Anytime the Bassmaster Elite Series goes to a new fishery, it provides added excitement … going into the unknown.
The third stop of 2025 on the Pasquotank River certainly provided that and much more. B.A.S.S. had an event there back in the early 1980s, but the fishery has remained a hidden gem from most of the U.S.
That’s no longer the case. The fishery didn’t disappoint and turned a lot of heads.
Surprisingly, B.A.S.S. had never held an Elite event in North Carolina, so it was long overdue and the Pasquotank was a good choice. The amount of fishable water was estimated to be over 2 million acres, giving anglers a lot of options.
Anytime you have an event on big water like that you have to factor the wind into your strategies which adds more intrigue. It’s always interesting to see how anglers use the wind in their decision-making process to help them decide where to fish.
In this event, some chose to stay close to the takeoff site and utilize their time fishing and to protect their equipment that can be battered by long runs on a wide-open, windy fishery. As always, some chose to challenge the wind and their equipment to find good waters away from the crowd.
Now, the early expectations for the Pasquotank were it would provide good numbers of bass and some big fish ranging from 6 to 10 pounds. That proved to be true, as there were a lot of those fish spread out through the field, but only one angler was able to do it every day.
And man, did Kyle Welcher do it in style! He blew away the B.A.S.S. record for the largest winning margin – by nearly doubling it – and he fished within a couple miles of the takeoff.
I’d be willing to bet half the field visited that area when they had a few minutes to spare en route to the weigh-in.
But it was a large area and Welcher found the sweetest spot of them all.
His winning margin of 45-7 nearly doubled the previous record set by Patrick Walters (29-10) on Lake Fork in 2020. Oddly enough, Tommy Sanders and I were talking before the event about Walters’ record and both of us believed it may never be broken.
Welcher put on a clinic and proved us wrong.
Like most of the field, he was using forward-facing sonar. On the other hand, he did it by flipping the same bait all four days, a Crush City Bronco Bug.
He had the biggest sack each of the first three days, and if you look at the rest of the field and add up the weights of those anglers who had the second biggest weight each of those days, he would have still been leading by 20 pounds going into the final day.
He had a 33-pound, 14-ounce lead going into the last day, and yet he still fished the finals right up to the last moment.
I found that interesting considering he had more than enough weight halfway through the last day. Most anglers would have played it safe and reported in early to avoid any delays or mishaps.
I asked him why he didn’t play it safe and go in early.
I was proud of his answer.
“I stayed out there because I absolutely love tournament bass fishing, and I was going to enjoy every minute of it,” Kyle told me. “I knew I was dominating, but I remember tournaments when I had tough days, so I was going to stay out there and enjoy every moment of this experience.”
He spoke as a true professional angler who was embracing every moment in tournament history that likely will stand in the record books for years to come.
We all dream of having those rare, yet incredible moments in competition. Welcher proved that it’s possible to make those dreams come true.
