FORT WORTH, Texas – As the qualifiers for the 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour filed into a hotel ballroom today to register for their chance of fishing immortality, the noise level was mostly kept to a low din. Meanwhile, outside, flags flapped cacophonously, leaves swirled around the city streets and Texan pedestrians struggled to keep their big hats from flying away.
Wednesday is the final official chance for the anglers to hit the water before competition starts, and the main wild card is the seemingly unceasing winds. During last week’s three-day scouting stint, the competitors experienced E-Ticket rides and produced some social media content that quickly went viral. Tomorrow’s gusts should diminish from today’s high of 50 miles per hour to a mere 40 or so, but that should still make getting around a vertebrae-rattling experience.
At registration, Maine pro Tyler Williams suggested he wouldn’t even go out tomorrow. He was trying to help Trey McKinney during one of those viral video moments – attempting to get McKinney’s boat back on the trailer as waves crashed over the back deck and up to his hip. He wasn’t traumatized by it but considered allowing discretion to be the better part of valor.
“I fish best when I fly by the seat of my pants,” the two-time Classic qualifier stated. “Last year I was winning practice a lot and it would always fizzle out by the end of the tournament. This year I’m trying to fish more instinctively.” He did not pre-practice for the Classic, and then spent nearly the entirety of Friday, Saturday and Sunday scanning the lake. He estimated that he only made a total of 40 casts into Ray Roberts. However, they produced five fish, one of them over 10 pounds.
“I can get just as much done tomorrow by studying and resting and getting ready,” he said.
In case you think that the free-spirited Williams is alone amongst his peers in willing to sit out some of the limited Classic practice, note that Brandon Lester hasn’t been afraid to curtail his search time.
“The first day I took out at 2:30,” said the nine-time Classic qualifier, fishing his seventh in a row. “It got to the point where I was getting a bad attitude, and when that happens you can’t be effective or efficient. Normally, I would never think of doing that.”
Indeed, this Classic may turn the idea of “start early and stay late” on its head. Or, as my one Alabama friend calls it, “fishing cantycant” – as in, from when you can, until when you can’t. In these conditions, time spent tightening bolts, checking bilge pumps and popping ibuprofen like Chiclets may prove to be more valuable than time spent casting.
Once the tournament starts, of course, no one will voluntarily sit out even a moment voluntarily. Tournament officials made clear that they will err on the side of caution in their decision making, but that once the tournament blasts off it’s on the professional boat drivers to keep things together.
“It’s not going to be butterflies and unicorns tomorrow,” tournament director Chris Bowes told the assembled anglers.
Then he called to the stage the aptly-named Stormy McCuiston, the game warden for Cooke County, born and raised in Sanger close to the shores of Ray Roberts. He advised that “a north wind is brutal on this lake.” Tomorrow it’ll be rocketing out of the west northwest, which should provide little solace to any angler who gets motion sickness.
Indeed, while any Classic is a test of the best, the weather forecast for this week makes this year’s event a test not only of the ability to find fish, but also to get to them and get back. That’s complicated by the fact that Ray Roberts is a typical Texas lake, with loads of standing timber.
“You’re definitely not going to be able to run around the first day,” said Texan Lee Livesay, a pre-tournament favorite. “You might have to run a couple of miles out of your way to get where you’re going safely. It’ll come down to your experience as a boater and understanding how the lake sets up with all the timber and rock. The difficulty running here is that we have lots of big trees, and those great big trees don’t budge. But remember, when you’re running, big trees don’t grow next to big trees.”
Several anglers were grateful that they’d made the executive decision to come here to pre-practice, at least to understand how to get around. JT Thompkins spent “a week or two” here before the lake went off limits and knows the section or sections of the lake where he’d like to fish, but he said Plan B may prove to be a better alternative.
“The wind has eliminated or will eliminate large parts of the lake,” he said. “It’ll force me to practice in places where I didn’t want to. You may end up having to fish in areas that are not as good as your best areas simply because you have no other choice.” He spent practice time idling into areas, making waypoints where there were no trees, to be sure that he could run back out of those areas and save time.
New York pro Kyle Patrick admitted last week’s practice provided diminishing returns, simply because “you can’t graph in 7-footers.” At one point, he was fishing across a pocket from Taku Ito and nearly saw the slight Japanese angler get blown off the deck of his boat. Patrick said he “felt out of it mentally” but forced himself to stay out on the water as long as possible when he recognized what this tournament might mean to his career.
“You never know if you’ll get back to the Classic,” said the two-time Classic competitor. “So no matter how tough the fishing gets or how strong the wind is, that’s what kept me out there.”
Unlike the possibly-sandbagging Livesay, Patrick believes that running and gunning will prove to be critical in this event, despite not being pleasurable.
“Locals like Lee Livesay and Chris Zaldain have 20 offshore rockpiles, 20 places in the mouths of creeks,” he said. “They pull up, make 10 casts, pick up and go to the next one. You can’t go into a pocket like I did at Fork and have fish come to you. You have to bounce around – get one or two bites, pick up the trolling motor and leave. Normally you have to stay and milk an area, but here you better go to 10 spots a day, even if it’s blowing.”
In recognition of tomorrow’s challenging conditions, Bowes announced competitors will be allowed to launch from the ramp of their choosing, still subject to certain time restrictions. He vowed to remain flexible going forward, and encouraged the anglers to welcome any potential changes to the tournament in the name of safety.
Upon hearing about Wednesday’s increased options, young Tyler Williams reconsidered his earlier edict.
“I’ll probably go out tomorrow,” he said.
It’s the Classic, after all. For some angler, it will prove to be a perfect storm.
