All week leading up to the 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour, competitors lamented how difficult it was to get a bite on Lake Ray Roberts in the wind and cooler than expected temperatures.
That’s when we should have expected that Easton Fothergill would be in contention to win his first Classic.
The first Florida swing of the Progressive Elite Series rookies’ career might have fooled some (101st and 93rd at St. Johns River and Okeechobee respectively) into thinking the pressure was too much for the kid.
But the Grand Rapids, Minn. native thrives in the toughest conditions. He prides himself on keeping a level head and rolling with the punches. Someone who finishes fifth in a College National Championship in 90-degree heat with a splitting headache caused by an infected abscess in his brain doesn’t just fold under pressure.
So, it really shouldn’t be a surprise to see Fothergill leading the Super Bowl of Bass Fishing after two days of competition with 54 pounds, 5 ounces, over 8 pounds better than second place Cory Johnston. We should have seen him coming from a mile away, even if proverbial favorite Lee Livesay also cracking over 20 pounds every day.
New York’s Kyle Patrick isn’t surprised at all.
“There’s a very high probability he is going to win,” Patrick said. “After Day 1 I knew it, just based on how I know he fishes.”
In pre-tournament conversations, Fothergill seemed cautiously optimistic about his chances. When asked if he found enough during practice to be competitive during the tournament, he said he felt like he did. His best day, he caught 30 pounds, including a 10-pounder.
Just under 80 pounds was his guess for a three-day winning weight.
“When I do get a bite, it is a great big one,” he said during Thursday’s Media Day. “I found a couple areas that have a good population of fish. If I can get in there and there’s not too many people around, I can do my thing. I think I’m around the right bass to make something pretty cool happen.”
He has certainly made something cool happen up to this point, catching 24-15 on Day 1 before landing the tournament’s biggest bag on Day 2, a 29-6 sack. Fothergill has landed the caliber of bass he knew he was around in warmups, but there have been far more bass in his areas than he expected.
Fothergill and Patrick prefished together at Ray Roberts before the off-limits period in December. Patrick struggled for much of the time. His travel partner did not.
With high winds and cold nights keeping the bass away from their spawning locations this week, conditions have set up perfectly for what he enjoys doing, using his forward-facing sonar to target big bass with a finesse worm and a jerkbait.
“I’m confident in saying this, he’s the best in the world at catching the hardest bass to catch in the lake, which usually means they are the biggest,” Patrick said. “Especially in Texas, when guys are throwing moving baits, he told me they are fishing over them. And I fished over them too. They are that hard to get to bite and there are so many (different species) and people don’t know how to tell the difference between a carp and a bass.
“He does, and catches them.”
Not only that, Fothergill is back to making important, in the moment decisions that pay off with big largemouth. On Day 2, for instance, he immediately followed an instinct to completely change areas, which resulted in his best catches of the day.
“It popped in my mind that I had to go and had to go now. I didn’t second guess it. I pulled the trolling motor, and I went,” he explained.
Once they got off the water, Patrick got the chance to pick Fothergill’s brain and knows there will be plenty of opportunities for the young star to slam the door shut.
“That was all new water he fished today,” Patrick said. “He found a tree with 10, 5 ½-pounders in it. If it just doesn’t blow too hard, he’ll have 25 tomorrow. And if he has one tree with that, and goes to his other spot and catches them as well as he did (watch out).”
Nothing has been consistent with the weather during this event, and Fothergill knows yet another weather change is coming. But instinctual decisions are what got him to the Elite Series in the first place.
“It is crazy to be five bass away.”
