Super Bowl of bass fishing

Geico Bassmaster Classic to pay out $1 million in prizes.

This year’s Geico Bassmaster Classic fishing tournament takes place Feb. 20-22 at Lake Hartwell on the Georgia and South Carolina border. The event has been compared with the Super Bowl or the World Series for fans of bass fishing.

The stars of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society professional angling circuit will vie for bragging rights, cash purses and endorsement dollars during three days of fishing on the 56,000-acre impoundment on the Savannah, Seneca and Tugaloo rivers.

Anglers are allowed to bring five largemouth or spotted bass to the weigh-in each day. The fisherman with the most pounds of fish at the end of the tournament walks away with the first-place prize money.

All bass must be alive when weighed and are later released back into the reservoir.

The field for the event is composed of 2014 Classic winner Randy Howell of Springville, Ala., winners of qualifying tournaments in the various BASS circuits and the leaders in the Angler of the Year point competition for 2014.

This year’s contestants come from all across the nation, but also include Morizo Shimizu from Osaka, Japan. No one from Georgia qualified for the 2015 classic.

The anglers will be launching boats at 7:15 a.m. each day from the Green Pond Landing on the South Carolina side of the lake. The landing is at the South Carolina State Route 24 bridge over Twenty Six Mile Creek. The launch site is four miles south of South Carolina exit 11 on I-85.

The weigh-in each day takes place at the Bon Secour Wellness Center in Greenville, S.C.

The Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo also takes place in conjunction with the fishing tournament. This consumer show offers a wide array of vendors at Greenville’s TD Convention Center.

More information on the 2015 Geico Bassmaster Classic is available at bassmasters.com.