Chris Johnston of Peterborough, Ontario booked the biggest Bassmaster Elite Series win of his career at Santee Cooper Lakes this weekend, breaking the Century Club with 113 lb 12 oz and beating Brandon Palaniuk by 19 lb 12 oz, on a dock-skipping soft-plastic pattern he barely believed in until practice was almost over.
The defending back-to-back Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year now holds two Century belts, two Elite Series titles and two AOY trophies, making him the only modern Elite-era angler to claim that triple double. He is also the first Canadian to win an Elite Series event and the first to win an FLW Tour event, a story he has been quietly stacking up since Peterborough days.
"One of the best weeks of fishing of my life," Johnston said from the stage as the host handed over the trophy. "I don't even have words to describe how this week went."
The winning pattern was almost an accident. Johnston was grinding grass in the lower lake on the first day of practice when a four-pounder convinced him to swing into a nearby dock with a soft plastic he happened to have on the deck. "I just happened to have my full cast on the deck beside me and that's what I threw into that dock and caught a four-pounder," he said. "And that's what keyed me into this pattern this week. Two docks down, I shook off a five-pounder."
He likened the way Santee's biggest bass reacted to the bait to two of the most pattern-shifting lures of his lifetime. "It was like the Senko 30 years ago. It was the A-Rig. And now obviously it's the full cast hideup corki," he said. "And when they see it, those big ones, they won't eat anything else right now. You twitch that in front of their face and it's game on."
Getting bites was only half the puzzle. Landing them was the other half. "Getting them hooked up is one thing," he said. "Getting them in the boat's a whole another thing. My nerves are a wreck. I had everything happen this week. I blew a sandal. I fell in the lake. I lost fish. I had them wrapped up in docks. I had to crash my boat into docks to get fish out of the dock."
The sandal story became a sub-plot. Johnston spent Day 3 fishing barefoot on a deck that turned to hotplate in the South Carolina sun. "I blew a sandal yesterday and I had to fish all day in bare feet," he said. "My feet were on fire on that carpet on the deck of the boat. I was putting water on the carpet just trying to keep it cool."
Championship Sunday produced a 30 lb 15 oz bag that was sealed by a fish caught in the dying minutes. Johnston had fished a dock earlier in the day and put a four-and-three-quarter pound bass in the box. On the way back to the ramp, he asked his camera operator for one more cast. "I cast out, I turned the trolling motor out to head back to weigh in, and all of a sudden my rod loaded up," he said. "I didn't even have a chance to weigh it. I put it in the box, but it was probably a six and twelve pounder. So I called it a five-pounder at the end of the day."
A 7 lb 7 oz kicker on the same day earned Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Day. Beyond the numbers, Johnston dedicated the win to his sons Beckett and Bo back in Ontario, who he had been missing while travelling for the Elite season. "I'll be home tomorrow with a blue trophy, boys," he said.
He had not been on a Bassmaster top-ten stage for around eighteen months coming into Santee, a drought that he admitted had been weighing. "I haven't had a top 10 in about a year and a half, which I was kind of jonesing for one," he said. "It's always been a nail-biter when I'm up here. So much nicer, way less stress, and yeah, awesome week."
*Source: Bassmaster TV stage interview, 17 May 2026.*
