Jeff Gustafson from Keewatin, Ontario just had the most exciting and rewarding 4 days of his entire fishing career by winning the Bassmaster Elite event held out of Knoxville on the Tennessee River.

Jeff is the second Canadian to take a Bassmaster Elite trophy over the Canada/US border. Last year, Chris Johnston won the Bassmaster Elite St Lawrence River tournament to become the first-ever Canadian to win such an event. This is huge for Canada in that our 3 competitors (Jeff, Chris, and Cory Johnston) are competing against some of the best Bass anglers in the world. The competition is simply astounding as to the skill levels that each one has.

Jeff, along with Chris and Cory, all competed in last year’s Bassmaster Classic which is a huge accomplishment in just qualifying for the world’s most prestigious Bass fishing tournament.

Jeff, known as Gussy, targeted Smallmouth Bass for the entire event. He fully planned on fishing Largemouth, but after a tough practice period and talking to one of his touring buddies who caught a few Smallies, Gussy decided to give the Smallmouth a go. It was probably a tough decision since the Largemouth and Spotted Bass size limit was 15” and the Smallmouth was 18, a huge difference in a tournament situation. That said, if an angler was onto 18” Smallies… they would add up to a nice sack of fish at the end of a day. And that is exactly what Gussy did.

Using a technique that he and his buddies from northwest Ontario have been doing for years, Jeff finessed up 20-keeper Smallies to put a stamp on the Tennessee River event. He weighed a four-day total of 63 pounds even—over 15lbs a day.

For those of you who don’t follow professional Bass tournaments, the above top 10 event list is plastered with huge names of Bass fishing machines!

For Jeff’s win, he took home the gorgeous trophy pictured above along with a cool $100,000 dollars in US funds.

Well done Jeff, you made an entire country proud!