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Cook, 1991 Classic champ, passes away

Cook, 1991 Classic champ, passes away

Ken Cook, the 1991 Bassmaster Classic champion and longtime bass fishing ambassador, died early Friday, BassFan has learned. He was 68.

Bassmaster.com is reporting that Cook died of an apparent heart attack while visiting one of his sons in Oklahoma City.

Cook won the first B.A.S.S. tournament he entered – the 1980 B.A.S.S. Federation championship – and went on to compete in 14 Classics, capturing the ’91 event at the Chesapeake Bay. He won five other B.A.S.S. events before retiring from tournament fishing in 2009. He was inducted into the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame in 2011.

An Oklahoma native with a vibrant passion for the outdoors, Cook earned a college degree in zoology from Oklahoma State before going to work for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation as a fisheries biologist for 13 years.

In March 1983, he won the first Super B.A.S.S. tournament at the St. Johns River and became the first pro angler to eclipse the $100,000 earnings mark in a single year. Soon after, he left his full-time job to pursue a career as a tournament angler.

He placed among the Top 10 in the Bassmaster Angler of the Year points six times, finishing a career-best 2nd to Roland Martin in 1984.

In 1995, Cook and his wife Tammy built a home at Tarbone Ranch in Lawton, Okla., and have devoted their time to managing the land for trophy big-game hunting ever since.

This past Monday, Cook posted a photo of himself operating a log splitter to his Instagram and Facebook pages. On Sunday, he’d posted a photo of a coyote he’d shot on his ranch with the caption, “Put a little blood in the snow scraps.”

Cook is survived by his wife Tammy, three sons Hunter, Tanner and Jason and several grandchildren.

BassFan will publish additional details and reaction to Cook’s passing in the near future.

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