In 52 years, the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk has been recognized as many things.
B.A.S.S. founder Ray Scott used to say winning the event was an automatic path to being a millionare — and while I’ve never seen the bank statements to prove that claim, I know for a fact it’s the path to permanent celebrity status.
It’s the path to increased sponsorships, greater personal-appearance fees and the signing of more autographs than you ever thought your wrist could stand.
These past few years we’ve also seen the Classic is a path to mental and spiritual redemption. It’s a place to face your demons head-on and, as Connecticut pro Paul Mueller once famously said, tell them to “get out of your boat.”
We saw it in 2020 when North Carolina pro Hank Cherry put his greatest disappointment behind him and won the Classic on Alabama’s Lake Guntersville.
Few remember now that Cherry had the winning fish within reach at Grand Lake during the 2013 Classic only to watch helplessly as it came loose and swam away. But they certainly remembered it in 2020 when Cherry opened with a giant bag and was poised for another run at the title.
Cherry remembered it, too — and he carried the weight of past failures with him the next two days. But being the man he is, he won a staring contest with the devil in front of the whole world and finally took home the Classic title that could have been his seven years earlier.
It was remarkable the difference that win had made in Cherry by the time he fished the 2021 Classic on Lake Ray Roberts. He seemingly felt no pressure as he went on to claim his second-straight title and etch his name permanently into bass fishing lore.
The Classic is more than a big, heavy trophy and a big, fat paycheck. It’s the perfect battleground for the neverending struggle that goes on inside our heads.
Those who win come out strong on the other side — and that makes you wonder what’s in store now for 2022 Classic champion Jason Christie.
The former college athlete from Oklahoma has long been regarded as one of the fiercest competitors in professional bass fishing. But like Cherry, he operated in the shadow of his own Classic failures.
To be honest, “failure” is too strong a word to describe someone finishing second or third in pro fishing’s biggest event. I prefer to describe them as “near misses.”
But trust me, a competitor like Christie considered them failures.
His first missed opportunity came in 2016 on Grand Lake — a fishery he considers his home waters and a place where many just expected him to win when the location was announced.
I’ll always say he didn’t “lose” that event. He went into the final day with the lead and just got beat when fellow Oklahoman Edwin Evers brought a gigantic bag to the scales.
The story was a little different at Hartwell in 2018 when Christie again led going into the final day — and by his own admission, “spun out,” coming in one shy of a limit and losing to Alabama pro Jordan Lee.
So, how fitting was it that Christie’s Classic story finally had a happy ending on one of those two fisheries?
Never doubt, though, that the demons were present.
As I talked with him after the Day 2 weigh-in and he knew he would at least share the lead with Alabama pro Kyle Welcher, he was a strange mixture of relaxed and terrified.
“I’m getting older, the fish are getting harder to catch and the young guys are getting better,” said Christie, with possibly the quote of the year in pro fishing. “If this is not my time, I don’t know if it ever will be.”
When his final round started slowly, he admitted the thought went through his head, “Here we go again.”
But as Mueller told Cherry to do before the final day in 2020, Christie ordered the devil out of his boat and conquered the biggest hill he had left to climb.
In doing so, he reinforced the idea that the Classic is about so much more than just bass fishing.
