Who Won In 2011? Vote For Your Favorite

With multiple tours and events one right after the other, the memory of winning moments quickly fades.

Think about it: Can you name five different pros who won a tour-level event this year?

Lest we forget all that happened in 2011, below is a summary of each Bassmaster Elite Series and FLW Tour Major winning moment (FLW Tour Opens are not included).

After you've looked through the events, check out the new BassFan Poll and vote on your favorite winning moment. To find the poll, visit the homepage, then scroll down the right-hand side of the page.

Bassmaster Classic -- Louisiana Delta, La. -- Feb. 18-20
Kevin VanDam stuns the fishing world with his second-consecutive Classic victory – a mark shared only by Rick Clunn. VanDam is also the reigning Angler of the Year (AOY) (he'll go on to win his fourth straight) and cements his legacy as the best now and probably the best ever.

Walmart Open -- Beaver Lake, Ark. -- March 3-6
Bryan Thrift, the reigning FLW Tour AOY, starts off the FLW Tour Majors season with a win at Beaver, where he edges Stacey King by 2 pounds. Thrift finishes 5th at the very next event (Hartwell), then starts to fall off.

Harris Chain Elite Series -- Tavares, Fla. -- March 10-13
Shaw Grigsby, Jr. and Grant Goldbeck find the same loaded spawning canal and milk it for 4 days. In the end, the elder Grigsby edges the youngster Goldbeck for his first B.A.S.S. win in 11 years.

St. Johns Elite Series -- Palatka, Fla. -- March 17-20
Edwin Evers has fished as well or better than anyone over the past 2 years and he wins his first event in 4 years at the St. Johns. Most notable about the victory is he ditches everything he's got on day 2, fishes new water and eventually edges ultra-local Terry Scroggins by 3 pounds.

Hartwell FLW Tour Major -- Greenville, S.C. -- March 24-27
Fourth-year pro Jason Christie claims his first tour-level victory and smokes the field by 10 pounds. In so doing, he scores a victory for hardworking anglers everywhere. No trust fund for Christie. No angel to bankroll him. He went from using a borrowed boat and pickup for jackpots to working team events, then up through the BFLs, EverStarts and finally to the Tour.

Pickwick Elite Series -- Florence, Ala. -- April 6-9
He's still got it. Davy Hite provides fans with a gutsy performance and dukes it out right below the dam. Hite stays focused through mind-numbing hours with no bites and capitalizes when the fish turn on. Hite, in tears, talks about what the win means to him and how proud he is of his son, who made the decision to join the Armed Forces.

Chickamauga FLW Tour Major -- Chattanooga, Tenn. -- April 14–17
Clifford Pirch runs well under the radar at Chickamauga, where locals like Andy Morgan and Wesley Strader dominate conversations, but he shows his total versatility as he changes repeatedly, fishes his instincts and wins with a late 6-pounder on the final day.

Toledo Bend Elite Series -- Many, La. -- April 15–17
Sight-fishing carries Dean Rojas through the majority of the event, but a blind cast secures his wire-to-wire victory. The veteran from Arizona catches a 5 1/2-pounder the morning of day 4 and needs every ounce of that fish – along with the four others in his bag – to hold off a charging Gerald Swindle. Rojas edges Swindle by a single ounce and nails down his fourth tour-level win and second at the giant Texas/Louisiana border impoundment.

West Point Elite Series -- LaGrange, Ga. -- May 5–8
Steve Kennedy enters the final day of West Point knowing the precise locations of several 5-pound-class fish. What he doesn't know is whether he can get any of them to bite. A couple end up in his livewell and they highlight an 18-11 bag that propels him to victory at a venue he's fished since childhood. It's his fourth tour-level triumph, second on the Elite Series.

Murray Elite Series -- Columbia, S.C. -- May 12–15
For the second time in as many events a "local" wins an Elite Series stop. Right after Kennedy's triumph at West Point, it's South Carolina pro Casey Ashley's turn. Ashley edges fellow local Davy Hite as well as Mike Iaconelli through a stingy bite and proves, perhaps, that in the age of electronics and information and every high-tech fishing tool imaginable, intimate knowledge of a fishery is perhaps still important.

Red River FLW Tour -- Shreveport, La. -- May 19–22
John Cox boasts an 8 1/2-pound lead going into the final day, but doesn't allow himself to feel any real sense of comfort until he puts a limit in his livewell. That's because 16 months prior, he'd entered the final day of the Okeechobee Eastern FLW Series in his home state of Florida with a 10 1/2-pound advantage, then watched Scott Martin claim the top prize. Cox fails to break the 8-pound barrier again on the final day, but his 7-13 sack gives him a 48-08 total – more than enough to nail down the wire-to-wire victory.

Arkansas River Elite Series -- Little Rock, Ark. -- June 9–12
The lock and the clock. Those are the final obstacles Denny Brauer must overcome to win the Arkansas River. They ding him a little, but he has plenty of weight in his livewell to withstand the 6-pound penalty for being 6 minutes late to check-in – a delay caused by the presence of a barge – and the veteran secures his 17th career B.A.S.S. victory and first in 5 years.

Kentucky Lake FLW Tour -- Gilbertsville, Ky. -- June 16–19
It was a week of the unexpected. Nobody expects Jay Yelas to threaten for a win at Kentucky Lake with a shallow flipping pattern. Nobody expects local ace Ramie Colson to weigh a combined 16 1/2 pounds over the final 2 days. Nobody expects Shinichi Fukae to suffer a serious accident that injures himself and his cameraman on the trip back to weigh-in. And probably nobody expects Chad Grigsby to sneak up from behind to claim his first tour-level victory with a huge 22-13 final-day sack.

Wheeler Elite Series -- Decatur, Ala. -- June 16–19
David Walker's long, long wait for his initial tour-level victory finally ends. The veteran from Tennessee, who's fished approximately 150 top-tier events across both major tours over the past decade and a half, finally gets his coveted trophy at the Wheeler Elite Series finale. To do it, he holds off the undisputed best angler in the game in Kevin VanDam, and overcomes two solid fish that come unhooked at the side of his boat – one of which he gets a hand on.

Pickwick FLW Tour Major -- Florence, Ala. -- July 21–24
The way Mark Rose tells it, it all began 4 1/2 years ago. That's when he decided that to be a tour pro, he needed to be a ledge-fisherman. So he got together with some of his friends at Lake Pickwick in Alabama, learned about ledges, then spent every available minute of the next 4 years perfecting his ledge craft. It all pays off when he clinches his first tour-level win and third significant Pickwick victory in wire-to-wire fashion.

Forrest Wood Cup -- Lake Ouachita, Ark. -- August 11–14
From the very beginning, Scott Martin sought to build his own name – his own career. He was bound and determined: Whether he failed or flourished, it would be Scott, not father Roland, who was responsible. The younger Martin triumphantly completes that quest when he wins the Forrest Wood Cup and notches the major-championship milestone that forever eluded his angling-legend father.

Don't forget to vote for your favorite victory in the BassFan Poll on the homepage.