Bryan Schmitt fed Lake Champlain bass a steady diet of bogus crawfish this week to win the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Northern Open finale.

Pressure builds every year, like a Major League Baseball pennant race, when the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Series schedule continues after the conclusion of the Bassmaster Elite Series season.

Bryan Schmitt had planned on catching a mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth bass on Lake Champlain, but it was a limit of five smallmouth that nudged him into the second-round lead in the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Northern Open.

ONAMIA, Minn. — Gerald Swindle of Guntersville, Ala., clinched his second Angler of the Year title since 2004 at the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship at Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota.

Another impressive day of hefty smallmouth astonished fans during the second round of the $1 million Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship at Minnesota’s famed Mille Lacs Lake.

Giant limits of smallmouth bass created quite the spectacle during the first weigh-in of the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship at Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota.

Ott DeFoe maintained his lead for the third day in a row to earn his first career regular-season Bassmaster Elite Series victory at the Plano Bassmaster Elite at the Mississippi River presented by Favorite Fishing.