Hank Cherry's triumph at Lake Guntersville will be remembered for the chartreuse 3-inch grub he caught the lion's share of his fish on. (Photo: B.A.S.S./Andy Crawford)
February 10, 2026
By Todd Ceisner
Hank Cherry is hoping the grind of the last three seasons is behind him.
Across the 27 Bassmaster Elite Series events from 2023-2025, his average finish was 52.7, nearly smack in the middle of the field. His best showing was a 13th at Santee Cooper in 2023. His fishing was suffering because he was suffering.
After the 2024 season, Cherry had surgery to repair a severe case of tennis elbow in his left elbow. Following the 2025 season, he underwent surgery on both hands to correct bad cases of carpal tunnel.
“For about three years I was banged up,” he said. “I tried to do other things other than dealing with them. I lost more fish because I had less power in my hookset. I had a stretch there where it wasn’t good. I was in a bad place mentally. When you’re used to doing something at a reasonably high level and then you’re not, it can take a toll on you.”
Advertisement
While he didn’t mention the word retirement, he admitted it’s something he contemplated.
“It’s always in the back of my mind,” he said. “I’m not getting any younger. I wasn’t producing to my capabilities, and it was all on me, but it was also on me to get it taken care of.”
With his body on the mend and a renewed sense of purpose, Cherry kicked off the 2026 season with a bang, using a technique no one saw coming – except maybe him.
Advertisement
Faced with wintery cold conditions at Guntersville and knowing the field wasn’t able to rely on live sonar, Cherry broke out a chartreuse 3-inch curl tail grub on a ballhead jig. The kind we all grew up fishing. They kind Cherry grew up slinging around Lake Norman and similar fisheries in his native North Carolina.
“It was just an excellent week,” he said. “I don’t see how it could have gotten any better.”
Practice Cherry identified three places in practice where he was confident he could generate bites.
“Alred paid off the best, obviously,” he said. “I found them there the last day. There were some birds diving on a point and I threw my jerkbait around and caught one and had a couple foul it up.”
That’s when he summoned his grub rod from the rod locker, just to see if it would work.
“I could see the shad starting to die and there was shad on my graph,” he said. “Growing up, that green grub caught me some big bags fishing around that kind of stuff.”
He figured he caught 20 pounds worth of fish in that area, proving the trusted technique from yesteryear could still produce. It also helped that he had the area to himself and nobody caught a glimpse of his tactics.
“If I go fishing and the water is below 50 degrees, I’m going to have that rod rigged up,” he said. “People think it’s a small fish bait, but you can catch big fish doing it. Did I know that was going to transpire? No. It was the perfect storm. Nobody came in there to mess around and I just expanded on it. I didn’t know how far it went until day 2 when I found they were on the whole place.”
Competition Day 1: 5, 16-3 Day 2: 5, 22-11 Day 3: 5, 22-2 Day 4: 5, 27-11 Total = 20, 88-11 Day 1 was more about survival than anything for Cherry. Like other in the field, he dealt with ice in his rod guides, which made fishing the grub effectively nearly impossible.
“I moved up into the grass and caught a couple 4-pounders then went to a couple other places,” he said. “The goal at that point was 16 or 17 pounds and I did that barely.”
His 16-3 stringer had him in 64th place entering day 2.
He bagged 22-11 on day 2 to jump up to 18th, accumulating most of his weight in the morning before vacating his key area.
“I left around 10 because the bite slowed down and grass started blowing in there from whichever way the wind was blowing,” he said.
He tacked on 22-2 on day 3 to make the final-day cut in sixth place, securing his first top-10 finish in a full-field Elite Series event since he placed 5th at the Pickwick Lake in 2021.
He stuck around on his best spot longer on day 4 and it yielded him a couple additional 5-pounders, which helped anchor his tournament-best 27-11 sack.
By then, he’d dialed in where the fish were ganged up and how they repositioned throughout the day. Over the final days, he figured he caught upwards of 200 bass.
“There’s a main grass line off the main channel heading into Alred,” he said. ‘The grass line had lots of turns in it, which created a lot of points and funnels. They stayed in those funnels and there were definitely several points where the grass tapered off longer toward the channel.”
He said the fish would “load up” on the sharp breaks and he’d be able to catch a dozen to 15 fish each time he found them positioned that way.
“They got on the long, sloping stuff later in the day when the school would break up,” he added.
He mainly kept his boat in 12 to 19 feet of water and most of the bites came in 4 to 9 feet of water.
“They were truly suspended,” he said.
Of the 15 fish he weighed in over the final three days, he said 13 of them were victims of the grub.
“I’ve thrown it in lots of events,” he said. “It’s just never been the perfect storm like this.”
He varied the jighead size for a couple reasons. One for better casting distance and two because he ran out of the ballhead jigs he had brought with him.
“I was reeling it over the top of the grass,” he said. “The birds gave it all away. They’d be 100 yards ahead of me so I’d pay attention to where they were hitting the water. As I’d get closer I’d see them on Downscan. I wouldn’t sit there and try to catch them. I’d made it and go about my business and come back in 10 minutes and work on them. It’s how I grew up fishing, just searching for ‘em.
“There were times I had to keep it closer to the grass and times I had to keep it higher.”
Winning Gear Notes > Grub gear: 6’10” medium-light Level NGX casting rod, Seviin GS casting reel (8.1:1 ratio), 10-pound Xhing Gorol fluorocarbon line, 1/8- and 3/16-oz. homemade ball head jigs (2/0 light wire hook), unnamed 3-inch handpour curl tail grub (chartreuse).
> Cherry said he started the event with a gallon-sized bag of grubs and went through roughly 3/4 of them. “I don’t even know how old that bag is,” he said. “I’m just glad I had the opportunity to throw that thing in a big tournament in the right conditions.”
