2025 Bassmaster Elite Season

From what I saw Trey had his area all to himself. There were plenty of fish there. I believe he caught most all his weigh fish while sitting in one reral small area. Rather not it will hold up for all 4 days or not, who knows. My guess is it will not. He can probably get another good limit from it tomorrow though. My guess is weights will go up a little tomorrow. My guess is will take 26 Lbs to make the Top 50 cut to fish on Sat. Only local guy doing well seems to be Przekurat. Downey is in 51st. He will need a good day tomorrow to stay in the top 50 to fish on Sat. after a decent finish last week Seth totally bombed today. He only ended up weighing 4

BassMaster live is showing coverage of the 4 anglers fishing tight together.
The 4 anglers are 1,2,3 and 10 on the leader board.
They are fishing a tight channel below a small dam.
Pretty cool to see the 4 anglers working together to fish a small area.

Joe Jarl wrote:

Scott Martin DQ’d from Okeechobee today for the same reason. Apparently getting unsolicited information.

I did some digging into this.

Apparently he asked someone at a landing if the water was clear or dirty. Bassmaster only permits the use of public information which is available to all anglers for a specific time frame prior to an event. Okeechobee is known for having large portions of clear and dirty water, with bass congregating in the areas of clear water.

He self reported his own violation, was DQd for the event, and was also fined. I think it’s a little ridiculous for such a minor violation, but that’s what the rules currently state.

Props to him for taking the high moral ground. It’s technically his home lake and he probably would have done pretty well. I’m guessing very few anglers would have done what he did.

Wow what a day 2.
BP skyrockets into 1st place with 58 lbs and on oz.
After catching back to back 9+ lbers and a 7.5 lber he gives a couple of other anglers fishing the canal a crank bait he caught the big fish on.
Greg DiPalma left that area and still put together a good bag.
Minnesotan Bob Downey is inside the top 10.

Watching today I see they weren’t able to upgrade over Zona in the studio.

Dutchboy wrote:

Watching today I see they weren’t able to upgrade over Zona in the studio.

Yeah, Zona not being there is a big loss to the broadcast. But at least the action has been great!

Wow BP wins and had enough weight after 3 days that he didn’t even need to fish today.
Some pretty big fish lost on the last day. Not sure if it would have changed the outcome if they were not lost but that hurts when you don’t fish clean through out the whole tourney.

Fishing for the Bassmaster Classic starts on Friday.
Winds are going to be 15 to 20 with gusts over 30.
Things could be interesting if they decide to fish that day.
Then there is what do they do if they have to postpone or cancel.

Full draw wrote:

Winds are going to be 15 to 20 with gusts over 30.

I believe the winds have been rather strong for the practice days as well. The current forecast for Fri, Sat, Sunday are all rather high winds. Sunday slightly less. Tomorrow is the worst 20-25 with gust over 40. That will make the fishing tough and challenging for sure. If they let them fish.

I know it’s early into the tourney, but it seems like this event is really going to be a grinder type of an event. Those fishermen who can stay focused the best and not spin out if things don’t go their way will be the ones on top at the end of this thing. Tough fishing conditions make some struggle and others excel.

The last day the pre fished the had strong NW winds. Now on day 1 they have strong SE winds. So any key areas they found on the last pre fishing day are getting pounded today.

Fothergill has put together a nice day one bag! Not sure if a lot of them are struggling or just not keeping up their basstrakk.

Joe Jarl wrote:

Not sure if a lot of them are struggling or just not keeping up their basstrakk.

Could be either but my guess is Struggling.

Looks like a couple of the new young guns on top at this time. A lot seem to still be struggling

Wow Easton sitting in 3rd after day 1.
Didn’t Trey win on Lake Fork last year? I think he is a Texas native if I am not mistaken.
I would expect him and Livesay to do very well in this tourney.

Looks like Fothergill is going to go into the final day with a significant lead. Fothergill is a proven closer.

Uh, you guys do realize that Fothergill’s first two elite events were complete train wrecks, right? I think he finished at or near the literal bottom in both of them.

I’m certainly glad he seems to have turned it around, at least temporarily. But I wouldn’t call it a complete turnaround just yet. Let’s not put the cart before the horse here.

Yeah he’s had a rough start to the elites, but even with that he’s proven over the last couple years that he can compete all over the country. Him in the lead is not all that shocking.

It is an hour from the lake to the arena they are having their weigh in at.
Any guesses on how those fish are getting hauled back to the lake?
Talk about being rough on prespawn fish.

All for the glory of holding those things up on stage in front of a camera.

Beyond shameful

I can think of things in this world more shameful than that.

chuck100 wrote:

I can think of things in this world more shameful than that.

yep!!!!!!!

My guess is those fish are treated a lot better than at most small local derbies.

Go Fothergill!! Can’t imagine the pressure he’s feeling this morning!

Gim. It’s what people want. Look at the “weigh ins” that catch and release has gotten MLF. Completely empty seats and crap viewership. You can not like it, that’s fine, but calling it shameful is a bit much. They have holding tanks, oxygenators and release the fish immediately after. The fish are fine. If you want to see shameful look at the walleye tours where all the fish are dead.

In real news, Minnesota might be able to call one of their own a Classic Champion!

You aren’t going to convince me that hauling bass during their spawning season to a destination an hour or more away after being in a live well for hours on end is not detrimental. It’s just not possible. Sure, BASS is the gold standard for live weigh in formats, but we can do better, and we should. What’s more important here, the health of the fish, or posing on stage with it for a crowd?

There are ways around this.

And just for the record I agree there are a lot of items more shameful in life. Clearly. But that is not what this thread is about.

Just an FYI, most walleye tournaments nowadays are CPR format. If the walleye crowd can do it, anyone can.

Last night Bass did an interview with a Texas parks and Rec official. They use 2 of there stilling trucks to haul the fish back to the lake. Then Bass has a release boat that drops them back in the lake.
Very few people know where they are released to prevent that knowledge getting to the competing anglers.

gim wrote:

You aren’t going to convince me that hauling <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass during their spawning season to a destination an hour or more away after being in a live well for hours on end is not detrimental. It’s just not possible. Sure, <em class=”ido-tag-em”>BASS is the gold standard for live weigh in formats, but we can do better, and we should. What’s more important here, the health of the fish, or posing on stage with it for a crowd?

There are ways around this.

And just for the record I agree there are a lot of items more shameful in life. Clearly. But that is not what this thread is about.

Just an FYI, most <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye tournaments nowadays are CPR format. If the <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye crowd can do it, anyone can.

Money talks Gim. You should know that. They pretty much drives the fishing market so they are going to do what brings in the most money. Especially when it’s getting PEOPLE TO COME TO TOURNAMENTS to see sponsor products.

I won’t even open up the cheating aspect of CWR tournaments.

Easton just landed an 8+ pounder according to bass track and that “should” be enough to wrap this one up

Looks like Fothergill just put this one away.
His 5th fish for the day is an 8 lber on Bass Track and he has a 10.5 lb lead.

He should definitely win with that 8 pounder unless the guy in second has his weight significantly off.

A guy from Minnesota winning the Bassmaster classic in Texas? The southerners aren’t gonna like this.