A degree of magic is required to win any bass tournament. Lee Livesay’s transcendent victory on Lake Fork had some of that but also included a touch of the supernatural.
Livesay capped off last week’s win in the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Lake Fork with a jaw-dropping day that will long be remembered in B.A.S.S. lore. After his final cull that secured the third biggest bag in the modern era, Livesay’s thoughts turned to his grandfather, Ervin Robinson, who died in 2010.
Robinson was huge in shaping Livesay’s life. They were inseparable, according to Livesay’s older sister Lisa, fishing together on various lakes and spending a lot of time bonding on Oklahoma’s Waurike Lake where Robinson and wife, Betty Sue, had a lake house.
“When I caught that last cull I made at 1 o’clock, a little bit after that I idled through my little entourage out there, my sister said she had felt my grandpa, felt his presence,” Livesay said. “He was the one I kind of grew up fishing with.”
The Bassmaster LIVE audience heard Livesay say “I’m a crier,” but didn’t get the context of why those emotions came in such a triumphant moment. Lisa helped illuminate.
“I physically felt Papaw show up on that water,” Lisa said. “I told two people that. It was the craziest feeling, but it was comforting at the same time because I always wanted him to see Lee win a big tourney!”
Hearing big sis tell him their “Papaw” was there choked up Livesay.
“It was cool,” he said. “I kind teared up on Bassmaster LIVE when I was idling through thinking about him.”
For Lisa, the close relationship with their grandfather took on greater meaning. She said she was overcome with emotion when Lee landed his last cull, a 7-pound, 14-ounce “baby whale” that gave him 42-3. She related that in 2010, while Robinson was in the final days succumbing to leukemia, he told Lee “not to even think about canceling” a tournament to be with him because “I need you to go and fish for me.”
Lisa believes this too was for Papaw, and that he did get to see his grandson shine.
The story gets more otherworldly. Minutes after the weigh-in where Livesay secured the victory with 112-5, Sue Livesay (Lee and Lisa’s mom) learned that her mother, Betty Sue, had died, but she waited to impart the sad news. When Lisa was informed after Sunday’s big celebration, she told her mother of her strong feelings that Papaw was out on Fork watching over Lee. Sue explained how it made sense.
“Papaw was on his way to get Memaw and watch Lee weigh in and win, then they were going on to heaven together,” Sue told her.
Lee wasn’t all that aligned that Robinson was his guiding angel — it was more his knowledge of Fork and his topwater spook — but he certainly holds his family and past close, especially time on the water with his Papaw.
“I know it’s kinda crazy,” he said. “I know it’s all weird and all just a coincidence, but it’s cool to say and think about.
“Something just came over her that made her start thinking about my grandpa. That’s when I made that last big cull. I don’t even know what to say, to be honest.”
A little magic, perhaps?
“A little magic,” he said. “As soon as I weighed in, my grandma passed away. Not sure, 15, 20 minutes after, she passed away.”
Behind an early 9-2 baby whale, Livesay had built a 30-pound limit, but he went two hours without an upgrade before finding two more, an 8-4 and the 7-14. The latter put him in the history books with the third largest five-fish limit in B.A.S.S. history. It stands behind Dean Rojas’ 45-2 on Lake Toho in 2001 and Terry Scroggins’ 44-4 on the last day of the record-setting 2008 Lake Falcon Elite when the entire 12-man final day field topped 100 pounds.
Livesay is no stranger to 40-pound bags on Fork, saying he’s probably caught 100 of them. But he never produced one in a tournament, including Elite events the previous two years on Fork. He finished seventh last fall, gaining a touch of redemption from the 2019 event.
Livesay started well in 2019 but only had four fish on Day 2 and missed the cut. He later learned he was fishing areas behind a number of anglers, including winner Brandon Cobb, Micah Frazier and Shane LeHew.
“I was so close in 2019,” he said. “I was in the Top 10 the first day, and I was fishing all the stuff Brandon was fishing,” he said. “And I just got in a terrible rotation behind those guys and didn’t catch anything. If I’m one timing different, I might win that one. That’s how close it is sometimes. It just worked out for me this time.”
Starting sixth with 25-6, Livesay dropped a couple spots on the overall slower Day 2 with 17-14. A Day 3 limit of 26-3 had Livesay fifth heading into Championship Sunday with 70-2, 6-15 out of the lead. Talk was the winner would need to catch 30 pounds.
Livesay started well, taking the lead with two 3-pounders. He jumped way ahead with the 9-2 then threatened to run away with a 7-6 and an 8-15 to top 30 pounds. While Patrick Walters gained ground, Livesay went two hours without an upgrade before the dinner bell rang again. He landed an 8-14, and his 7-14 gave him his monster total.
“It was a good week. What a blast!” Livesay said. “I’m still speechless to be honest. It’s just crazy. It’s so surreal.
“It’s so cliché to say, but the stars aligned. Every single thing went right, from timing to never losing a fish on a topwater, to catching 42 pounds on a topwater — I caught one of them on a big swimbait — with the family, friends, sponsors and enemies watching on the home lake, you couldn’t have planned it any better on the final day. There were just so many wonderful things that happened that I can’t describe it. The best way to put it is once in a lifetime.”
The whirlwind aftermath started with a celebration party at the Minnow Bucket on Fork and has continued with numerous media interviews. Livesay, who broke the Elite ice last year with a victory on Lake Chickamauga, said he’s getting loads more attention for his feat on Fork.
“It’s like night and day, and it’s because of the season,” he said. “That was in fall and everybody was hunting. They didn’t care about fishing. It was cool, though. I won it on a frog. There might have been one Elite won on a frog.”
The bass fishing world has been abuzz about the mega bag and Century Belts — Walters earned his second at Fork after winning there last fall. Livesay became the 32nd angler to join the exclusive club by topping 100 pounds, and his total stands 16th all-time.
Livesay finally did well to describe the import of his event, and explained why he was noticeably more demonstrative, yelling jubilantly when landing his last few fish.
“The final day heroics, the hometown kid gets the prom queen and the 42-pound bag on topwater,” he said. “I acted a little different. You could hear it in my emotions. I don’t ever yell and stuff like that. Oh my gosh, my heart was about to jump out of my chest that final day because I just felt it all day long. It came from the heart. I wanted to kill that tournament.”
Told he needed to cull up three more pounds to top the previous single-day weight record, Livesay said he wished he had “caught an 11 right there at the end.”
That would have been super supernatural.