How Evan Kung Topped the Bassmaster Elite Series Field

The 2026 Bassmaster Elite Series season finale at the St. Lawrence River/Lake Ontario wasn’t just about catching limits of big smallmouth bass. Everyone could do that. To win this event, Evan Kung had to set himself apart by convincing the BIGGEST bass to bite – every day of the four-day event.

Coaxing bites from (and landing) 5- to 6-pound-plus smallmouths on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario with 100 of the top anglers of the world intensively focused on top areas for multiple days is a monumentally harder task than catching 4- and 4 1/2-pounders. Kung’s lightest bag, on Day 1, weighed 26-pounds, 9 ounces, which is a 5-pound, 5-ounce average. Fish that size are extraordinarily well educated and have seen all the tricks.

Kung relied on the Great Lakes Finesse Stay-Pinned Spybait and prototypes of the soon-to-be-released GLF Vibra Bug on a drop shot rig to manage a four-day total of 109 pounds, 9 ounces, which broke a record as the heaviest winning weight of all smallmouth bass in Bassmaster history.

Kung is from Pickering, Ontario Canada, which is located at the edge of Lake Ontario. He is known as one of the region’s top experts at catching big Great Lakes smallmouth bass. Although he had not won with BASS previously, he was a popular pick as a strong contender to win by anglers and tournament fishing fans in the know.

Kung had gotten refined prototypes of the new GLF Vibra Bug, which will be available later this fall, a few weeks before the St. Lawrence event and had gotten to fish them just enough just to have gained tremendous confidence in the appearance and movement and to know the Vibra Bug was the perfect fit for how he wanted to fish. He also had experience with other baits of the same general style and knew the intricacies of how to fish them and had been involved with the Vibra Bug development process.

“I chose the Vibra Bug on a drop shot because it’s a little different bait that fish aren’t used to seeing,” Kung said. “The matte finish and neutral buoyancy of the bait made a huge difference in getting a few extra key bites a day on super pressured bass.”

Kung used 1/2- and 3/4-ounce weights for his drop shots, dependent on water depth, and a No. 2 drop shot hook. He spooled up with 10-pound braid and had 8-pound fluorocarbon leader.

Kung also fished extensively with the GLF Stay-Pinned Spybait, which is a standard in his smallmouth fishing arsenal. He used both the original 70 mm size, which is currently available, and prototypes of an 80 mm size, which is not yet available. The size depended on the depth he wanted to fish the bait. His colors of choice were Shiner and Matte Black

“I chose the new 80 size of the Stay-Pinned Spybait as a tool to cover water and to rise fish off cover so I could see what was in the area,” Kung said.

The Spybait was critical one afternoon, when the wind had laid down and the sun was high and bright, which typically makes some deep fish stray shallower and make all the fish much harder to catch on the Great Lakes. Kung moved shallower with the Spybait and caught a 5 1/2- and two 6-pound fish to build his day’s limit.

Kung did not win with a magic spot. He spent time on the St. Lawrence River and out on Lake Ontario and weighed key fish from both. He spent the most time fishing in the 20-to 40-foot range but also spent time shallower. Keys were finding multiple areas large fish were using, understanding how the bass use those areas under different conditions, and understanding how to convince the biggest ones to bite.

Current, grass flats and boulders were all important to Kung’s strategy, but he noted that the bass were not necessarily on the boulders.

“There were some fish roaming between the boulders,” he said. “A lot of people like to go boulder to boulder, but I like to fish in between. When they get pressured, they will pull off and roam. I caught a bunch of those fish.”

For his drop shot presentations, Kung mixed shaking the Vibra Bug in front of fish and just dragging the rig slowly or holding it in place, not moving the rod but allowing current to engage the bait’s signature vibrating action.

For the Stay-Pinned Spybait, it was all about slow rolling – bombing long casts, allowing the bait to sink to the key zone, and reeling slowly and steadily. At times, the Spybait served as his fish finder.

“I would slow roll it over the top of grass patches, rock piles and sand flats so I could get the fish to react to it and then target them more effectively with the drop shot,” he said.

Like everything ever developed by Great Lakes Finesse, the Vibra Bug has been carefully developed so every detail is ideal for how it will is most apt to be used. The Vibra Bug has been in the works for about 2 years, with the GLF crew testing everything of the sort on the market with different styles of rigging and in a host of situations to figure out strengths and weaknesses and make the bait exactly right and then working through generations of prototypes.

It is a spikey-type bait, but with flatter shape and smaller profile than a typical “urchin” to match shown preferences of finicky smallmouth bass. It’s neither sinking nor floating, instead offering the neutral buoyancy that is critical to so many GLF baits. The matte finish, another thing GLF baits are known for, is also vital to the Vibra Bug’s appeal.

The design of the spikes create a distinctive vibrating action (hence the name) with any bait movement or current sweeping the baits. Distinctive features also include a hook slot to simplify and ensure proper rigging and a small Neko weight holding area beneath the bait’s face.

The Vibra Bug will be available later this fall.

“This was by far my biggest win,” Kung said. “It was a tough year for me, so it was great to end it like this. I couldn’t think of a better ending.”

Because season two on the Elite Series had been challenging overall for Kung, Task No. 1 going in to the St. Lawrence event was a solid finish that would move him up in the season standings enough to secure his place in next year’s Elite Series field. He knew there was no margin for error with how well everyone would catch quality bass, so he could not fully “swing for the fences” early and risk not coming back with really good limits each day.

For perspective, the Top 50 cut line after two days ended up being 46 pounds, 12 ounces. The first 19 anglers who MISSED the cut had two-day smallmouth bass limits that averaged more than 4 1/2 pounds per fish. With Kung’s total at 55-2 after two days, which put him in second place, he still needed a solid third day to secure his spot, but he knew he was in a better position to pour on the gas.

Kung’s final upgrade on the final competition day was a 6-pound, 13-ounce smallmouth that also earned him big fish honors for the day. “That was the difference in this one. I thought I would have a chance then,” he said, noting that if second place finisher Trey McKinney had ended up winning, he would not have been disappointed.

That didn’t happen, though. Kung won by 2 pounds, an impressive margin in a tournament where nine of the 10 anglers who fished the final day earned “Century Belts,” weighing more than 100 pounds of smallmouth bass in four days.

Kung began the event with the goal of requalifying for the Elites and ended up winning his first Elite Series first place trophy, the $100,000 first place prize (plus $1,000 for his final-day big bass), and securing a spot in the 2027 Bassmaster Classic at Lake Hartwell.

We’d call that, “Mission accomplished and a lot more!” Congratulations from Lurenet and Great Lakes Finesse, Evan!