Shane LeHew’s Classic streak is in jeopardy.
Since joining the Elites in 2019, the 37-year-old from Catawba, N.C., has never missed a Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic. However, an up-and-down season has LeHew outside the cut and needing a strong finish to reach his eighth consecutive championship.
“It’s definitely been a trying year so far,” he said. “The Classic is always my first goal going into the year. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything like this.
“I’m not the type to make excuses, but I’ve just had an odd year. It’s just been so weird. It’s not been the way it normally goes, but you’re going to have adversity. It’s fishing. It’s not catching.”
Uncharacteristically, LeHew has been inconsistent, with solid showings followed by bombs. He’s bounced around the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings and currently sits 56th with 349 points.
“I think I had probably three of the worst finishes I’ve ever had in my career,” he said. “Then I think I have three top 20s.
“I’ve just had really bad execution and then just like three days of really bad mistakes. Those things add up pretty quick in fishing. You make one bad decision one day and you’re out.”
LeHew had climbed to the Classic bubble at 42nd after a 13th at Santee Cooper Lakes, but it popped at the Pasquotank River, where he scored a Top 10 last year. He started 62nd with four fish, and only two the next round dropped him to 91st and sent him 14 spots down the AOY standings.
His biggest regret this season might be the Arkansas River, where he had the worst Elite result of his career. LeHew opened at Muskogee in 59th with 13 pounds, 2 ounces, and duplicating that on Day 2 would have put him near the cut. That’s when he feels he made his worst blunder of the year.
“I made a decision to go back to where I caught them the first day knowing that it was probably dying,” he said. “There were two other boats in that area, some grass in the back of a creek, and there wasn’t a ton of fish in there. The two other guys decided to go somewhere else, and I didn’t.
“You got a short day with a lock, and that was a bad decision. Then I decided to make a 25-minute run even further into the lake. By the time I got there I just felt like I was fishing behind people the whole time and was just frustrated.”
LeHew managed only three fish on the day and plummeted to 96th, losing around three dozen points that would have him breathing easier now.
The estimated total to make next year’s Classic at Lake Hartwell is 483 points. In the Northern Swing to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River, LeHew needs about 135 points, or two finishes inside the top 30.
At stake is a share of the longest active Classic streak. LeHew is tied at seven consecutive with Cory Johnston, Drew Cook, Chris Johnston and Patrick Walters, yet he’s the only one outside qualification, which is currently 44th.
An eighth-place AOY finish in 2019 is LeHew’s best among his four top 20s in the season-long race, and twice he’s been the final angler to qualify for the Classic via the points. While LeHew said he’d certainly take being last man in again, he thinks his subpar season stems from his desire to win. He’s been close to several times.
“Probably been the reason I’ve had some really bad ones this year is I’ve taken some chances that I don’t normally take, and they just haven’t worked,” he said. “I really like making the Classic and being consistent is great, but I really want to win one.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I definitely have all the tools, just usually for whatever reason, one of the days, something weird will happen.”
LeHew’s best Elite finish was a third at the St. Johns in 2025. He was 10 pounds down but rallied, ending just 10 ounces back of winner Bill Lowen. In the 2024 St. Lawrence Elite, LeHew was in the hunt after two 25-pound days. Battling 7-foot waves in Lake Ontario, he saw the right fish but still can’t figure out what happened as he fell to sixth.
“I threw at more big smallmouth that third day than any day of the tournament, and I couldn’t get them to bite,” he said. “They just wouldn’t bite anything, and I had like 20 pounds, and I took myself out of pretty much having a chance to win.”
If not for a poor first day, LeHew might have won the 2022 St. Lawrence Elite. He rallied to finish seventh, 5-2 behind winner Jay Prezkurat after starting 69th.
“When Przekurat won, I had like 18 pounds the first day and then had 25 to 28 the rest of the days,” he said. “I’ve had that quite a few times throughout my career, so it’s frustrating.
“You start thinking ways you shouldn’t be thinking. Fishing is a lot of mental, and usually I’m very good about keeping that mental part out, but this year it’s definitely crept in there.”
Having a decent record with northern smallmouth gives LeHew hopes of climbing inside the Classic cut, although he’d certainly love the win-and-in feature of this year’s season finale at the St. Lawrence. In six Elites there, he’s made four cuts with two Top 10s, and LeHew punched his Classic ticket by climbing nine spots to 38th in AOY in 2024.
“I like the St. Lawrence a lot,” LeHew said. “I’m usually a risk taker in that one. I don’t care if the wind’s blowing 25, I’m going to the lake. The first couple years, I didn’t do that, and I got my teeth kicked in.
“I am not very good at fishing on that river, so I just batten everything down and take my time going to wherever I’m going and have a lot more confidence.”
After a two-month hiatus, the Elites first head to Lake Champlain, Aug. 13-16, where forward-facing sonar isn’t allowed. LeHew has made cuts in all four of his entries there.
“Champlain’s going to be a lot different, but I honestly think I like it a little better, not having the LiveScope,” he said. “It’ll bring kind of an old-school element back. I’m excited to see how much it’s going to change the dynamic of that fishery, because there are a lot of smallmouth there that float.
“I’m going to try to just find groups of fish like I used to. I’ve had some pretty good tournaments there in the past, just fishing shallow, hard structure, like rockpiles or grass, whatever it may be.”
LeHew said he’s fun fished some around the house trying to get his mind straight, and he’s just hoping to the put bad thoughts in the past and make a push for his eighth consecutive Classic.
“We’re going to have to shoot for a couple top 20s to have a chance,” he said. “I don’t really ever look at that kind of stuff — I just kind of take each tournament as is. I need to just get back to where I’m fishing the way I normally do, because I have not been doing so.”
