Cook crushes on Santee Cooper Lakes

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Drew Cook went into the final day of the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Santee Cooper Lakes hoping for a continuation of the fishing that produced more than 86 pounds in three days of competition. Follow along to see how the angler put together a wire-to-wire victory for his first Bassmaster win.
Cook went straight to the small cove off of Potato Creek that produced most of his bass, and set up on a spawning bed.
It took just a few casts for Cook to strike gold, when a bass weighing over 5 pounds grabbed his lure. The battle between angler and fish was epic.
Cook immediately celebrated by hugging Bassmaster LIVE cameraman Jake Latendresse.
Cook quickly weighted the big bass, showed it off one more time and put it in his livewell.
Then it was back to work, looking for another bedding bass.
He climbed onto his electronics mounts to get a better view.
He finally located a bed, set up and pitched to a buck bass.
Cook worked the bed for about 15 minutes before the bass finally had enough and grabbed his lure.
Cook then adjusted to yet another bed and put his third bass in the boat.
Next, Cook used a push pole to silently position his boat to work another bedded bass.
The bass bit and Cook battled the fish into the boat.
This bass had a little more weight and was soon swimming in Cook’s livewell.
However, Cook wasn’t happy with the size of the bass he was seeing, so he headed out to another cove. Cook couldn’t know it, but he had fallen to fourth, according to BassTrakk.
After working his way along the banks, picking up one more 3-pounder, Cook poled down on the edge of a massive lily flat.
And missed a bite from a big spawner he pitched a lure to.
But Cook went right back to it, and after only a couple more casts the bass sucked up the lure. And this was the fish Cook was looking for.
This bass, logged as a 7-12, pushed him back to the top of the BassTrakk leaderboard and ultimately clinched his victory.