Before I could even walk, I was in a bass boat. When my dad went fishing, he took my mother and me with him. That started my passion early on. As I got to 4 years old, dad started taking me to a lot of little pot tournaments around the house. I really enjoyed it.
There was one tournament though that really sparked the fire for bass fishing. Normally when we went, I would catch one or two throughout the day we would weigh in, but a lot of times dad would cull out my fish. At 7 years old though, we fished a Friday night tournament at Jackson Lake in Georgia. I caught four of the five bass we weighed in, and dad had the smallest one. I caught everything on a little Spiderman rod with a push button reel and a junebug Zoom Trick Worm with a split shot above the worm.
That was the first time I was in the zone. It was the best thing ever. When we left the boat dock that night after winning with 16 1/2 pounds, I remember looking down the dirt road in the passenger seat telling myself, “I want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to be a pro.” Ever since then, I have soaked up every piece of information I come across and tried to learn and refine my skills as much as I can.
Over the years I have climbed the ladder with B.A.S.S., in a sense.
To start, I watched all of the Bassmaster shows during the weekends when we were not on the water. I was ate up with it. We would fish as much as we could, sometimes four tournaments in a week. As I got to high school, high school fishing was really taking off, and I really wanted to start a high school fishing team. I decided to move schools to create a team, and my 10th-grade year was the first year we were able to make that happen.
The first event my partner and I fished together, we finished in the top five, and we went on a tear after that. We won five or so regular-season tournaments and two state championships. In 2016, I earned a spot on the Bassmaster All-American Team. There were only 12 of us selected, and to be named one of those top high schoolers was incredible and such a blessing.
It meant so much for my career as well. Receiving that honor helped me get recruited and earn a scholarship to go to Savannah College of Art and Design. Before getting recruited, I was planning on going to a local community college to get an engineering degree and go from there. There’s no telling where I would be without that opportunity. I got to see a lot of different fisheries and saw how they set up, and I got to do it without spending my own money.
Winning the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at the Mississippi River presented by SEVIIN and qualifying for the 2025 Bassmaster Classic was another important step in making my dreams a reality.
This was the first time I had ever been to the Upper Mississippi River. Growing up, I was a shallow water guy. My dad and I fished dirt shallow in the mud and in all of the rivers. Knowing how current flows was a huge help to me during this tournament. I did a ton of map study and looked at the water levels. The one thing I noticed was the Mississippi River changes more than any other river in the country. It changes yearly, most rivers only change every two to four years.
Before the event started, I had it in my mind I was going to lock into either Pool 7 or Pool 9 and leave the crowd behind. But before I arrived, my buddy Trevor McKinney and I had talked about hunting. It was early goose season, and we heard there were a lot of geese on the river. I was thinking we could go after the tournament, but Trevor had already gotten the OK from tournament director Hank Weldon to hunt during practice.
I’m a daylight-to-dark kind of practicer, super serious about it. But I love duck hunting, and I was out of the points race. When am I going to have the opportunity to hunt in this neck of the woods again? So, on the second day of practice, we hunted a group of geese in the Stoddard area, and when we got done I went right behind where we were hunting and caught a 4 1/2-pounder right off the bat. Then at 11:30 a.m., I saw a giant barge finally come through the lock that had been sitting in there all morning long. At that point, I told myself that if I had to deal with that during the tournament, I couldn’t fish the way I wanted to fish. I decided to focus on Pool 8 and find every sweet spot I could and not lock, knowing the quality was around somewhere.
After practice, I felt like I had a good shot at doing well. But I knew there were a lot of things that were going to change. We were dealing with a couple of different factors and knowing that coming into the tournament helped me practice effectively for the changing conditions. The river level dropped throughout practice and the tournament. It was high before we got there, and it steadily dropped. I found a couple of dirt shallow areas, but I knew those bass would leave as the water fell.
So instead, I looked for high percentage places where the bass should have been during high water and then followed the current to where they should go. That strategy carried me to fifth place going into the final day, just under a pound out of the lead. Deep down, I knew I was on the bass to win coming into Championship Saturday. After seeing what I saw on Day 2, I knew I had a chance. I refined my game plan and narrowed down where exactly the bass were heading. I was so excited to go back out and just have a ball.
My starting spot was going to be conditional. It was a fading place, and I really needed sun. But I knew I could pick up one quality bite. I got down there, and it was exactly how I thought it was going to be. Throwing that big swimbait, you need the sun to get them to commit. I had a lot of bass just thump it, but they wouldn’t eat it. If you saw me on Bassmaster LIVE, I would throw the swimbait and then pick up a bunch of other things. I ended up picking up a Carolina rig knowing there were a couple of angles I could throw it and catch a good one. I ended up catching a bass that was almost 4 pounds.
Even though it didn’t go perfectly, it wasn’t unexpected. That 4-pounder set me up for the rest of the day, along with a couple of 2-pounders. I did my job that morning and now I could go frogging. Once I caught my 5 1/2-pounder frogging, I thought if I caught another big one, I could make it really interesting. About 30 or 45 minutes later, I caught a 4 1/2-pounder. At that point, I knew I was within a few ounces of winning.
I didn’t know exactly how much I had when I got back to weigh in, but when I looked at my fish in the bump tank, I realized I had more weight than I originally thought. When I got up on stage and the scales read 19-8, I couldn’t believe it.
It was unreal to realize I had won a Bassmaster Open, and I’m going to Classic. After all of the hard work and the times I had struggled and felt like I didn’t belong. Looking back at this season, and how much I have learned and progressed, I am a much different angler than I was even a year ago.
To go all of the way and win one, in that moment, it made it all worth it.
