Best of 2024: Elite, Opens aerials

Showing the habitat in play from the air is the goal of my aerial galleries. You get a unique perspective contrasting with the on-water galleries shot by our pro photographers. Here are my favorites along with backstories of why I took them.

The first morning of the new season is always exciting, as it was on Feb. 1, 2024, when it began at the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens at Lake Okeechobee presented by SEVIIN.

This was the scene inside the Rim Canal where the launch occurred on a sunny, clear and windless morning.

There are three directions to get to the fishing. Run north up the canal to access popular areas like Monkey Box, Moonshine Bay and Bird Island. Or you can enter the lake at the ramp or travel south on the canal. This was the scene of boats running to the north.

Based on the sheer size of the Big O I chose Moonshine Bay as my target for a gallery, given the prevailing pattern of a spawning bite in play. Flying conditions were ideal: no wind and the low light from the rising sun added to the reason why I framed this shot at 400 feet AGL.

I lost count at 50 boats. Somewhere down there was eventual winner Scott Martin.

The weigh-in at Roland Martin’s Marina required passage through the Clewiston lock, and I wanted to get a unique view of the process. I chose to fly inside the canal leading to the marina. Here was the view as the first flight checked in on Day 1.

It takes about 20 minutes to complete the process, as the lock fills with boats and others arrive to enter.

After passing through the lock there is additional idle time to the marina as identified by the green roof and adjacent courtesy dock.

In mid-February the Bassmaster Elite Series season began. At Lake Fork, I looked forward to flying the drone over the new venue at Caney Point Recreation Area. The Sabine River Authority designed it specifically to accommodate tournaments.

There’s a large basin for boats to beach and the anglers can walk a very short distance to the weigh-in pavilion. It’s all right there: launch site, docking and weigh-in.

The six-lane boat ramp, traffic flow design and parking expediate launching. It was a nonstop process that was really impressive.

A special events pavilion (aka weigh-in venue) is the icing on the cake. Here you see the Elite Series stage and the tournament operations trailer to the right. Not seen by beneath the pavilion are the Media Center and JM Associates TV production trailers.

The Florida doubleheader began in mid-April at the Harris Chain of Lakes with the weigh-in venue at Venetian Gardens in Leesburg. I got my wish for calm winds and a rising sun for a takeoff gallery.

The sunrise coincided with the beginning of the takeoff.

Calm winds allowed me to fly to 400 feet AGL, set the drone in a hover and wait for the perfect sunrise shot.

The view of boats headed for Little Lake Harris and elsewhere.

After publishing the takeoff gallery, I took the quick drive to Lake Eustis for a tactical gallery.

There I found Brock Mosley fishing a boat dock pattern.

The next week we wrapped up the Florida run in Palatka on the St. Johns River. This event would be a special one for me in many ways.

It marked Rick Clunn’s 500th Bassmaster event in 50 years of fishing with us. As a teenager I sent the iconic angler a fan letter and a lifelong friendship began.

I descended to do a low altitude to capture the moment just prior to Clunn taking off on Day 1, where he twice won Elite tournaments on the river.

On Day 2 I got a head start on the takeoff and traveled to Salt Springs Recreation Area, where I would discover a magical scene only viewable from the air. Salt Springs is known for its spectacular natural mineral spring giving the area its name. The bass fishing is also spectacular and where Cory Johnston won the tournament. This view is Salt Springs Run which connects the main river to the springs.

My jaw literally dropped as I flew over the springs. The view of the bottom in the clear water looked like a moonscape.

That’s Chris Johnston sight fishing for spawning largemouth.

The dark blue water is the actually deep hole that originates with the spring.

The calm wind allowed a clear view of the bottom to magnify the unique features.

The cloud cover allowed me to get creative with how I framed the shots. This wouldn’t be possible with bright sunshine.

I’m standing in the boat beached on the shoreline. It’s where I flew the drone for the entire gallery. It was just a surreal experience.

The boat looks suspended in midair over the water.

One of my favorites from the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic on Grand Lake. In the foreground is John Cox, who deployed his shallow water anchors to pick apart the structure at this bridge. In the background is the camera boat of Dalton Tumblin, who’d shot a gallery of the Classic angler.

Cox stayed on that spot for nearly an hour, unintentionally preventing Dalton from passing beneath the bridge to go to his next target. This depicts how we cover the tournaments, give or take the obstacles sometimes in play.

In May we traveled to Lake Murray, always a favorite stop for me with its ultra-clear water that reveals ideal aerial views of habitat in play.

At the Day 1 takeoff I got this fantastic sunrise from the weigh-in venue at Dreher Island State Park.

It was breezy on Day 3 when I flew the drone in a popular area for fishing.

Flying a drone from a boat is already challenging, and it adds more to the task as launching and landing is done by hand. I have to operate the throttle and altitude controls with one hand and use the other to release or catch the drone. And do it all in a moving boat.

You can have relatively calm surface winds but the winds aloft can be stronger. That was the case when I took this photo from 150 feet AGL. It was too windy to fly at a higher altitude.

Here’s the hidden bonus in windy conditions with runoff from a storm. I got a view from above of this mudline that you wouldn’t see at the surface.

The wind added a really cool texture to the surface of the water.

The wind later subsided, giving me the opportunity for photos of what makes the clear water of Lake Murray stand out for aerials.

The June stop at Wheeler Lake coincided with the time of year when the action—and the weather—heats up on the famed main river ledges on the Tennessee River impoundments in northern Alabama.

Surprisingly, this was the scene on Day 1 at the Decatur Flats, the perennial tournament-winning spot where a showdown would take place on Championship Sunday.

The next stop was Smith Lake, a beautiful highland impoundment in northern Alabama that is nestled in the Appalachian foothills.

This is a favorite shot because of the contrasting views from the pavement, water and boats.

The boats are bound for offshore areas along the Black Warrior River where spotted bass flourish.

The season wrapped up with the New York doubleheader, always a favorite for the outstanding smallmouth fishing. We began at Lake Champlain and in downtown Plattsburgh, also one of my favorite tournament towns.

The Plattsburgh City Docks are a personal favorite for takeoff galleries for two reasons. We share the venue with yachts and sailboats and second, the sunrises over Vermont are always spectacular.

In the far background are the Adirondacks with downtown Plattsburgh just beyond the weigh-in venue at the marina.

I liked this shot for the unique mix of sailboats, yachts and bass boats.

On this morning, I got the rare opportunity for maximum allowable high altitude photos in the absence of winds on the wide-open lake.

The organized chaos eventually gets tamed as the boats form a line in order of their boat numbers.

This was a favorite because it captured the nautical look of the various types of vessels, the sheer magnitude of the size of Champlain, and the sun having risen high over Vermont.

We wrapped up the season at my favorite tournament town of them all, Waddington, N.Y. Before the tournament even began, I was treated to treasured photo op on the St. Lawrence River. As I was driving along the river from the north, I spotted this ship headed upbound toward the Great Lakes. I was able to get ahead of it and await its arrival.

I chose the city park at Leishman Point, which is a high spot over the river. The clouds were low enough for me to fly just beneath them, adding to the beauty of this photo.