Bryan Schmitt is too measured and too calm to say it outright, but in his voice it’s clear that he believes he has unfinished business in Knoxville. He finished as the runner-up to Jeff Gustafson here in 2023 by just over a pound and a half, the best result of his four Bassmaster Classic appearances.
But second place, while certainly not the “first loser,” is a distinctly unhappy place to end up in what effectively amounts to a winner-take-all event. Schmitt takes some solace in that performance, but after two days of official practice he knows that he can’t rest on what he did three years ago.
“I think that past knowledge helps,” he said. “This lake, more than any other Tennessee River lake I’ve been on, fits my style as a river guy. I feel confident right now. Today I developed one little deal, but tomorrow the goal is to do a complete 180 and develop another deal.”
Indeed, the need to remain open-minded is foremost on the competitors’ minds. Some of them fished both past Classics here. Some pre-practiced before the cut-off. Others did neither. Now they’re all headed into the third consecutive day on the water, followed by two days off, then a standalone practice day, and finally a media day, before starting competition. It’s like seeing every other scene in a movie. They’ll have a pretty good picture of how the plot developed, but won’t know how it all pieces fit together until partway into the closing act.
“It’s kind of weird, being a week out,” said Tucker Smith, who’s fishing his first Classic in his second Elite Series year, but nevertheless already has a $500,000 solo win and was a contributing and equal partner in a million dollar victory, “A lot should change between now and the official day of practice. The fish are spread out right now. Some are deep, some are shallow and some are in between.”
And therein lies the rub: figuring out where they’ll be when the music stops and the real deal begins.
Trey McKinney, the runner-up last year in his inaugural Classic, said that things have already begun to shift dramatically.
“Yesterday I fished deep and those fish are moving quickly,” he said. “I checked some of them today and 90 percent of them were gone. The water temperature is going up super-quick with air temperatures in the seventies every day, and with a full moon it makes them want to get up there.”
The highs in and around Knoxville will be at least 70 every day for the next four, peaking around 80 on Wednesday’s final practice day. But the big question mark is not just what will happen between now and then, but how Thursday’s big change will impact things. It’ll start off in the thirties and won’t hit 60 as the pros answer one question after another from an eager media, while wishing they were on the water instead.
McKinney’s answer comes in using every available moment of practice to make sure that he’s not locked into a single mindset, area or technique.
“You don’t want to make a game plan for the tournament too early,” he said. You have to have Plan A, Plan B and Plan C instead of just Plan A. One of them may turn out to be your primary pattern, but you have to adjust to the weather, too. Your primary deal could be bed fishing, but if you get a cloudy day, you can’t sight fish as well, so you have to have some fish on brush piles or little rock points.”
For Schmitt, hedging his bets is made possible by the fishery’s vast variations in water temperatures. He saw some water in the 47 to 49 degree range on the main river, 55 on some main lake points, and up to 65 in certain main lake pockets. There’s something for everyone, and for every stage of fish, but checking it all is a time-consuming and uncertain process.
“I also want to find not just areas, but targets within those areas,” Schmitt added. “You can’t just be randomly going to something. You need a few secure fish just to get some bites and just calm down, That’ll keep you in your core areas.”
Along those same lines, Smith has saved a few techniques for the official practice day, specifically those related to bass still chasing bait. He knows that locating them this week and looking for them in those same places seven days later is a fool’s errand, but if he can find them on Wednesday they could get him off to a quick start in the tournament.
“I’ll be looking for those bait chasers,” he said. “Something for the first hours of the tournament.” After that, he may go into “junk fishing 101 mode,” scratching off a few fish through wildly different techniques to cobble together the winning catch. By Sunday, one of those techniques might be dominant, while the one used as a nerve-settler on Friday will be relegated to the annals of Classic history.
These pros all know that winning tournaments often comes down to who can best figure out not where the fish are during practice, but where they’ll be when competition begins – and then again where they’ll move throughout the tournament. Classic lore is littered with great final day performances. Think of Rick Clunn at the James River, vaulting from 10th place after Day 2 – a deficit of 9 pounds, 10 ounces behind leader Tommy Biffle, then catching 18-7 on Day 3 to win his fourth Classic trophy. Likewise, Randy Howell was in 11th after two days at Guntersville in 2014 and had a vision that produced 29-2 on Sunday to take the win.
Of course, the greatest pre-planner of all when it comes to practicing to find “where they’ll be,” was four-time Classic champ Kevin VanDam. It was his calling card and his modus operandi. At the 2011 Classic in New Orleans, he clearly found the winning fish, but so did a number of others. Nevertheless, where some of those others struggled to stay consistent, KVD’s weights went up every day, from 19-3 to 22-8 to 28-0, to produce a then-record modern era margin of victory.
But one major victory that did not fit that pattern was Jeff Gustafson’s 2023 win here in Knoxville. He notably weighed in only two fish the last day. That might’ve been largely a result of the fact that he went all in on smallmouths, which had an 18” minimum size at that time. This time around, a 15-incher will be legal to bring to the stage, likely enticing more of the contenders to at least try it out. That means more time spent in practice trying different things.
Besides the fact that things are changing rapidly, one other thing the pros all agreed on is that barring some sort of disaster, this year’s winner will blow past Knoxville Classic winning weights out of the water. Both McKinney and Smith admitted they’ve caught some quality bass already. Schmitt was more circumspect: “There are rumors of guys catching some pretty big bass,” he said.
When the general chatter is all positive, that’s a sign that things are moving in the right direction, but “winning practice” doesn’t come with a check, a trophy or even an asterisk. Nevertheless, one of the anglers in the field will figure out something over these early days that becomes a critical clue. It might be where the fish are heading. It might be which ones are most likely to stay put. Either could be a winning recipe.
