘keep it simple strategy’ is pretty dang good for fishing.

“We’d basically stop getting bites every time we’d put the ChatterBait down,” Hunter said, laughing. “We’re excited to move on to the Knockout Round in a couple days. Not sure where we’re going, but I’m hoping for some smallmouth. The largemouth are fun, but I’m ready for some brown fish.”

Team Star Tron pros Bobby Lane and Jacob Wall finished the day in second place despite a hard-charge from Team Kubota (Connell/Wheeler) that threatened to knock them out in the last few minutes of the competition day.

“As a team, we spent the day fishing our high percentage areas,” said Lane. “We fished all over today, and just tried to stay where the fish were biting, and fish slower. When we were around the fish, we just tried to mix it up – flipping, throwing a dropshot rig, spinnerbait, crankbait, bladed jig – you name it, we were doing it today.”

Lane said the duo had found four areas as they moved through the day, and just agreed that they would keep hitting those areas.

“All day long we got bit when we made moves, changed baits, and everything just felt very fluid today,” said Wall. “I felt like we made good, fluid decisions.

Lane said the changing conditions throughout the day dictated a lot of those decisions.

“It started off a little windy and cloudy, but then it got slick calm, and hot,” Lane said. “Once that happened, we went back through and dropped a big weight on some of these mats where the shade is on the walls. We weren’t just throwing at the walls, we were throwing out to the little corner of the walls, where the shade was, and that really paid off for us.

“We had such a fun day,” Lane continued. “We’d never been in the boat together, but Jacob and I worked so well together. We can’t wait to get back out on the water for the Knockout Round.”

The results from the Elimination Round Match 3 at the B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by Toyota are:

1st:           Team Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff & Pouches, 36 bass, 62-1
Luke Clausen, Spokane, Wash., 23 bass, 38-8
John Hunter, Shelbyville, Ky., 13 bass, 23-9
2nd:         Team Star Tron, 35 bass, 57-6
Bobby Lane, Lakeland, Fla., 23 bass, 37-9
Jacob Wall, New Hope, Ala., 12 bass, 19-13
3rd:          Team Kubota, 28 bass, 51-14
Dustin Connell, Clanton, Ala., 14 bass, 29-5
Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Tenn., 14 bass, 22-9
4th:           Team Knighten, 32 bass, 50-2
Wesley Strader, Spring City, Tenn., 16 bass, 27-10
Scott Suggs, Alexander, Ark., 16 bass, 22-8

Complete results from throughout the week can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 131 bass weighing 221 pounds, 7 ounces caught by the four teams during the Elimination Round Match 3 on Presque Isle Bay. Team Kubota pro Dustin Connell caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a largemouth weighing 4 pounds, 15 ounces.

The B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by Toyota is hosted by VisitErie and takes place over six days in Erie, Pennsylvania. The competition water for each day is top-secret and is only revealed to the anglers after they arrive at the host hotel each morning.

Anglers depart the host hotel in Erie at 4:30 a.m. ET each morning and are driven directly to the day’s competition area launch ramp by their officials. Competition begins on the water at 7:45 a.m.

The MLFNOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live every day of competition from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET. MLFNOW!® is live streamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app and Rumble.

The Challenge Cup features 12 two-man teams divided into three groups as they enter the one-day Elimination Rounds. Each of the three Elimination Rounds will feature four new teams, with the top two teams from each of the Elimination Rounds advancing to the Knockout Rounds on Days 4 & 5. In the Knockout Rounds, three teams will compete each day, with the top two teams from each Knockout Round moving on to the Championship Round on Day 6. In Friday’s Day 6 Championship Round, the final four teams will compete in a one-day shootout to determine which team will win the 2024 B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by Toyota.

The 2024 General Tire Team Series is comprised of four events – Challenge Cup, Heritage Cup, Patriot Cup and Summit Cup – featuring two-man teams of MLF Bass Pro Tour pros competing from the same boat. Each event features a roster of 24 anglers, teamed up and working together to claim part of a season purse of more than $720,000. Teams were formed through a selection process, where 48 team captains – based on Fishing Clash Angler of the Year (AOY) standings throughout the 2024 Bass Pro Tour season – selected a teammate. Teams will compete throughout the fall of 2024.

Television coverage of the B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup Presented by Toyota will premiere on Outdoor Channel as six two-hour episodes starting in January 2025. New MLF General Tire Team Series episodes will premiere each Saturday morning on Outdoor Channel and posted to MOTV.

Proud sponsors of the MLF General Tire Team Series include: 7 Brew Coffee, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Barbasol, Bass Boat Technologies, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, Builders FirstSource, C-MAP, Coign, Epic Baits, Ferguson, Fishing Clash, General Tire, Knighten Industries, Kubota, Lowrance, Lucas Oil, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Nitro Boats, Onyx, Plano, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala Baits, REDCON1, Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff, Star brite, Toyota, USAA, WIX Filters and YETI.

For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook , X, Instagram and  YouTube.

About Major League Fishing
Major League Fishing (MLF) is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, producing more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America’s living rooms on CBS, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Channel, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world’s top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 17 countries. Since its founding in 2011, MLF has advanced the sport of competitive fishing through its premier television broadcasts and livestreams and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.