Many of the competitors weighing in at a benefit bass tournament on Missouri’s Table Rock Lake on a cold Saturday in December stopped and turned their attention 800 miles away to Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.
Huddled around phones, they watched one of their own, Josh Busby, of Rogersville, Mo., win the Bassmaster Classic Team Championship Fish-Off to secure the final spot in the 2020 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk.
“When he hoisted that trophy, there was probably 120 guys there, and half the guys just started clapping and whooping and hollering, because one of our friends made it,” said Ryan Butler, who experienced much of the same two years earlier. “Everybody knows how special it is to get to the Classic, and when a fellow competitor or friend makes it, we all feel like we get a piece of that. We’re not going to walk across the stage, but that’s a part of us — we’re represented on the biggest stage in the world.”
The Ozarks should be filled with pride. The region has now sent half of the Team Champion qualifiers to the Classic since the grass-roots avenue began in 2014. Teams qualify to the championship through local competitions, and the top three teams advance to the Classic Fish-Off where the six vie over two days for the berth.
With 25 pounds, 5 ounces, Busby edged Brock Reinkemeyer by 6 ounces on Dec. 14 to secure a spot in the 50th anniversary Classic on Lake Guntersville March 6-8. Butler, of Blue Eye, Mo., fished the 2018 Classic on Lake Hartwell, just a year after Team Fish-Off champion Scott Clift of Dadeville, Mo., competed in the Lake Conroe Classic.
“It’s a special to know that three guys from our area made it,” Butler said. “And I can tell you, we won’t be the last three. As long as the organization continues to provide this opportunity, I promise you there’ll be another one.”
Birthplace of tournament fishing
Busby lives just outside of Springfield, Mo., where he works as a food scientist. His expertise is butter fat and cheese for the Dairy Farmers of America, which has 43 manufacturing facilities across the United States. Bass Pro Shops, headquartered in Springfield with the White River Marine Group that manufacturers bass boats, is among the top 10 employers there.
There are bass lakes to the north, south, east and west, including Beaver Lake, site of Ray Scott’s first B.A.S.S. tournament. Like those in generations before, boys raised in that culture learn to fish, and many take to tournament trails with the ultimate dream of reaching the Classic. The area can lay claim to the birthplace of tournament bass fishing.
“It really is,” Busby said. “With all the boat manufacturers, the very first bass tournament, everything here. If you go back and look at the team champions, there have been six that sent someone to the Classic. Three of them have come right here from this little area of southwest Missouri.”
Busby, Butler and Clift live about an hour away from each other, and they have all crossed paths fishing the competitive team trails. It’s notable that this year’s College Classic qualifier, Cody Huff, is from nearby Ava, Mo., and he competes in the circuits when home from Bethel University. There are three main circuits, and the most prominent is the Ozark Mountain Team Trail, which puts anglers on the likes of Beaver, Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Lake of the Ozarks, Truman and Grand Lake, among others.
“I think there’s just a real strong group of anglers around here for one,” Clift said. “There’s probably 10 lakes within 2, 3 hours that we bounce around on that kind of give you a look at stuff. The only thing we don’t have is grass.”
Busby concurs.
“Looking back at how well some of our guys have done, I think it’s because we have so many diverse fisheries,” Busby said. “You have to learn to swim a grub on Table Rock in the winter in 40, 50 foot of water, or drop shot in the summertime to spooning docks, to going to the Lake of the Ozarks and flipping docks, to going to Truman and square-billing up super shallow in a foot of water. We have huge diversity, and a lot of anglers get to learn a lot of different things.”
Butler thinks that developing skill sets on the varied fisheries is only the first part of the equation. Like most anywhere there are thousands of participants, the level of competition rises. He said losing is motivation to put in research and improve.
“There’s so many good fisherman in this part of the country, when you show up, you have to bring your A game every weekend,” he said. “I think that shows. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, by no means was I the best fishermen to come out of this area when I made it to the Classic, it was just my time.”
Butler benefited from being relatively close to home when he won the 2017 berth from the Team Championship event at Norfork Lake in north central Arkansas. Clift, who had qualified through the Joe Bass Team Trail, realized his lifelong dream on a trip to Kentucky Lake.
“Josh went to Hartwell halfway across the country and beat out good fisherman,” Butler said. “So I think there’s two things here. Basically, having the opportunity in the Ozarks to fish several different bodies of water and two, the level of competition each weekend. It’s probably this way in any part of the country, so maybe that’s a standard answer. I’m not saying we’re the best fisherman in the United States, but I would put us right there near the top.”
Fishing creates fast friends
Of course, Busby and Butler met on Table Rock Lake, but they weren’t fishing, just watching. They just happened to be the only two anglers following 2019 Bassmaster Angler of the Year Scott Canterbury as he fished an FLW event in 2009. Naturally, their boats came together, and they became fast friends.
“We didn’t know each other from Adam,” Busby said. “We’re just sitting watching him fish, so we started talking to each other about Table Rock and what (Canterbury) was doing. He was the only guy fishing the lake like we thought it should be fished in those conditions.”
Busby and Butler, who have fished against each other for almost two decades, learned each other grew up with a similar passion, rising early to watch Bassmaster events, taping shows and to this day re-watching historic events on YouTube. While Busby has spoken with several other Classic veterans he knows, he certainly is picking Butler’s brain.
“I’m just trying to use his experience at the Classic and what expectations are going to be as far as media obligations,” Busby said, “trying to understand how many different directions I’ll be pulled and how and what time I’m going to actually have to myself to rig rods and prepare. He’s been a big help in that.”
Butler passed the greatest advice he received before fishing his championship, and that was to just simply enjoy the experience.
“I told him, from Day 1, you and I are the same,” Butler said. “We’ve had this in our blood from a very young age. For 30 some odd years, our dream has been to walk across that stage, don’t forget that. Because the money and the sponsors, it comes and goes, but that memory of that one moment when you walk across that stage, fish in hand or not, is the moment you dreamed of. Don’t lose your focus.”
Butler said he was mature enough to understand his purpose at the Hartwell Classic in 2018. Sure, he had dreams of becoming a long shot winner, but he finished Day 1 in 20th and altered expectations to making the cut to fish Championship Sunday. Shy one 2 1/2 pounder, he finished 36th, but he said that taste of Classic competition made him starving for more. It remains his greatest fishing experience.
“For guys like me who work 40 hours a week, my main focus is on family and work,” Butler said. “The Classic is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I will cherish that moment forever. It’s something I’ll never forget. There’s nothing that compares to it in the sport.”
Besides getting married and having a child, Clift said competing in the Classic is the highlight of his life, and he commends B.A.S.S. for offering the path through team competition.
“I got to meet a lot of guys who I look up to,” Clift said. “I would have loved to have done better, but that wasn’t in the cards for me. I’d like to get back.
“What they’re doing with that deal is great. It’s growing the sport. This area is super excited about it because we’ve got three that made it. You hear about someone winning the lottery — I don’t know anyone who’s won. When you can actually know someone who got to the Classic, it gets you excited.”
Butler and Clift won’t say Busby is going to win, but they also won’t say he couldn’t.
“He could,” Clift said. “He’s my pick. He’s a really tough stick. He’s good, and he’s good with a lot of stuff. He stays calm and stays grounded, he knows enough. If he finds some fish, he can do it.”
That would probably flip the fishing world on its axis. Butler told Busby a finish in middle of the pack would still be an awesome experience and winning would be an unbelievable experience. The $300,000 first-place prize aside, winners can parlay a title into much more, and Busby would certainly have to decide whether or not to go back to being a food scientist.
“Josh is a good guy,” Butler said. “Not only does he represent B.A.S.S. well, but he represents all of us well. I wish him nothing of the best. Josh can handle himself well on the water, and it’s going to be a pretty special tournament. We’re all going to be pulling for him.”
He’s like butter, er, he likes butter
In his role at DFA, the largest dairy co-op in the United States, Busby travels with sales crews as a technical resource in new product development.
“When fast food chains and large retailers are switching ingredients, from like a margarine-type item to butter, there’s a learning curve because they all melt and act differently,” he said. “It’s my job to go in and work hand-in-hand with their scientists on how we’re going to take our product and put it into their product.”
Busby spent almost half a year helping McDonalds in their switch to butter. Considerations include more than taste, including the amount to be used, melting temperatures and “how nutritionals stand up,” he said for example.
“We spent hours and hour and hours of how this product will work before McDonalds would ever switch over,” he said. “I do have to taste test a lot of things. I worked with them and every other big fast food company, everybody that uses dairy.”
Busby hears all the bad butter jokes, but we won’t spread any here. There is one affectation he holds from his knowledge in the field.
“The only time I get any grief is with my wife,” he said. “If I’m at a restaurant and they bring me out margarine, I’ll ask them to bring me real butter. I don’t know all the negatives as far as how everybody says it’s only two molecules away from being plastic. I know it’s a processed food, and I live my life by, ‘If God made it, eat it. If not, don’t.”
Hoping for big time on Big G
Busby is no stranger to Lake Guntersville. He and his OMTT partner Tim Taylor landed one of the biggest bags in the 2015 Team Championship there, but their 28-1 on Day 2 only propelled them to sixth place.
Right after qualifying for the Classic, Busby took a scouting trip to re-familiarize himself with the huge 69,000-acre fishery. He didn’t fish much but wanted to get a better feel for its grass, something not abundant around home. With a 20th-place finish on the Harris Chain in 2018, Busby said he’s comfortable on grass, but worries the recent raging waters might rip out what he found.
“I feel like I know a little bit,” he said. “I’ve been there, so I kind of understand how the lake fishes. I feel good enough that I’ve got to fish enough grass in other places to understand it a lot more than I would have before. In the Ozarks you can use your eyes to really decide where you need to fish, there you can’t, but that’s why I spent most of my time idling and looking prior to off limits”
Fishing might be his greatest concern, but being without his boat and truck while it was being wrapped caused some consternation, as did receiving his tackle just recently but not fishing line. He secured an impressive sponsor in Hayden Machinery, a top five dealership for Kobelco excavators, which also adorns his rigs and jersey.
While he’d love do to some earth moving of his own, Busby knows he’s a long shot. No Fish-off qualifier has finished higher than 26th, so his main objective is to make the Top 25 cut and fish Sunday. He simply wants to represent his area of the country well, and if not, he’ll have that memorable achievement of reaching his lifelong dream.
“I think one of the good things I have going for me,” he said, “is I’ve got a very successful career. Unless something crazy happened at the Classic, I don’t perceive me doing anything other than driving back on Monday morning, kicking my feet up on my desk and saying, ‘Dang that was fun.’”