My earliest memory of the Bassmaster Classic had to be when Rick Clunn won on the Arkansas River at Pine Bluff in 1984. I’m an Arkansas guy, so seeing what he did in Pine Bluff Harbor was just amazing to me. It was awesome to see him and see all the people excited to come down, watch weigh-ins and see the whole thing.
After winning the St. Croix Rods Bassmaster Open presented by SEVIIN, a lifelong dream will come true next March. I will get in my truck, drive down to Texas and fish the 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Jockey Outdoors.
That was the ultimate goal fishing the Open for sure, but that is a long reach to fish against those guys and think you are going to beat them. I’ve been to Lake Ouachita since I could walk and know every rock in the lake. Those guys found that stuff on their second day of practice. They are so dad-gum good.
It was a blur for a long time, but I’m starting to realize what is really going on. I’m nervous and excited. It is crazy. I can’t wait. Every time I think about it, I get chill bumps.
I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the support of my family and friends, and the biggest thing I’m looking forward to is for them to get to see all of it. It is going to blow their minds. I don’t think they understand what is fixing to happen. I’m excited to see how excited they get. And I will get to see some people I haven’t seen in a long time in the industry.
I have never launched a boat in Lake Ray Roberts, but I have fished a lot of the lakes that fish similar to it in the region. I like it that time of year. It is going to be like Lake Fork is right now. There will be big bass pulling up unless we get some kind of crazy cold front. I think we will be able to fish with big line and big baits. It is going to be fun.
When I started fishing the Bassmaster Opens in 2000, I was so young — around 20 years old — and didn’t really realize what I was doing then. I didn’t have my stuff together. I loved fishing and fishing tournaments, and that was just a bigger platform where I could go pay money and fish them.
I had fished everything around here and had some success, so I wanted to test the waters on the next level. It has always been a dream of mine to fish the Classic, but at that point it was not realistic to me to make it back then. I was drawing out with pros, and it was head-to-head. You’d flip a coin and get in their boat, or they would get in mine, and you’d get after it.
There is one big lesson I learned from that experience. I just got done saying how awesome these guys are, but they are human just like I am and everyone else is. You can beat anyone on a given day. You are really just fishing against the bass. I took that from those tournaments, and since then I’ve started fishing against the bass.
You don’t have to be on the best pattern. You don’t have to be on the biggest fish. You just have to have confidence in what you are doing, and if it’s your turn, it’s your turn.
I don’t ever want to sound cocky, but I knew I had a chance if I could catch them the way I was going to fish. Before practice started, I knew the way I was going to fish during the tournament. Whether it was going to work or not, I wasn’t sure. But I knew if I could make it work, I had a shot at least.
That is how tournaments have been won Ouachita forever. It is hard to beat a lipless in the wintertime. It’s the way I’ve been doing it for years over there, and for it to work is amazing. It came together exactly the way it needed to for me. With that warming trend we had, it worked out perfectly.
I’ve gotten more congratulations than the number of people I thought I knew. There has been so much love and support. I knew that, but I didn’t know it was that much. It was crazy the amount of phone calls, texts and emails I got locally and nationally. It’s been nonstop.
