Hank Cherry has now won a Bassmaster Classic and an Elite Series event at the same venue – Lake Guntersville. (Photo: B.A.S.S./Seigo Saito)
February 08, 2026
By Staff Report
Hank Cherry celebrated his 52nd birthday Sunday by catching the heaviest stringer of the Lake Guntersville Elite Series to erase a six-pound deficit and capture his first career full-field Elite Series victory.
Cherry’s 27-11 was more than five pounds heavier than any of the other finalists’ bags and pushed his four-day total to 88-11. He edged Stetson Blaylock by 1-13 after Blaylock bagged 22-09, his third straight 22-pound effort.
Cherry was 64th after day 1 and rode two straight 22-pound stringers into the top 10. He started the day in sixth place and produced the majority of his weight using a 3-inch chartreuse curly trail grub on a 1/8-ounce ball-head jig, a seemingly timeless presentation for anglers around the world.
“I felt like I was 10 years old again; it was incredible fishing,” Cherry said. “I was throwing a bait that’s older than (much) of the field. I’ve been waiting my whole life to be able to fish a major tournament and do that.”
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Matt Robertson caught 22-04 and settled for third with 85-13 while day-3 leader Jamie Hartman slipped to fourth with 85-11 and weighing 18-11, his lightest limit of the event. Wes Logan, who notched his third career top-10 finish at Guntersville, caught 17-05 and wound up fifth with 82-07.
For Cherry, who won back-to-back Bassmaster Classic in 2020-21 with the first coming at Guntersville, this event marked the first top-10 cut he’s made in a full-field tournament since the 2021 Pickwick Lake Elite Series.
“I love this game, I was born to do this game and I thank God that he gave me the ability to do what I do,” Cherry said. “This is incredible. This is just another check mark on a lifelong dream that I’ve been living.”
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Cherry devoted his tournament to the Alred Creek area, where the abundance of baitfish and the scarcity of boats presented a promising scenario. He caught his fish by casting and slowly swimming the grub along the grass edge.
“Once you learn how to move the bait, it’s very easy,” Cherry said. “The bite’s simple. You don’t lose a lot, except when they straighten out your hook.
“I just paid attention to one grassline and anytime I went over a group of bait or a group of fish with my DownScan, I would mark it and come back through. I knew today was my day when I looked up in the grass 30 yards away, and (the fish) were just boiling.”
When Cherry left his main area, he was unsure of his overall standing. Fortunately, a late-day decision sealed the deal.
“I was second guessing leaving, but the afternoon has been so bad,” Cherry said. “I came up here (near the tournament site at Goose Pond) with 10 minutes to go and fished a Bassmooch HC 115 jerkbait on a bluff and caught my last one, which was right at 5 pounds.
“I said, ‘If I get beat, I just get beat.’”
Blaylock found it difficult to sulk about his runner-up showing that saw him reel a swimbait and lipless crankbait in and around grass on the edges of a creek channel.
“It’s about good as it gets,” he said. “You go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows to the highest of highs and you don’t know which feeling to grab hold off. If someone had told me after practice that I’d finish second, I’d have told them they were crazy. And then I go and finish second and you’re like, ‘Really!? Two pounds from winning?’ You just have to take it for what it is. I’ll take second every tournament, but it’s hard to be close and not be able to finish.”
