Perched on the hot seat with seven anglers to weigh in, Bill Weidler had no idea he’d win the YETI Bassmaster Elite at Lake St. Clair, and three weeks later he remains a bit incredulous he scored the breakthrough victory.
“It’s still surreal,” he said. “There’s times that I’ll sit on my couch and look at the trophy and can’t believe I have it. I’ll stumble across a post where somebody has a video of (emcee Dave Mercer) screaming out I won, and it still gives me chills. It’s just been unbelievable.”
Weidler was particularly stunned as his only clue that he was doing well on Championship Sunday were appearances on Bassmaster LIVE and analyst Mark Zona checking on his progress. He thought he might be among the top four, he said. But, unlike the previous three days, Weidler didn’t look at BASSTrakk after checking in. When wife, Darlene, and one of his sons approached before the weigh-in, he told them not to update him — he wanted to go in blind.
“The crazy thing is after checking in, I always looked at BASSTrakk,” he said. “I told her, ‘I don’t want to know.’ I had no idea I was leading the event. I didn’t know if I was fourth, second. I had no idea.”
Anyone following the unofficial leaderboard knew his bag, which ended up being the biggest of the day at 22 pounds, 13 ounces, had him 2 ounces ahead of Cory Johnston and 4 ounces up on three-day leader John Cox. So as he retained the leader’s hot seat the rest of the weigh-in, he was truthful in answering Mercer pessimistically that he probably needed a few more pounds.
“I wasn’t just saying that. I truly did not know where I was,” he said. “My nerves would have been worse if I had known I was leading on BASSTrakk. I went in at eighth, and I’m going up against Chris and Cory Johnston, who are the best at playing that game, and John Cox was leading by 3 pounds. I had no idea. No idea.”
While thinking the next angler up could easily supplant him, he said it got more intense as each failed to top his total of 86-7. Cory Johnston finished half a pound back, with Cox out 11 ounces, Clark Wendlandt 14 ounces and Jake Whitaker 1-5.
It was Weidler’s first victory in 40 B.A.S.S. events, and he proved to himself he was right in thinking he could compete on the Elite level.
“It means the world, not just to me but my wife and the family,” he said. “We have just put everything that we have trying to be successful, going through the hard times as well as the good times. It’s just means the world to us that we can get a victory. A lot of hard work, a lot of dedication, a lot of sacrifices on everybody’s part to try to make this happen.”
Equipment failures this year factored into Weidler being mired near the bottom of the Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings. Going into St. Clair, his outlook was to survive the final northern smallmouth event, but the pro from Helena, Ala., didn’t hold a sunny outlook.
“The struggle with the smallmouth, I was hoping I could just have a good event,” he said. “When we got done with Champlain and St. Lawrence, which I bombed both of those, I joked with my wife, ‘We got one more smallmouth event. I just got to make it through this event.’ That’s literally what was on my mind.”
It might have gotten a bit brighter when, hoping not to get chilled running, he shut down and discovered what would be the winning area in practice. With worries of potential mechanical issues, he checked in early each of the first two days with competitive bags of 20-8. His fortunate find in practice was paying off.
“The area had hard grass lines around it, then it was bare in the center,” he said. “When I first shut down and sat there, there was a real clean bottom. There were bait fish all around. When I got around the grass, I wouldn’t see any fish, so I tried to avoid the grassy areas and stay in the clean bottom. All my fish were roaming around inside those grass edges, a good ambush point.”
Weidler stayed 50 feet or more — “just a good casting distance” — from the edges and cast to inside 10 feet. Standing 13th after two days, he fist-bumped his wife after his first semifinal cut of the year and said, “Maybe we can make a Sunday cut.” A 22-10 bag on Day 3 put him eighth, just 2-8 out of the lead. “Then it was time for me to swing for the fences, hammer this area.”
Hammer it, he did. Using a Strike King Baby Z-Too that mimicked the emerald shiner baitfish, Weidler landed two 5-pounders. Stunned that he actually won, he was equally amazed at the immediate fan response. He received 80 texts by the time he left the stage, and his wife has since tallied upward of 1,000 social media congratulations.
“It’s funny, when you are doing pretty good, you get 10 or 11 comments here or there,” he said. “Then you see there are a lot of people following you and pulling for you that you just don’t ever think are there. It’s overwhelming how many people reached out to us.”
Now moving to 71st in AOY points, Weidler knows he’s got to make up more than 100 points to finish in the top 40 and qualify for the Bassmaster Classic, but the win has certainly improved his outlook. The final four events are back south, where he’s more comfortable, and the run begins Sept. 30 on a place where he’s rather familiar, Lake Guntersville.
“I think I need to average top 20s to get there. I think it’s doable with where we’re going and what we’re fishing,” he said. “I’ve grown up in the South. I don’t hunt so I fish year round, so I’ve seen what the lakes offer this time of year. I’ve spent a lot of time at Guntersville this time of year, so I’m very optimistic about what the remaining four events will hold.”
A win also feeds positive thoughts, he said. Weidler, who jumped to the Elites from the Southern Opens in 2017, had an inauspicious start in the major circuit, finishing 106th in points in 2018 then improving to 54th last year.
“When I came into the Elites, I did it because I knew I could compete,” Weidler said. “Everybody has problems, financial strain, mental roadblocks. There comes a point in time when you have to get past all that. I think winning one helps you break that barrier. What I thought could happen, can happen.
“Now I want another one. I want to win again. I want to be in that position to win again. But it takes a lot. Flawless tournaments, no problems. When you run into those, like the first part of the year, it can make it look like you don’t need to be up in the Elites.”
Now Weidler has the idea.