bassmaster classic

A look at 2025 Lake Ray Roberts Classic

Learn what conditions await as the biggest celebration in bass fishing unfolds in Texas with the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour.

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Mike Suchan
Classic Week is here! The biggest celebration in bass fishing unfolds in Texas with the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour. The 55th Classic competition runs Friday through Sunday on Lake Ray Roberts with Fort Worth as host city.
This is the fourth Classic in Texas, and Fort Worth/Ray Roberts is hosting for the second time. The first event was held in June of 2021 after flip-flopping with the Pickwick Elite because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That was the latest Classic since the move to fish championships in spring of 2006.
Lake Ray Roberts was named after a congressmen who supported its creation. The fishery, which has been among Bassmaster Magazine’s 100 Best Bass Lakes, is about an hour north of downtown Fort Worth.
A reservoir of the Trinity River, Lake Ray Roberts was impounded in 1987, flooding ponds that had been stocked with Florida-strain largemouth. The lake is 23 miles long with about 29,000 surface acres and 260 miles of shoreline. The average depth is 24 feet with a maximum depth of 106 feet. The lake has two main arms with a number of feeder creeks, and much of the 2,000 acres of standing timber is in those upper arms. The trees hold big bass but create navigation issues.
Daily launches will take place at the Lake Ray Roberts State Park Isle Du Bois Unit, 100 PW 4137 in Pilot Point. 
During competition, the area will be abuzz with activity before first light. Classic launches, which are free to attend, have drawn crowds in the thousands. This year the blastoff is set for 7:30 a.m. CT, a minute after official sunrise.
B.A.S.S. emcee Dave Mercer will announce each angler as they pass his position. Chris Johnston, the 2024 Angler of the Year,  leads out the procession with 2024 Classic champ Justin Hamner following. The remaining boat numbers were picked by random draw. The Day 2 launch order is reversed. 
There are 18 first-time Classic qualifiers among the 56 competitors, who qualified through several avenues. Each will be seeking their best five fish measuring 14 inches or longer over the first two days of competition Friday and Saturday. The top 25 move on to Championship Sunday, when $300,000 will be awarded to the best three-day total weight.
Dickies Arena is site of the weigh-in shows. Seating around 10,000, the state-of-the-art facility provides a spectacular venue, and the centered stage allows premium viewing from most every seat. Check the Classic experience page information on the facilities and parking.
The arena doors open at 3 p.m. CT for B.A.S.S. Life and Nation members and the general public may enter at 3:15. The shows start shortly after with first fish coming to the stage at approximately 5 p.m. each day. While all Classic Week venues are free to attend, Dickies Arena charges for parking.
The Bassmaster Classic Expo presented by GSM Outdoors will be at the Fort Worth Convention Center. The expo brings together all the major fishing companies, who offer discounts on most all merchandise, and fans can browse the acres of aisles and meet fishing legends.
Run-ins with icons like Jimmy Houston and Johnny Morris are common. Expo hours are noon to 7 p.m. CT on Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Media, Life and Nation members can enter the expo at 11 a.m. CT Friday.
While the anglers began their week with Friday’s windy first day of practice, the Progressive Celebrity Pro-Am Driven by Yokahama will be held Wednesday. Fans can mingle with anglers and celebrity partners for takeoff at 7:30 a.m. and the 3:15 weigh-in at Twins Points Park on Eagle Mountain Lake. Last year, Chris Zaldain and HoodEntertainmentFishing (above) won the event.
The Classic competitors are off the water Monday and Tuesday, with their final day of practice on Wednesday. It’s a dress rehearsal for B.A.S.S. officials and a final chance to look at the lake for anglers, who later convene on the red carpet for Night of Champions. The invite-only affair celebrates the 2024 B.A.S.S. winners, especially Johnson, who will deliver an AOY speech. Also, the 13 anglers who caught more than 100 pounds in 2024 events, a record, will receive their Century Club belts.
Thursday is Classic Media Day and an angler run-through on how to navigate weigh-ins. On the eve of competition, the Cavender’s Bassmaster Classic Kickoff Party presented by Resistol will fill the Fort Worth Stockyards with activities. The good times run from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Construction of the 141-foot-high earthen Ray Roberts dam began in 1982. Trees in the lower stretches were bulldozed into giant piles, creating habitat — there are brushpile maps of Lake Ray Roberts. In the early 1990s, the lake level was dropped to add riprap to the dam, and during that time some of the previously submerged treetops broke off.
Ray Roberts will fish differently from 2021, which was held in June with high water and saw many bass caught in flooded bushes. Aquatic vegetation has increased in the past few years, notably in the clearer east arm. Anglers predict prespawn conditions with some fish shallow staging to spawn. Anglers note Ray Roberts is great on quality but not numbers. Targets are not limited to vegetation or submerged trees, but include riprap on the dam and bridges, stream channels and flooded points, ponds, roadbeds and building structures.
“It can be a very tough lake,” Ray Roberts guide Dannie Golden told writer Louie Stout, “but the third week of March is usually prime time when waves of big fish are moving shallow. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see a 10-pounder or bigger brought in during the Classic — maybe multiple double-digit bass.” 
Golden should know. He was there when Shannon Lee Elvington of Pilot Point landed this lake record 15.18-pounder in March of 2015. The previous best was a 14.59 bass from 2000. “Honestly, other than the spring, most locals don’t like to fish the lake because numbers are hard to come by,” Golden said, “but the average size to win a tournament is among the best in the area.” 
In the 2021 Classic, Texas’ pro Frank Talley caught the biggest bass on Ray Roberts, an 8-3 coming early on Day 1. “To do it in the Classic is exhilarating,” he said. “I mean, in the first hour of the first day, it don’t get any better than that.”
Defending Classic champion Hank Cherry (shown on Day 3) had one of three limits topping 20 pounds on Day 1. His 20-4 limit put him third behind Steve Kennedy’s 23-0 and Patrick Walters’s 22-7. However, both those anglers failed to limit on Day 2, when Cherry took the lead with 17-10, which included a 6-0 and a 4-12.
Chad Pipkens looked to make a move on Day 2, catching an 8-1, but he only had one more fish. It was the second fish that would earn a designation in the famed Toyota ShareLunker program as a Bass Pro Shops Lunker, bass over 8 pounds. Bass over 10 pounds take Strike King Elite status while those topping 13 pounds are considered a Lew’s Legend and become a ShareLunker Legacy when loaned to the state breeding program.
Justin Kerr of Lake Havasu, Ariz., vied to become the second  B.A.S.S. Nation qualifier to win a Classic. With a 6-12 and 7-2, Kerr had Day 2’s biggest bag at 19-12 and pulled to second, 4-12 behind Cherry’s 37-14. His run elicited comparisons to Bryan Kerchal’s Classic win in 1994, however, only 12 pounds on Day 3 left Kerr fourth, 5-13 back of the winning weight.
Opens pro Chris Jones of Bokoshe, Okla., also made a solid push. Starting fourth with 17-2, including a 6-0, Jones was within 5-5 of Cherry starting Championship Sunday. With most all his family and around 100 fans at Dickies Arena, Jones weighed 13-0 to finish third to earn $40,000.
Brock Mosley, who might still lament only having four fish on Days 1 and 2, brought in the biggest fish (6-13) on Championship Sunday along the biggest bag (19-1). The Collinsville, Miss., pro jumped 11 spots to take fifth. He returned on stage to give his friend Cherry a huge bear hug after he won.
There were several missed fish that loomed large. Kennedy lost an 8-pounder in the closing moments of Day 2 that would have sent him into Championship Sunday with a lead of several pounds. It might have changed his approach on the final day, when he trailed by 5-3 and hunted for big bass in the standing timber, only to land two dinks.
A well-documented and painful miss hurt Matt Arey’s chances to add his name on the Ray Scott Trophy. Arey started the final day 6-13 behind Cherry, but a 3-12 and 4-12 gave him the midmorning lead. Like Cherry in the 2013 Classic, Arey had the potential winning fish on the line. With 18-0, Arey finished 1-14 behind Cherry with a miss that will haunt him. “I feel bad for Matt,” Cherry said, “and I told him I’ve been where he was. I had the same thing happen to me and mine happened a lot closer to the boat.”
With two fish, Cherry landed a 4-pounder around 10:25 a.m. to regain the lead. He went on to bag 13-1 and win with 50-15. Cherry became the fourth repeat champion and seventh angler to win more than one Classic. Cherry is among the high-profile anglers who aren’t fishing this week, a list that includes six of the Top 10 finishers from 2021 and big names like 2022 Classic champ Jason Christie and recent Anglers of the Year Brandon Palaniuk, Kyle Welcher, Seth Feider and Scott Canterbury.
There are three previous Classic winners in the field: Hamner, 2023 champ Jeff Gustafson and two-time champ Jordan Lee (2017 and 2018). Chris Zaldain, who lives in Fort Worth, is the local favorite. He caught a 7-13 at Ray Roberts in 2021 but five fish over two days left him a disappointing 38th. Much of his time since the Classic venue was announced has been unlocking Ray Roberts, and he’s anticipating big things. “I’m predicting multiple 30-pound bags and 8- to 10-pound bass throughout the competition,” he said. “I expect several Classic records to be broken this time around.”
Connecticut’s Paul Mueller set the single-day Classic weight record of 32-3 on Guntersville in 2014, and Kevin VanDam holds the five-fish weight mark of 69-11, established at the 2011 Louisiana Delta Classic. The heavyweight bass, held by Ricky Green for 30 years with his 8-9 in the 1976 Guntersville Classic, was broken four times in the 2006 Classic on Florida’s Kissimmee Chain. Moments after Rick Clunn weighed a 10-10, Preston Clark (above) took the record with his 11-10. Those are the only two double-digit fish in Classic history.
Weather is always critical in fishing, and after some warm and windy days, a cold snap will hit anglers for Wednesday’s final practice. Competition days Friday through Sunday look relatively stable despite winds in the teens. The question looms — will it warm enough to have bass rushing the banks, or will the event be mostly prespawn?
The Super Bowl of Bass Fishing seems to always deliver amazing stories, as previous Classics in Texas proved. Before Cherry doubled up, Lee won his first of two Classics with a huge rally in Houston on Lake Conroe in 2017, and Hank Parker won his first of two titles in 1979 on Lake Texoma about an hour north of Ray Roberts. Could Gussy or Hamner two-step in Texas this year? Time will tell. Be sure to follow the action all week on Bassmaster.com. LIVE coverage begins Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, and FOX will broadcast the show Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. ET.

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