In 2025, it seems almost quaint to consider that Jordan Lee was once considered an unusually precocious Bassmaster Classic champion. In a sport that seems to be aging in dog years, the two-time, back-to-back champ left the Bassmaster Elite Series after the 2019 Classic, a few months past his 27th birthday, and returned for the 2024 season an elder statesman of 32.
That’s more than a decade older than Trey McKinney, who won an Elite Series event last year, and beat Lee by seven spots in the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year race in a season when both were exceptional.
The returning Lee ended up two places ahead of Tyler Williams, who’s also a decade younger, and who admired the Alabama pro growing up.
“He came to Maine for an event when I was in high school,” Williams recalled. “I told him that one day I’d be fishing against him. It was the cockiest moment of my life.”
That story is reminiscent of the apocryphal story of a young Kevin VanDam approaching Larry Nixon at a boat show in Kalamazoo. “I’m Kevin VanDam, and I’m going to kick your ass,” Nixon recalled VanDam saying. “Just come on and get you some whenever you’re old enough,” he replied. “And by golly he did.”
Even if that story’s not entirely true, to some extent perception is reality in this case. To 50-somethings in the 2025 Classic field like Scott Martin and Greg Hackney, Lee will always be something of a young upstart. To the McKinneys and Williamses of the world, he’s a veteran on a path to the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. To college qualifiers like Classic qualifier Connor Jacob, from Lee’s alma mater of Auburn, he’s laid down a template for career success.
There have always been different generations in bass fishing, separating the Nixons from the VanDams from the Lees, but now the rings on the family tree seem closer together than ever before. Lee may be a lowercase-p-prodigy, but he’s still four years younger than the formal Prodigy, two-time AOY Brandon Palaniuk.
The past
“Jordan Lee was the first college superstar before he was a superstar,” said Mark Zona.
That means more than it seems at first glance, as Lee wasn’t the first collegiate qualifier for the Classic – that honor went to Andrew Upshaw of Stephen F. Austin, who competed in the 2012 Classic on the Red River. Jordan wasn’t even the first member of his own household to compete in a Classic as a collegian. That distinction goes to his brother Matt, who qualified for the 2013 Classic on Grand Lake. They subsequently became the fourth set of brothers to compete in the same Classic when they both qualified to fish at Lake Hartwell in 2018.
Jordan was, however, the first collegiate qualifier to make a run at the title. He finished sixth in the 2014 Classic on Guntersville, just a few pounds out of the lead, thanks to consecutive 24-pound bags that pulled him from 40th to 14th to sixth.
“At Guntersville I was struggling, and I had to look around,” Lee recalled. “I was probably on the winning pattern, I just got on it a little too late. It’s a little disheartening to be on the winning fish and not capitalize on it, but I don’t have a lot of regrets. There have been a lot of days in my career when I wasn’t on anything and kind of stumbled onto something good. I know how to go and gamble when I’m not on the right stuff.”
Notably, fellow Alabamian Randy Howell rose from 12th to 11th to victory at Guntersville thanks to a closing-round catch of 29 pounds, 2 ounces. That provided a firsthand template of the final day Classic push that would become the signature of Lee’s career. When he won at Conroe in 2017, he entered the final day of competition in 15th place, almost 14 pounds out of the lead.
The following year at Hartwell, he finished Day 1 of the Classic in third, then fell to sixth on Day 2, 6 1/2 pounds behind leader Jason Christie. A 16-05 bag on Day 3, his second best of the week, but the second best of the field that day – behind only his brother Matt’s 17-06 – propelled him to the win.
The comeback season
His resume is littered with examples showing that it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. Nevertheless, when Lee exercised his Legend exemption and returned to the Elite Series for the 2024 season, he started off with a bang: two Top 10s in the first three tournaments and nothing lower than 15th in the first four.
At that point the only angler ahead of him was then 19-year-old Trey McKinney, representing the new generation of youth. Right behind Lee was Canadian Chris Johnston, the eventual AOY, and signs of the international shift of the field. Behind Johnston was Tyler Williams, the young pro who’d asked Lee for an autograph six years earlier in Maine. None of them had been on the Elite Series when Lee last fished it, a sign of the tectonic shift in the professional landscape.
Two tournaments later, as Lee was expected to solidify his position at or near the peak of the standings, he bombed at a home-state tournament on Wheeler Lake.
“My bad tournaments are always the ones where I have preconceived notions, where I knew that I was going to catch them in a certain way,” he said. “You must turn your brain off and pretend you don’t know anything sometimes. All tournament fishing comes down to decision making, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that sometimes you make the right calls and sometimes you don’t.”
While he wouldn’t again climb back into the top 10 in AOY until the last tournament of the year, his tournaments and decisions progressively righted themselves as the Elite Series season closed out: 41st at Smith Lake, 26th at Champlain, and a fifth-place finish at the St. Lawrence.
Indeed, in reference to the importance of decision making, Lee’s wife, Kristen, says the one major change she’s seen over their decade-plus together is increased decisiveness.
“He just has so much more confidence to make bold and risky decisions on the water,” she said.
Harnessing that power to close out the season put him well inside the Classic cut, and he’ll look to distinguish himself on the historical roster with a third Classic victory. Of course, both Rick Clunn and Kevin VanDam, neither of whom will be competing, stand at the top with four apiece, but two-time winners Bobby Murray, Hank Parker and George Cochran are retired from competition, and Hank Cherry – who won back-to-back events in 2020 and 2021 – failed to qualify. That provides Lee with a distinct opportunity, for which he is increasingly thankful.
“When I left, I knew that I was going to miss it, not having the chance to make the Classic,” Lee said. “There were a lot of different feelings and emotions, but it was sad to think that I wouldn’t have a chance at the at moment I’d experienced just a couple of years before. I don’t regret anything, but now that it’s been several years and I realized what I’d lost, I’m probably more excited than ever.”
The next chapter
Zona minced no words about what Lee may have given up in terms of the prime years of his career: “He may punch me in the mouth for this, but I think if anything he’s an underachiever. He’s a savant when it comes to bass fishing, but if you’re a title chaser he missed a massive opportunity. There was a window that he went off on a field trip. I have no idea what he accomplished over there but missing that window could be huge. He still has the potential to win the most Classics, but if he hadn’t gone away I have no doubt he’d be closer.”
Nevertheless, Zona watched Lee mostly at arm’s length over the 2024 season and didn’t mince words about his potential.
“He’s no different at 33 than he was at 17. He’s just a stone-cold killer. Jordan Lee doesn’t worry about little things like payback and entry fees. He’s there to do business. And from a natural ability standpoint, he’s as good as it gets. I knew Aaron. I know Hackney. I know KVD. In the world we live in, with all the technology, I still look at him with wonder and awe, like, ‘What did God give you?’ He has that. I’ve seen very few like that in my lifetime.”
Despite the talk of lost years, Lee is still young by historical standards. VanDam didn’t win his first Classic until he was 33, the same age Lee is now. Clunn had won two by this point, but then didn’t win his third until he was 38. VanDam had a gap of five years between wins two and three, and Clunn’s “dry spell” lasted seven years. It was a different playing field then, however.
Lee realizes that to continue to be competitive at the level where he found early success he’ll need to constantly adapt. The field is younger and arguably hungrier. Also, the rise of high school and college fishing, and early adoption of technology, has changed what it takes to win.
“It was hard to catch limits in the Classics that I won,” Lee said. Indeed, at Conroe he only weighed in 12 bass, and only four competitors had limits each of the three days. “There was a lot more unknown back then. Now, if you’re catching them on a ChatterBait and the water clears up, you can just slide out and scope them, but back then it wasn’t so easy to adjust like that.”
In addition to those born in the 21st Century, the field has been backfilled with hammers of Lee’s own era who followed in his footsteps. There’s last year’s Classic champ, Justin Hamner, who is three months Lee’s senior but did not join the Elites until 2021. There’s also 30-year-old Patrick Walters, another former collegiate champion who arrived in 2019 and has already eclipsed Lee’s victory total at B.A.S.S., but has yet to claim a generally-expected title. Lee is both a member of their generation and apart from it, similar in age but not in vintage.
Lee married Kristen a few months after the second Classic win, so they’ve been together for the entire ride, but one major change in his life was becoming a father. His son, Baker, is now 3 years old.
“I get goosebumps thinking about what it would be like for Baker to see (Jordan win a Classic),” Kristen said. “Baker’s already practicing. He gets up on the coffee table, holds up a stuffed animal bass and screams, ‘Jordan Lee.’ It would be life changing. It changed our life for sure, not once, but twice. A third time would be crazy.”
And while both Lees said another Classic victory wouldn’t define Jordan’s career or their partnership, they independently came up with the same answer when asked if they had room for a third big trophy: “We’ll make the space.”
But anyone who thinks that the combination of fatherhood and playing with house money has made Lee complacent or soft has another thing coming, Zona said – especially if he’s within striking distance of a Classic win on Day 3.
“He’s the most under the radar badass on tour. You don’t want to go into the last day waiting around and finding out.”
