A wanna-be major leaguer and crop duster by trade, Louisiana’s Jack Hains showed he could “wiggle” with the best bass anglers in the world when he unexpectedly won the 1975 Bassmaster Classic.
Right after buzzing the field on North Carolina’s Currituck Sound, the 25-year-old Hains offered a fitting soundbite.
“I’ve been up to 58,000 feet, but I’ve never been this high before. I’m on cloud nine and climbing, I guarantee it,” Hains said, sounding a bit like Cajun chef Justin Wilson.
The unlikely victory 50 years ago was definitively the highlight of Hains’ fishing career. While he had to do some ciphering for his exact age, 75, memories of winning the fifth world’s championship remain vivid. A first-time qualifier, Hains recalled aspects that helped him upset the biggest names in fishing.
“I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and made the right moves in spite of myself,” he said. “The Classic win opened the door for sponsors, so that was a big deal. It opened the fishing world for me.”
Hains went on to qualify for six more Classics, posting two top 10 finishes. His only other Bassmaster title came years later in the 1992 Virginia Invitational at Buggs Island. He came close to winning several more times, so he’s cognizant his Classic title was an extraordinary feat.
“Everything’s got to fall right to win,” he said. “I’ve had some other calls that I should’ve won. You drop a fish here, you zig when you should zag. Just because you don’t win, it don’t mean you’re not on the fish to win it. Everything’s gotta work perfect.”
Swinging at bass not baseballs
Growing up in smalltown Rayne, the “Frog Capital of the World,” Hains enjoyed southern Louisiana’s myriad fishing and hunting opportunities. Competitive sports were huge. In high school, Hains lettered in football and track, but becoming a pro baseball catcher dominated his aspirations.
“I thought I was going to go ahead and take Yogi Berra’s place on the New York Yankees,” he said. “My whole dream in life was baseball. I bass fished because I wasn’t good enough to play baseball.
“Baseball’s the greatest game there is. You can fish all your life. You can only play baseball for so long.”
Although he attended college, he wasn’t there long. The skies called. At 18, Hains obtained his pilot’s license, and flying fit him perfectly, he said. Seasonal work for his father’s crop duster business provided a decent income and allowed him time off to hone his fishing skills. Much of that occurred at his family’s camp on Toledo Bend, which led to competing in local then regional events.
By 1975, Hains was fishing B.A.S.S. events. With three top 10 finishes, Hains led the Angler of the Year race, but missing a tournament allowed Roland Martin to slip past him. Hains was still relatively unknown when he rallied on the Classic’s final day.
In 2018, Hains became just the third outdoorsman to be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Bo Dowden, who won the 1980 St. Lawrence Classic, joined Hains in the hall in 2021.
Journalist Glenn Quebedeaux, who along with Hains were greenhorns in the Rice City Bass Club around 1971, equated Hains’ victory to a regular hacker at golf winning a major.
“In four years, the guy is standing on 18 at The Masters with his arms in the air,” he said on a Bayou Wild TV YouTube broadcast. “What an incredible rise to have a guy from Rayne to be mentioned in the same breath as the Roland Martins, Jimmy Houstons and Bill Dances of the world.”
Funny that Quebedeaux mentioned the highest-profile anglers who’ve never won a Classic, punctuating the exclusivity of the Classic winners club. In 54 events, there are only 43 anglers who can lay claim to the title, and Hains is among them.
Mystery lake, mystery man
The 1975 Classic was one of the final mystery lakes. Hains was among the 30 anglers who boarded a charter jet in New Orleans and told their destination once at altitude.
The secrecy of the fishery was well-guarded. To not tip anyone off, B.A.S.S. officials booked their hotel for the National Travel Trailer Manufacturer’s Association, while the charter flight went under the guise of Baxter Tours of Raleigh, N.C., that was flying in the Male Hairstylists of America Inc.
“That wasn’t a big deal in my mind,” Hains said. “We were just getting on our plane and going fishing. I think that was probably the last one or the second last one we fished like that.
“The Classic just got so big, you couldn’t move that many boats. Even though Ranger was trailering them at night, somebody was going to see it and realize where they were setting up.”
The 30 identically rigged Ranger Boats and trailers traveled in secrecy from Flippin, Ark. Wagon-master Mickey Wood led the 15-vehicle convoy, only discovering from tournament director Harold Sharp the destination before the trip’s final leg.
It was Nags Head, N.C., adjacent to Kitty Hawk where the Wright Brothers took flight. Hains was about to join them. Currituck Sound is a large, shallow brackish inlet, not too dissimilar to areas Hains fished near home.
Fishing against likes of Martin, Houston, Dance and Tom Mann, Hains had one of the 25 eight-fish limits on Day 1. Paul Chamblee of Raleigh, the only North Carolinian in the field, led with 26-1, which included bonuses for live fish.
However, the weather turned the next two days, with cold winds gusting to 40 mph. On Day 2, Chamblee’s seven smaller bass went 12 pounds. Fishing a modified Fleck Weed-Wader spinnerbait, Hains caught only four fish, but they weighed 16 pounds.
“The Weed-Wader was a good choice,” Hains said. “The fish would bite it. I also fished a spoon in some of the grass areas, but all my big fish came on the Weed-Wader.”
With a two-day total of 38-7, Chamblee held a 6-pound lead on Hains, who stood fifth. Continued winds blew water out of the shallow bays, which affected most the field. Almost to his spot, Hains grounded on a sandbar, forcing him to strip down, jump in and push his boat more than 100 yards.
“It wasn’t easy, but I was 25 years old at the time, so what else was I going to do?” Hains told a Louisiana writer for this article.
Donning a snowmobile suit to stay warm, Hains found a deep enough path to make it to his dock, where he caught three crucial bass.
“I managed to go out and around and that made the difference,” he said.
Most of the field came to the final weigh-in empty-handed. Texas’ Marvin Baker managed a limit to take the hotseat with 38-12. With six bass weighing 12-6, including a 6-ounce bonus for live fish, Hains took over with 45-4.
Chamblee, the heavy favorite, was last to weigh, but he zeroed, making the newcomer the fifth Classic champ. Hains said conditions surely worked in his favor.
“It wasn’t me so much as the situation,” he said. “All of Paul’s water was pretty much dry land. He couldn’t even get to them. It was nothing but dirt showing. I had a different pattern that I could move on out with everything.
“I had a long wood dock that I managed to get to. When the water fell off, they moved all the way out to the end. I was fortunate to have that one spot. Would that have been a winning spot had the water not fallen out so much? I doubt it.”
To victor goes spoils
The first-place prize for this year’s Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour is $300,000. Hains said the Classic was just starting to gain steam when he earned almost $16,000.
“That was a lot of money back then,” he said. “In those days, you could live conservatively on $15,000 a year. Plus, I was still flying and chasing a few tournaments and had some good sponsors.
“The Classic win opened the door for sponsors. I helped design a couple swimbaits and jigs, which are no longer on the market. We just ran into a lot of good manufacturers and made some good relationships, so that was a big deal.”
Hains fished off and on, totaling 152 B.A.S.S. entries. He took third-place four times and posted two runner-up finishes. In his rookie year of 1975, he set the single-season record for winnings, and his total career earnings were $318,061.
“I enjoyed it, but I like other things as well,” he said. “I fished for a while and then went back into the flying business. The travel, that was a hard life. Getting on the road, staying on the road, a seminar somewhere, it’s tough. It’s fun when you’re young.
“I guess I didn’t really want to pursue the road life as much. I had a fairly young family, and I wanted to keep them. So it was hard. I couldn’t even consider fishing the tournament circuits now. I still fish every day, but it’s more the travel that would bust my tail than the fishing.”
When contacted, Hains was at Toledo Bend Reservoir, taking a weather day off from Living the Dream Guide Service. He takes clients out in a pontoon boat and utilizes the latest technology of forward-facing sonar … to catch crappie.
“You’re not playing with the same deck of cards if you don’t,” he said of using sonar. “I’ve seen the evolution of the crappie. Used to be, you spot them and you catch them. Now, you spot them and they may not bite. I guess they feel the vibes.
“It’s easy to tell your customers, ‘Look right there, you can see them.’ But they might not even swim after it. Naturally, God’s got them built where they’re going to survive whatever we come up with.”
Bass fishing, however, remains in his repertoire. “PawPaw Jack” captained Caleb Clark to the Louisiana’s B.A.S.S. Nation junior high school championship at Toledo Bend in 2018.
“I almost feel like we cheated, because I knew what to do after we got a limit,” Hains said. “He caught a couple big ones (Caleb had a personal best 7.71) and that helps everything. It was legal, kind of on the home lake, but they caught them. I never picked up a rod. It was a fun gig.”
Despite his focus on crappie nowadays, Hains’ Classic title – it comes up now and again with folks he runs into – will always remain huge, and he’ll certainly revisit largemouth for family.
“Every time my son or grandson comes up and they want to fish bass, we go bass fishing,” he said. “I can still wiggle, sometimes.”
And fly high.
