It is hard to put into words what winning the 2025 Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite at Lake Fork means to me. Going into my rookie season on the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series, I was excited about it, and I wanted to do well. That said, I didn’t expect to win a tournament this early on in my career. Being an Elite Series champion is a lot better than I expected and such a huge blessing. It is something I’ve seen on TV for so long and something I have dreamed of my entire life. You are fishing against the best in the world, and to win a tournament against the best makes me realize I belong.
I have finished second place a lot coming into this season. I finished second in the Bassmaster College Classic Bracket twice, had two seconds in the Bassmaster Opens and a second at Lake Hartwell the previous tournament. So, it was awesome to finally get a big win after putting so much time and effort into perfecting my craft.
I was excited to go to Lake Fork for the first time. To be able to go to a place with so much history and giant bass, I was excited. To be able to fish a tournament that sets up like an offshore TVA Lake is something cool and something I wasn’t really expecting. I had no idea those bass were going to be grouped up like they were out there. After three days of practice and finding some areas fish were moving to, it started to feel more and more familiar to places like Lake Guntersville. I got in the zone.
I found several hard-bottom areas the bass would use to feed back up for the summertime. I spent the full three days idling. I have a lot of confidence using my Humminbird Side Imaging. I knew what I wanted to look for, and I found seven or eight places that set up for how I like to fish.
On the first day of the tournament, I caught 25 pounds and thought I would be sitting okay in the standings. After the weigh-in, I found myself in 20th place. There aren’t many places in the country where you can catch that much and be in 20th place at the end of the day. I thought I had really dug myself a hole, and the final day I was kicking myself for not catching more. At that moment, I felt like I would have had a better chance at winning if I caught more on Day 1.
After Day 1, I knew I had to catch much bigger fish for the rest of the tournament if I wanted to stay in contention. The first day of practice we had a ton of rain, and the water came up a lot. During practice and the first tournament day, the floodgates on the dam were wide open. The current made the offshore bite worse, which is the opposite of what I’m familiar with. Luckily for me, the water stabilized more and more for the rest of the tournament, and my areas got better and better. Bigger bass kept moving in, and my bags reflected that.
On the second day of the tournament, my schools grew from two to three bass to five to 10 bass. By Day 3, there were 10 to 20 bass on each spot. On the final day, the water had almost fully stabilized, and a couple of my better spots had 50 to 100 bass on them. It was awesome.
Even still, it was never a possibility in my head that I was going to win. Kyoya Fujita had an 8-pound advantage over me. I thought I would have to have 40 pounds to even get close, and looking at Kyoya’s catches, they were getting better every day. I was convinced he was going to catch at least 30 pounds on Day 4. Honestly, I think it helped me. I went out without a ton of stress and just tried to catch the biggest bag possible.
By that time, I had my rotation down so well I knew which hour to pull up to which school. I was pulling up to places at the exact time I thought they were going to fire, and it worked out. Before I knew it, I had close to 35 pounds and didn’t pay much attention until I got to the idle zone at check-in.
The rest of Championship Sunday felt like a dream. When you are in a zone like that, there is so much going through your head. There is so much adrenaline it is hard to understand what is happening. When I was in the YETI Hot Seat and Kyoya came up, I figured I was toast. When Dave Mercer declared me the winner, I was just in total shock.
For it to happen on Mother’s Day was also so special to me. My mentor Aaron Martens won an Elite Series event on Mother’s Day as well, and thinking about that gave me chills. My mom has been a huge influence on me being outdoors. She was the first one to go outside with me to run around the woods, fish and look for bugs and critters all over. It was really cool to share that moment with her.
My dad was there too, and he has been so supportive at every turn. My mom and dad have traveled to almost every tournament, and to have their support means so much to me. I couldn’t have written it any better.
