Local angler Buddy Gross reels in another pro tournament victory.
Local angler Buddy Gross claimed his first Costa FLW Southeastern Series tournament title on Saturday on Lake Seminole in Bainbridge, Georgia.
The LFO alum and Chickamauga resident, who earned $8,000 for his eighth-place finish in Florida on Lake Okeechobee in the first tour stop in late January, caught his limit of 15 bass over three days and pocketed a hefty $52,200 for his work.
“I had some of the best practices you could ask for,” Gross said. “I was catching 25 or more every day in practice.”
He began the tournament this past Thursday by bringing in five bass that weighed in at 24-pounds, 3-ounces. That put him behind only John Duvall (25-0) after Day 1.
But Duvall would fall out of the top 10 on Friday and Gross would take advantage. His five bass on Day 2 weighed in at just 17-1, but it was enough to propel him into the tournament lead by over 3.5 pounds.
Then on Saturday where only the top 10 went out onto the water, Gross brought in five more fish weighing in at 23-7. His total weight of 64-11 was enough to beat runner-up Bryan Thrift (58-9) by over six pounds.
He said the key was going after both prespawn and post-spawn fish.
“God’s been good to me,” he said. “He put me in the right position to find the fish. Everyone can catch fish, but you have to know where to find them first.”
Gross now sits atop both the money list and the points list for the Southeastern Series.
“Getting off to good start (on Thursday) was big,” he explained. “It kind of allowed me to relax and fish and look forward to the rest of the tournament knowing I probably was going to have a little money in my pocket.”
He said he wants to just stay consistent the rest of the season in order to put himself in a position to fish in bigger tournaments for bigger potential paydays later in the year.
“The ultimate goal is to make to the championship where there will be a lot of money on the line,” he added.
Gross finished ninth in the Costa FLW Southeastern Series in 2015 and earned a top 20 finish at the Costa FLW Series Championship that season, earning himself a spot on the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, considered the major leagues of professional fishing.
This past May, his work paid off with a wire-to-wire win at Pickwick Lake in Florence, Alabama, which netted him a cool $100,000.