The Bassmaster Elite Series circuit was born in 2006. Ish Monroe won the first tournament. It was held March 9-12 on Lake Amistad. Greg Hackney won the second Elite Series event. It was held March 16-19 on Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
Those same two anglers have won the last two Elites Series tournaments – Hackney on the Sabine River on June 7-11, and Monroe on the Mississippi River at La Crosse, Wis., last week.
The two longtime pro anglers expressed similar sentiments.
“I don’t remember the one before being as sweet as this last one,” said Hackney, who now has four Elites Series trophies, the last one coming from Lake Texoma in 2016. “They just seem to get better and better.”
Hackney smiled and added, “Maybe that’s why (Kevin) VanDam’s got 25 of them.” (Note: VanDam has 25 B.A.S.S. titles, nine have come in Elite Series regular season tournaments.)
“Yes, it does get sweeter,” said Monroe last Sunday. “The competition gets tougher and tougher as we go on. These young guys are good. It’s sweeter when you know you can still compete at that high level. I’m the grizzled veteran now, as me and Dean Rojas like to call ourselves. We’re not the old guys yet. We’re the grizzled veterans.”
Monroe, who turned 44 years old the day before the La Crosse tournament began, has now won three Elite Series titles, evenly spaced throughout the circuit’s history – 2006 at Amistad, 2012 at Lake Okeechobee and 2018 at the Mississippi River.