PARIS, Tenn. — This year’s Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Team Championship was an oddity more than a month before it actually began at Kentucky Lake on Wednesday.
For starters, the tournament was scheduled to be held on the Ouachita River in Monroe, La. Everything was smooth sailing until B.A.S.S. officials were informed that the Columbia Lock and Dam just south of Monroe needed emergency repairs. That made the location temporarily unsafe for the 430-plus anglers taking part in the final Bassmaster tournament of the year. So, a parade of anglers, B.A.S.S. staff and fishing fans set their sights on mammoth Kentucky Lake instead.
This is a sacred space for longtime bass anglers, the ones who remember when Kentucky Lake was the best bass fishery in the U.S. It had a reputation for big bites — early and often. It was holy water, if you will.
But this legendary lake has had its own share of tough times in the past decade. Once lush with underwater grass, it’s hard to find a single blade of aquatic plant life in Kentucky Lake these days.
At first, locals blamed the die-down on area fisheries agencies, blaming them for trying to eradicate non-native plants and successfully killing desirable vegetation in the process. Now, experienced anglers point to the Asian carp invasion that has plagued lakes across the continent, but few as badly as Kentucky and neighboring Barkley lakes.
Still, recent reports from experienced anglers here said even without the grass, Kentucky Lake has surged back into the limelight. One Kentucky Lake regular predicted a “slugfest” and said the tournament could be an “anything-goes” event, with plenty of largemouth and smallmouth bass ripe for catching by multiple methods.
Day 1 of the Team Championship absolutely proved that Kentucky Lake has a lot to give, with eight duos weighing bags that tipped the scales at 20 pounds or more. Tyler and Blake Campbell, a nephew/uncle tandem repping the Lake Hartwell 5 Alive Sunday Series, led the way with an impressive limit of five bass totaling 21 pounds, 13 ounces.
But the odd happenings that set the stage for this tournament showed up again on Wednesday. About a third of the anglers who qualified for the championship (more than 70 duos in all) didn’t weigh a bass or chose not to fish, given the less-than-ideal conditions they faced on Day 1.
Then, before the first weigh-in even began, B.A.S.S. officials postponed Day 2 of the championship, knowing Thursday’s high temperature wouldn’t climb above 28 degrees and that steady 15 to 20 mph north winds would turn this 160,000-acre reservoir into a huge wave pool.
Don’t be fooled – safe is always better than sorry. But when you catch 20 pounds on Day 1 and are forced to sit on your hands for 36 hours, anxiety can run high.
So, the anglers got a day off on Thursday. Maybe their minds raced and they’re eagerly game planning for Day 2, which is now scheduled for Friday instead of today.
Regardless, the second and final day of the Team Championship is going to be cold, with meteorologists calling for temps no higher than 36 degrees. The key, of course, is the north wind, which is supposed to stop blowing overnight. And that, no doubt, has many atop the leaderboard eager to see how their catches improve when they’re not bobbing like a sack of rubber ducks in a wave pool.
Wednesday was cold too — in the mid-40s for the 2:30 p.m. CT weigh-in — but brisk breezes made it feel much colder as the day progressed. The Campbells felt Mother Nature’s wrath early, taking three waves over the bow of their boat before they even made a cast on Day 1. But somehow, they were able to dry off, settle down, catch nearly 22 pounds of bass and take the lead in this critical derby.
Was it odd to see that sort of resolve in a team event? Not at all, not when the final berth in the 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour is up for grabs.
That’ll come Saturday when the top three teams (six anglers in all) will have their weights zeroed and they’ll compete individually for the last spot in the biggest bass tournament in the world.
I have a hunch it’s going to be a wild finish. Twenty teams are within 6 pounds of the lead. There’s a one-day shootout on Saturday for the last spot in the Bassmaster Classic. They’re blaring Christmas music over the P.A. at Paris Landing State Park during the weigh-in.
I told you it’s been a weird week.
But some duo out here is going to win $25,000 and the Team Championship. And one of the six that make the Classic Fish-Off is going to have the perfect ending to what’s been, from the jump, an off-kilter event.
And it doesn’t matter if he’s cold, wet and windblown. Classic berths are the perfect way to soothe a bass man’s soul.
