by Bobby Bakewell
Winning the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Lake Martin presented by SEVIIN means everything to me. The fact that I get to fish the 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic is insane. I get to go to the Night of Champions and go through the whole process of everything I’ve watched on TV for years.
I went to the Classic at the Kissimmee Chain when I was 8 years old, and now I get to be a part of it. I’m just enjoying life at this point. I feel at peace. It is nice to win the last one of the year because then you are just done.
Everyone says, “When it is your time, it is your time. You aren’t going to expect it.” And it really was crazy everything that came together for it to happen looking back on it.
Obviously, the tournament changing from Lake Hartwell to Lake Martin threw me for a loop. I didn’t really know what to expect. There wasn’t really a lot of information on the lake and everything that was available was outdated.
I have done well in Alabama before, but Martin is known to have smaller average-size bass. It only took 10 pounds per day to make the Top 10. Finding a 2-pounder every day ended up being the goal, and I knew I would probably get that big bite by fishing shallow. How to do it shallow was the hard part. You can go miles and miles and still only catch 1 1/2-pound bass. It was kind of a luck of the draw thing.
Throughout practice, I only caught three 2-pounders, but they gave me some clues on how I could get an above-average bite. Part of it was putting my head down and going.
In Florida, throwing a buzzbait is kind of an off-the-wall thing. The only time I throw them is when I leave my home state. For this tournament, I didn’t even have one with me. I thought I was going to be fishing offshore, so I had to borrow one from somebody. When I caught a couple of decent ones on it in practice, I had 44 Tackle overnight me some for the final day of practice.
I ended up using all three of the buzzbaits 44 Tackle sent me in the tournament.
On Day 1, I started with the buzzbait and then burned down a bunch of brushpiles. I just caught so many small ones and lucked into a couple of decent ones. The second day, I had a bunch of bites on the buzzbait in the morning and one good bite on my dad’s Bakewell Customs Jig’s Finesse Jig late in the day. I knew if I wanted a chance on the final day, I was going to have to throw only those two baits.
I caught a 4 1/2-pounder in the morning on the final day, which really anchored my bag. But late in the day, I had a 1.52 and a 1.61 in my livewell until close to 2 o’clock. I went through a three-hour dry spell. I picked the buzzbait back up and caught a largemouth that weighed 2.35 pounds at 1:55 on a shade line and then went to the other side of the creek and caught a 2-pound spotted bass.
That culled me up almost 2 pounds in the last 20 minutes of fishing time. At that point, I knew everyone else was going to have to catch them really well to catch up to me. Those last two bass also tore up my last two Toads. Once I lost that last toad, I went back to the ramp and called it quits.
Everyone sort of talked in the bag line, but there are always sandbaggers. Sitting in the hot seat, I knew Josh Butler was really the one I probably had to worry about. When he weighed in and had 11 pounds, a little short of what he needed, right then I sort of recognized I had won.
I had two second-place finishes in good-sized events last year, one where I had an 11-pound lead heading into the final day. So winning this one was a huge relief. Having my dad on stage and my family there with me meant the world to me.
Now it is time to get ready for the Lake Ray Roberts and the 2025 Opens schedule. I was so close to making the Bassmaster Elite Series this year and would love to make that dream a reality too.
