Today was the Championship round for MLF's 2025 Bass Pro Tour Stage 4 event on Nickajack Lake in TN. As the day's fishing progressed, two anglers, the legendary Jacob Wheeler and BPT rookie, Jake Lawrence rose to the top of the pack separating themselves by nearly 30 pounds from the rest of the final day field.
Though Lawrence held a decent lead over Wheeler through much of the 3rd period, Wheeler leverage several key small mouth bites over the last hour to take over the lead by less than a pound with just a few moments to go.
With the clock winding down inside the final minute, it appeared the Wheeler was going to dominate again...
But did he; what the following video clip to find out!
A bigun on a buzzbait with seconds to go? Pretty amazing finish in my book!
Over the last few months, I have run across several posts on different bass fishing forums discussing a desire by many anglers to return to smaller boats and motors in tournaments.
When I think back to my early days of organized bass fishing, I can still visualize the line-up of boats on the shore ... mostly 17 feet in length or shorter and a 115-HP outboard would be the largest in the lot.
Even the boat provided by B.A.S.S. for the first Classic on Lake Mead, NV in 1971 was the Rebel Fastback and it was only powered by a 90-HP I/O motor. Times have changed, however, since most Classic boats this year were > 20 feet in length and powered by 250-HP outboards.
Are Big, Expensive Bass Boats Required for Bass Tournaments?
From my personal experience in both club and local money tournaments, the answer is definitely no!
Several of my friends and I all fish from relatively small boats (< 17 feet and outboards < 100-HP (well under in my case)) and still manage to hold our own at the tournaments we fish.
About a year ago, there was even one pro angler who spoke out about successfully fishing from smaller boats.
Keeping true to that message, Rick Clunn (still with more Bassmaster Classic wins (four) than anyone else) talked about fishing from an 18 foot Tracker aluminum boat during the 2009 Bassmaster Classic.
He explains his reasons in the video below ...
Considering the rising price of both bass fishing rigs and the fuel to power them, perhaps it's time to re-think the standard for bass boats and motors?
What do you think?
Is it time for "Retro-Bass" :)
Flash-forward to 2021 and it turns out a growing number of bass pros are trending back to aluminum boats though they still tend to be 20'+ with 200+ hp outboards. Still more fuel efficient I guess :D
I was reading an article in a popular bass fishing magazine recently where they discussed a number of different fishing patterns being used by the pros during the last two years.
Although they presented information about several different patterns or trends there was one particular pattern that caught my eye. After reflecting on the description of this pattern, I really have to question whether or not it can be considered new …
The pattern I’m talking about is something they referred to as hole-sitting.
What is Hole-sitting?
Hole-sitting is an approach to a day or even entire tournament where the bass angler focuses on one small area of the lake and experiences increased bass fishing success.
If you go back and look at many of the BASS and FLW tournaments recently, you should notice that in many of the big wins by pros like Kevin VanDam, Paul Elias, Kevin Wirth, and Kotaro Kiriyama used that very approach on their way to victory.
A number of years ago, KVD won the 2010 Bassmasters Classic on Lay Lake, Alabama where he hole-sat in Beeswax Creek for all three days of the tournament. The result, Kevin mounted another magnificent Classic win (his third). VanDam also used the hole-sitting approach at other times over the last two years to compile four Elite Series victories on the BASS circuit.
Paul Elias also basically hole-sat for his win on Falcon Lake in Texas in 2008 and set an all time heavyweight stringer for a four-day event at 132.5 pounds to boot! Elias focused his fishing efforts primarily on one point throwing deep crankbaits and a Carolina rig to boat the all time record catch.
Hole-Sitting is new?
In my book, hole-sitting is not really new.
This is definitely evidenced by Rick Clunn’s Bassmaster Classic victory in 1984 on the Arkansas River when he finished a stretch of the channel with stumps on the edge of a subtle drop that was less than 100 yards long. Clunn also used a similar approach in his earlier Classic win on Guntersville Lake in the mid 70s.
So the next time hit hit the water perhaps it’s time to re-think your strategy and focus on those areas that produce the best bass fishing opportunity … in other words … be a “hole-sitter”.
