Lake Hartwell Hosts 2022 Bassmaster Classic This Weekend

The world’s most prestigious professional bass tournament is returning this year to the site of some of the best moments in the sport’s famed history.

The 2022 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk will be held for the fourth time at scenic Lake Hartwell this weekend beginning today.

Takeoffs will be from Green Pond Landing & Event Center in Anderson.

Daily weigh-ins will be held at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville.

Additionally, the annual Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo will take place at the Greenville Convention Center.

B.A.S.S. CEO Bruce Akin said the organization is excited to once again visit a venue that has become the gold standard for professional bass fishing events.

“Everything about Lake Hartwell and the city of Greenville makes them the perfect setting for the Super Bowl of Professional Bass Fishing,” Akin said. “The Bassmaster Classic is not only a chance for the best anglers in the world to showcase their abilities, it’s an annual celebration of the sport itself. Lake Hartwell provides the perfect site for amazing competition, and the city of Greenville provides the hotels, restaurants and other facilities you need for an event the size of the Classic.”

Competitors have been arriving all week and have been out on the lake looking for good fishing spots and practicing their sport.

Lake Hartwell has hosted three previous Classics that each provided action-packed finishes.

In 2008, Texas pro Alton Jones Sr. went into the final day with little more than a pound lead, but managed to hold off the rest of the field and claim his only Classic trophy. In 2015, when temperatures dipped as low as a frigid 9 degrees, hometown favorite Casey Ashley of South Carolina came from behind on the final day to win his only title. Then in 2018, young Alabama pro Jordan Lee jumped from sixth place on the final day to win his second-straight Classic.

Since the 2018 Classic, Hartwell has hosted several other high-level B.A.S.S. events, including a 2019 Bassmaster Elite Series tournament that was won by South Carolina pro Brandon Cobb. Just last year, another South Carolina pro, Patrick Walters, won the Basspro.com Bassmaster Eastern Open on Lake Hartwell.

Most recently, Hartwell hosted a Bassmaster College Series tournament that was won by Carson-Newman University anglers Ben Cully and Hayden Gaddis with a two-day total of 35 pounds, 10 ounces. In two days, a giant field of 261 teams caught just over 4,536 pounds of bass.

Hartwell is a 56,000-acre man-made reservoir situated between Georgia and South Carolina and encompassing portions of the Savannah, Tugaloo and Seneca rivers. It features a vast array of habitat and a good population of both largemouth and spotted bass that are likely to be in the prespawn phase when the Classic competitors arrive.

If you cannot attend in-person, you can watch live coverage Saturday and Sunday online at: Bassmaster Classic