Elite

Best of 2024: Chase Sansom’s best photos from Elites, Opens

B.A.S.S. photographer Chase Sansom covered the Elites, Opens and Classic in 2024. Here are his favorite pictures and the backstories behind them!

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Welcome to my “Best photos from the water” from the 2024 season as I had the opportunity to cover the best bass anglers in the world on the Bassmaster Elite Series, Classic and Opens this year. I will take you through each photo from the season and talk a little bit about how I composed the shot or what I was thinking when I took the shot. Before we dive into this collection of photos from throughout the season, I want to take a second to just give a big thanks to the folks at Bassmaster and my fellow photographers on the road with us that gave me this incredible opportunity to run across the country snapping photos of fishing. It’s a blessing I get to do this and be a part of something I have loved for so many years.
My first stop of the year was in Quitman, Texas, on legendary Lake Fork. I was called in the week of the tournament on a Monday kind of unexpectedly. At the time I had no clue I would end up working the rest of the Bassmaster Elite Series season. I was just excited for the opportunity. The next thing you know I was on a plane Wednesday en route to Texas and then shooting photos on Thursday morning. This was one of the first shots I took of the 2024 season. While it’s not the most amazing photo, it’s a sentimental photo as it was my first of the new season.
Shortly after, we found Chris Johnston tucked away in the back of a pocket targeting spawning fish. I knew immediately upon pulling up on him what he was doing as he was standing on the trolling motor looking at this fish he eventually hooked. I kept my distance but stayed ready as I knew he was going to catch it. This was my first fish catch of 2024.
A pretty good one, I would say.
Obviously our job on the water is to convey a story of the anglers and the tournament in photos. But I always try to make the most of each location we go to and document different photos of landscapes, historic landmarks or in this case wildlife. As I was covering Kyle Patrick on Day 4 of the tournament this little turtle crawled up on this stump in front of my camera boat as if he wanted his picture taken. And so I snapped this shot of him. He looks like he’s watching the action, critical of the lure being used.
Later on Day 4 of the tournament, I captured this sequence of Tyler Rivet landing a Lake Fork lunker.
It had been kind of a trying week to capture a big fish catch on Lake Fork. As good as the weights looked on paper, the anglers weren’t catching that many fish, so you had to be at the right place at the right time. Not to mention how long it took to get from angler to angler due to all of the standing timber in the lake. Finally, it seemed like after four days I was in the right place at the right time for this catch.
In my own mind, I was definitely thinking “finally.”
No more than 10 minutes after leaving Rivet for the day to go back to edit before weigh-in, he caught this 10-pounder. Still to this day I think about missing that catch, but I am glad I got this sweet shot of him holding it overhead in front of a giant crowd on the banks of Lake Fork.
Then of course while I still had my camera out I wanted to capture the moment of Trey McKinney becoming the youngest Elite Series champion in history at 19 years old. It worked out perfectly as I got him holding the blue trophy overhead while Dave Mercer slid over into the corner and yelled into the microphone during the historic moment.
Next up was the 2024 Bassmaster Classic on Grand Lake, Okla. This photo was shot during the final day of practice for the Classic. I hopped in the boat with eventual champion, Justin Hamner.
The gallery I shot that day was called “Up close and personal.” I was going from boat to boat with a handful of competitors getting up-close shots on their faces and their approach on practice. It just so happened we stumbled upon Hamner as our first target. Hamner was working around some submerged brush, and I captured this photo of his jerkbait he would later winbwith in mid cast with a beautiful sunrise coming over the trees.
He only caught some small fish with me that morning, but I will never forget upon leaving his boat he looked at me and said, “If I win this week, you have to practice with me again.” So I’m assuming I will find myself inside Justin Hamner’s boat on official practice day for the 2025 Bassmaster Classic.
Next is the tournament. That week I felt like I hadn’t got anything really incredible on the water. I definitely got some fish catches but nothing I was super stoked about. It was just another one of those tournaments where I never landed on the right person at the right time. But fortunately on Day 1, Brandon Palaniuk was right outside of takeoff, and I stopped by to shoot some photos of him. Sitting there chatting with his cameraman, Kyle Vandever, we both realized Brandon was hooked up and he landed this fish in front of us.
On to Championship Sunday weigh-in at the BOK Center in Tulsa. I got the Super Six standing backstage together watching the pre-roll video before entering the arena. One of these six were going to hoist the trophy in just a few short minutes. You could feel the tension between them.
Just a few minutes after being backstage, Bassmaster videographer Brian Eavey and I decided we were going to shoot the winning moment from a little different perspective. We ran to the back of the arena through the hallways and upstairs thinking we were going to be late for the moment. We tried different angles from up higher and then toward the floor until we decided on this spot. Just a minute or two after setting up, Justin Hamner weighed in his winning bag of fish and confetti shot off.
Immediately after snapping those shots in the back of the arena, Eavey and I made our way to the floor to shoot the famous boat ride around the arena after the Classic win. These next three shots were my favorite of the entire week.
While the celebration is awesome and it makes for some awesome photos, one thing I try to remember is how much these anglers sacrifice to chase their dream of hoisting the Classic trophy. The amount of time they spend away from family and missing those moments with their significant others and children has to be incredibly challenging and tough. So, when they rolled Justin to the back of the arena and it was just him; his daughter, Scarlett; and wife, Christina, I captured this moment of just pure happiness and relief. His hard work had paid off, his dreams had been reached and he became a Bassmaster Classic Champion with his family there to celebrate with him.
Now back to the Elite Series season — after the Bassmaster Classic we found ourselves in Leesburg, Fla., on the Harris Chain of Lakes. Day 1 of the tournament was postponed due to weather.
 
During the postponement day, it is always kind of a challenge to find something to shoot that is unique and different. Although this time, Bassmaster social media director Laura Agee and I went to see John Cox during the postponed day to film some content. I also brought the camera for what turned out to be some pretty funny photos. In this one John actually tried a bite of a Berkley Maxscent Worm and realized quickly those are not meant for humans…
After the postponement day we got things kicked off. on Day 1 I worked the canal between Lake Beauclair and Lake Apopka as we felt like their would be a handful of guys fishing there. One of the anglers we covered toward the end of the day was Jonathan Kelley. In this photo, I am actually pulling away from Kelley to go back to the ramp until I heard the snap of the rod as he set the hook.
I turn around immediately and he lands this giant Florida largemouth. I think he was pretty excited, too.
On Day 2 at the Harris Chain, I was tasked with covering John Cox. Covering John on the water is normally quite the adventure. Most of the time when you cover him you think to yourself, “How in the world is this guy able to catch fish out of this mud puddle?”
John took us up a canal that day that took us 30 to 40 minutes to idle into, but when we got there it was absolutely beautiful. It was one of the coolest places I have been to in a bass boat and offered some amazing photo opportunities. It was almost like a scene out of Jurassic Park.
On Day 3 at the Harris Chain I covered Rookie Trey McKinney fishing in a pretty interesting spot. This shot was in front of the dam that connects Lake Griffin and Lake Eustis. McKinney was fishing the Griffin side of the dam and was catching fish as the locks were being opened and closed. He even caught some inside the locks, which was super interesting.
Most of the fish he caught that day were on an old school Storm Chug Bug. The Chug Bug was cool, but when you get a shot like this when the fish shakes and create that massive splash of water, it always makes for an epic image.
On the final day at the Harris Chain I was assigned to cover Tyler Williams and got this epic sunrise shot as he began his day on Lake Eustis.
Typically I always try to shoot some photos of the final day weigh-in at each Elite event even with everyone already shooting something, so most of my photos from the final day never make it on the website or ever really get seen unless I post them or they are used in Bassmaster Magazine. But this one of John Garrett has to be in my top five favorites from the year for more reasons than just winning a blue trophy.
 
I fished Bassmaster College tournaments while I was in collegeb and I have fished against John many times. I can remember multiple times seeing him fish on the water around me thinking to myself, “That dude is incredibly talented.” I always kind of figured he would be on the Elite level one day. To get to the Elite Series has been no easy journey for John. His journey has been full of ups and downs. So seeing him claim that blue trophy in his rookie season was amazing. Another thing amazing is capturing a moment of John smiling, which doesn’t happen often.
Skipping the St. Johns River for a College Series event on Kentucky Lake, my next stop was Logan Martin Lake in Alabama for a Bassmaster Open. While I have kept this gallery mostly Elite photos, this photo of Beau Browning way up the river throwing a popper has to be one of my favorites from the year.

Before capturing this, I could see Beau kind of stand up taller and look toward the bank aggressively. He saw this fish, tossed his popper over to him and he exploded as soon as it hit the water. Beau brought the fish to my side as it was jumping and making a scene, making an awesome sequence. This photo just happened to be the best out of all of them. Thanks for bringing him to my side, Beau!

On the final day at the Logan Martin Open I shot the “Behind the Scenes” gallery and I wanted to kind of change it up for the winning moment. I asked fellow Bassmaster photographer Andy Crawford if I could crawl behind the stage and sit down low out of his way to capture the winning moment from behind. Andy was all for it and so I crawled back there and ended up with this shot of Josh Butler claiming victory and punching his ticket to the 2025 Bassmaster Classic.
The next stop for me was Lake Murray in Columbia, S.C. I went down early and shot a “Rigged and Ready” gallery of essentially a handful of Elite anglers showing some baits that might work for the tournament the day before it started. Mike Iaconelli was one of the guys who came by and asked him to show me a few baits. This what he showed me. A cicada lure which was perfect considering there were cicada bugs laying all over the place after the massive cicada hatch.
During this tournament, a lot of the anglers were targeting schooling fish on points. The fish would push the bait up the points all the way to the surface and most of the anglers wouldn’t cast until they saw the fish bust the surface. But it happened so often that you could kind of shoot with the camera if they were close enough. It took me all weekend but I finally got a decent shot of a largemouth pushing a bream to the surface, which at first I thought was a shad. I call this photo, “Run Away.”
Trey McKinney at this point in this season was on a tear, and I was covering him as he was the current AOY leader. This fish was the fish that drone operator Wes Miller captured overhead. It was an epic catch on video, and I think the photos turned out pretty good, too.
Pure emotion.
One thing I have learned about Trey over the course of this season, and what I think sets him apart as being popular, is that he shows every emotion and he truly loves fishing. You don’t see very many people get excited as him when he catches a big fish, and it’s thrilling to watch on video. But being a little biased, it’s a lot more fun to watch on the water.
The final on-the-water photo I wanted to share from Lake Murray was this one. For me, it’s difficult sometimes in low light to get a great moving shot of a bait, but this one turned out so good. I noticed Trey throwing this glide bait and with the light to the side of him. I knew I could capture something pretty epic if I positioned myself behind him. I figured if I went behind him I could get the water spray in the light and then hopefully my shutter was high enough to capture the right moment. After shooting two or three casts, I got it. Perfect lighting and angle.
At Lake Murray I was filling in for Shane Durrance who typically shoots the “Behind the Scenes” galleries. I must say, Shane is very talented in getting people together or instructing them to do certain things for photos. For me, I am more of a person to just capture moments as they happen naturally.
 
After the Day 3 weigh-in at every Elite event, Dave Mercer introduces the Top 10 and rattles off every stat he knows about them and gets the crowd fired up before the final day. I haven’t really seen many photos of Dave in the act of yelling into the microphone during this moment, so I slipped backstage during it and put my camera right over Cody Huff’s shoulder to get this one.
I also captured Luke Palmer pulling out an absolute tank earlier in the weigh-in.
On the final day of the Lake Murray Elite, I snapped this photo of tournament director Lisa Talmadge. Not sure as to why, but I just really like this photo. I think all of us on the staff like when Lisa is happy!
Next stop was in Alabama on Wheeler Lake in the heat of June. A true test for the anglers, and you could say a test to see how long our camera equipment would last in the heat. This time my assignment was Angler of the Year leader Trey McKinney on Day 1.
 
After not much luck on his starting spot, McKinney moved down toward the Decatur Flats and hooked up on this nice fish within a few casts. It’s got the perfect fish jump. The worm he is using is in like a spinning motion as the fish jumps, and he has that face of determination to grab bring him aboard.
On Day 2, I covered Hawaiian Matty Wong, who was targeting bridge pilings. While he may have not caught a ton of fish off of the bridge pilings, it sure did make for some cool photos.
On Days 3 and 4 of the Wheeler Elite, I rode into the backwaters with John Cox. As I said earlier, it’s always an adventure with John. On this new adventure I actually made a new friend in the back of this pond while covering John. My camera boat driver on Days 1 and 2 wouldn’t be able to take his fiberglass boat in the back of this creek as it was a little too shallow, but no fear we found an alternate solution. We met a guy by the name of Donald “Duck” Redding who lived back there in this creek and happened to own a small Bass Tracker. He offered to take us out on to cover John.
Donald was a retired mill worker and had lived back in this creek his entire life in a small cabin. He had plenty of great stories to tell and kept me entertained while I shot photos of John picking the area apart.
While shooting photos was pretty easy back there in the Bass Tracker, dealing with the almost 100-degree heat and no wind was pretty miserable. I don’t think I have ever been on the water in that type of heat. It was a challenge nonetheless between trying to stay hydrated and keeping my camera gear from overheating as well as getting enough photos to create a gallery.
But fortunately John put it on them in the back of this creek and gave me more than enough photos to create a gallery. This photo was pretty epic, just John flipping the fish up into the boat and all of the cheese (grass) — as the kids would say — comes flying off as the fish shook around. The water splash even kind of makes a circle, which I thought was pretty cool.
Also at the Elite at Wheeler, I shot takeoff each day as Andy Crawford was out for the week. One of my favorite things about Elite tournaments is the Top Lures gallery, where each angler in the Top 10 shows off a variety of baits they used throughout the week. We normally shoot these in the dark with just a handheld light and so therefore it creates kind of a unique scene. I haven’t really had the opportunity to shoot the behind the scenes of what that looks like, but I got to on the final day of this tournament. They turned out to be some pretty awesome photos.
In this one I faced my camera right at Bassmaster photographer Dalton Tumblin’s light and camera as he snapped this picture of Alex Redwine’s shaky head. I turned my shutter speed up really high and my ISO way down to make the light pop and everything else around the light much darker. When I went in to edit, I laid a mask over the light, inverted it and brightened the background up and ended up with this image.
A little later on that morning I shot some photos of each angler being interviewed on the dock by Dave Mercer. Not sure as to why, but I love getting those closeup face photos when given the opportunity.
Cliff Prince is pictured here at takeoff of the final day at Wheeler Lake, which he would later win. In the photo you can almost feel the tension and nervousness he was feeling that morning before he took off on Wheeler Lake.
In between the Bassmaster Elite at Wheeler Lake and Bassmaster Elite at Smith Lake was the Bassmaster Open at Lake Eufaula, which I drove to. It was a very tough week for photos as the fish catching wasn’t that great there, but the sunrises there in June were incredible.
Pictured here is Andrew Loberg, who is now a Bassmaster Elite Series angler. While you can’t tell it’s him, it makes for a unique image. When taking these sort of sunrise photos, you have to position your boat in way that you can face your camera toward the angler and into the sun. Turn you shutter speed way up, your F stop way up to about 6.3 and ISO way down and you can come up with shots like this. What makes this even better is the little bit of cloud cover we had in the morning, which gives the sky some character.
After the Eufaula Open, I drove back to Cullman, Ala., for the seventh Stop of the Bassmaster Elite Series on Smith Lake. My Day 1 assignment was Angler of the Year leader Trey McKinney, who was fishing pretty close to takeoff in the rain. I haven’t had the opportunity really yet to shoot photos in the pouring rain, but this morning I got to make the most of it.
At this point in the season, I had covered Trey so many times on Day 1, I felt like I had seen about everything there is to know about Trey — until this happened. He catches this fish and flips it up into the boat and then grabs the fish and starts shaking it down trying to get it to spit up the shad it had been eating. Fortunately, I was still snapping away and got this photo of the shad actually coming out of the mouth of the fish in midair.
 
One thing I try to do on the water is not really disturb the angler or make much conversation unless they are talking to me as it is their time to focus and fish. But I had to ask Trey why in the world he would purposely make the fish spit up the shad as most anglers would want the fish to digest the shad for extra weight. His response, “I don’t want the shad in my livewell to make it smell bad.”
On Day 2 at Smith Lake I was assigned to Hunter Shryock, who was fishing the banks with a topwater bait. That’s always fun to watch. I threw this photo in here because I like the look on Hunter’s face as he is trying to keep this fish buttoned as it jumps and wallows around, not to mention all of the green that surrounds. It was a bit dark back there in the creek he was fishing so I was very fortunate to get the fish jumping and not have much blur.
On Day 3 and 4 at Smith Lake, I got to hang out with Robert Gee, who was applying a whole different tactic for spotted bass. Most times when you pull up on anglers you can get a quick gauge by the way they look at you if you’re too close or not. That morning Rob needed me to be as far as away as possible as he was chasing these pelagic spotted bass over 100 foot of water with his trolling motor on 100.

I would wait off in the distance about 100 to 200 yards away until he hooked up and then I would troll as fast as I could toward him in order to get the shot. These photos are awesome in the way they ended up turning out, but I think what was more satisfying to me was the challenge of being so far away and still being able to maneuver the boat quickly enough to get some decent shots as he was the landing the fish.

Just another photo from those two days that I really liked…
Rob goes for a fist bump with cameraman Seth Doman after a nice fish catch, but instead Seth gives him the turkey!
This photo by far is my favorite photo from 2024. For those that don’t know, this it Taku Ito from Chiba, Japan. Taku has now been on the Elite Series for five years, and it hasn’t come easy, to say the least for him. While he has had plenty of success, it has also came with an extreme amount of sacrifice. Just hours prior to shooting this photo I learned about how much time Taku spends alone on the road. For nine to 10 months of the year, Taku is on the road fishing while his wife and children are back home in Japan. While it can be emotional to think about his situation, it is incredibly uplifting to see Taku have success, being surrounded by a ton of Elite Series pros who waited out just to watch him win and see the amount of joy in his face when shows off a big fish like this to the crowd makes it all worth it.
Onward to stop No. 8 of the Elite Series season at Lake Champlain. On Day 1, I covered Trey McKinney again. He had just lost his lead in the Angler of the Year points but had some hope. Trey started off hot on Day 1 and went to catching these acrobatic smallmouth right off the rip. While the anglers definitely don’t like the smallmouth jumping around, cameramen love it because it creates awesome images like this.
On Day 2 at Lake Champlain, I was tasked with covering tournament leader Seth Feider. Here he picked apart a piece of cover in front of this marina with the wind absolutely howling. It made for some great photos as the boat crashed into wave after wave.
He caught so many fish off this one piece of cover I had essentially put together a fantastic gallery in the matter of minutes. It also made it incredibly easier that he was fishing right in front of this marina, so I slipped off my camera boat and onto the dock and made my way down toward the end of it and got within 10 foot of him to capture these photos, which turned out fantastic with how close I got.
Scoop and score!
On Day 3 at Lake Champlain I covered a handful of different anglers, but this photo of Chris Johnston needed to be put in here. To get an image like this you have to kind of risk putting your camera really close to the water, but if you get it just right it can turn out to be a great image. This photo just shows the vastness of Lake Champlain. Had the sun popped out here I think this photo could’ve turned out even better.
On the final day at Champlain, I covered Jacob Foutz, who was in the running to win. Before this I had never covered Jacob, but he put on a show. Plenty of smallmouth jumps to go around before we parted ways for another angler. It was pretty fun to watch and I was able to get some really good stuff out of it.
One of my favorite things is getting those clean up close shots of the anglers’ faces, and this one just happened to work out perfectly. Foutz was chasing down a smallmouth on his forward-facing sonar, and the fish came right underneath our boat and put Jacob essentially on top of us. We didn’t mean to be in the way; it was just the way the fish chose to swim. I made the most of the situation and snapped a few photos of him super close. This one when I went to edit, I masked Jacob and inverted the background and warmed the background up to give it that brownish/gold look which I kind of like.
And I got some sweet casting shots…
The final stop of the 2024 Elite Series season was on the St. Lawrence River out of Waddington, N.Y. I was covering Trey McKinney on Day 1 as he was still in the AOY hunt and leading the Rookie of the Year race. We pulled up on the first spot with him and Trey went to catching them in a hurry.
Alongside him was JT Thompkins, who was just a few points behind Trey in the Rookie of the Year race. Basically rub rail to rub rail, they worked together at the same spot. As much as there was on the line, both of them were talking about which baits were working best and where they thought the fish were setting. Ultimately, Trey won Rookie of the Year that week, the youngest ever.
On Day 2, I ventured out roughly 30 to 35 miles into Lake Ontario to cover Justin Hamner, who was trying to become only the third angler to win the Classic and AOY in the same season. Once you get so far out into Lake Ontario, it is like an ocean, creating an opportunity for some different-looking photos. You have to be super careful because in a matter of minutes it can go from calm to dangerous. It is just pure vastness out there. If you guys haven’t seen it yet, you should go check out Dalton Tumblin’s gallery from Day 4 on the St. Lawrence River to get an idea of how rough it can get on Lake Ontario when the wind is whipping. He shot some incredible stuff that day that I think we were all blown away by.
On the final day I was tasked with covering tournament leader Robert Gee at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. This shot shows Robert Gee and Chris Johnston going toe to toe. Tensions were extremely high, which you could feel being in the camera boat just 10 or 20 yards away. It was a pretty epic battle between two great smallmouth fishermen.
To shoot photos of both of them the correct way, I basically positioned my camera boat in between them. Sandwiched in there tight, Chris went on the board first, boating this nice smallmouth he boat flipped on spinning gear.
But not much longer after, Robert Gee retaliated with his own chunk of a smallmouth.
This went on for hours. It was an epic battle, and I don’t think any of us will forget it. At one point these two were almost touching rub rails and reeling them in.
In the middle of this battle between Canadian Chris Johnston and Tennessean Robert Gee, a spectator boat rolled by and the folks in the boat yelled “Go Vols and Go USA!”

Robert raises his fist in the air with excitement before lining up on his next drift.

Smallmouth always make for some epic photos. The acrobatics of these fish never cease to amaze me. I think to myself a lot of times how in the world are they able to jump as high they do. In one of the final photos I took of the 2024 Elite Series season, I was able to capture this smallmouth jumping as high as the trolling motor.
And that will wrap it up for my favorite photos from on the water in 2024. At the end of a lot of my on the water galleries I like to include a running away shot as seen here to just signify the angler leaving going back to weigh in or the next spot. And I am going to do the same here. If you scrolled this far and read all the captions, thank you for checking it out. We’ll back before you know it in February, and I am pumped for another season on the Bassmaster Elite Series!

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