Had it not been for the buzzsaw that was Louis Monetti, either Seth Slanker or Jackson Swisher would have punched their ticket to the 2023 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Toyota through the 2022 College Classic Bracket presented by Lew’s.
This year, Slanker and Swisher are back for the Strike King Bassmaster College Series National Championship at Pickwick Lake presented by Bass Pro Shops with a single goal in mind; make it back to the bracket and advance to the final day.
“It would be great to make it back,” Swisher said. “My plan in the future is to fish the Opens so it would be amazing to go to the Opens and the Classic through the College Series. We are going to try our best.”
On a stingy Winyah Bay last season, Slanker and Swisher put together a shallow gameplan that resulted in a second-place finish before they headed to Lake Greenwood for the Bracket. There, they both lost head-to-head matchups to Monetti, Swisher in the semi-final round and Slanker narrowly in the championship round.
Just missing out on fishing the most important tournament in the sport has both anglers motivated to make it back. Slanker and Swisher have aspirations of being a pro angler and both understand that winning the Bracket would be an important stepping stone.
“I want redemption after last year,” Slanker said. “You want to go back after losing that way. I would love to fish the Opens too and hopefully make it to the Elites. So I would love to make it back to the Bracket, there is no other feeling like it.”
The Carson-Newman duo of Ben Cully and Hayden Gaddis suffered a different disappointment in 2022. With a sixth-place finish at the National Championship, Cully and Gaddis just missed a chance at competing in the Bracket.
This week, they will be competing in their fourth Championship and are hoping they can find a “Christmas miracle” that will propel them to the Top 3 this year.
“It hurt last year, missing it just barely, but we have been fishing a lot over the summer. We are looking to hopefully bring a few new skills to the table that will lead us there this year,” Cully said. “The goal is to make it to the Classic. Hopefully we can pull it off this week. We might need a Christmas miracle but we will see what happens.”
Cully and Gaddis have been one of the more consistent duo’s in the College Series over the past few seasons and have won several events, including a regular season victory at Lake Hartwell in 2021 as well as a victory at the College Classic event at Lake Keowee.
They hoisted that trophy on the Bassmaster Classic stage and Gaddis has been dreaming of making that moment happen again.
“Both of us fish at every opportunity. We are trying to perfect our craft. We both want to fish at the next level and the only way you can do that is to fish every day and get better. It has lit a fire underneath us and we want to make this happen and have the opportunity to get on the Classic stage again.”
It will be an uphill battle this week, however. Cully and Gaddis have struggled on Pickwick in the past and practice was particularly tough for them. But with unpredictable weather and bass on the move, anything can happen.
“We are just going to go out there and go fishing, fish our instincts and hopefully we can make something happen,” Gaddis said.
