While I can’t say “I knew it,” I can certainly shout “Never give up” after rallying in the final events to win Rapala Bassmaster Fantasy Fishing among the B.A.S.S. crew.
The Sooch’s comeback was fueled by selecting winners in four of the final five events, which helped make up a deficit of more than 500 points. I finished 726th overall — not that impressive until you consider it was out of about 40,000 players. Although I was some 1,000 points behind overall winner Thunderstruck, my total of 10,987 gave me the nod over the folks who oversee the world’s biggest bass fishing organization.
It would have been nicer to be eligible for some of Rapala’s $90,000 in cash and prizes, which include a $21,000 grand prize and $4,500 to win an individual event. Kudos to all the winners. I didn’t do well enough to qualify for a prize pack, but if I had, I’m an employee of B.A.S.S. and rules state that therein, blah, blah, blah, I don’t get none.
So, I’m relegated to bragging rights. I’ll take it, even though I’m not usually one to toot my own horn (unless no one’s watching). It was asked that I write this column as the real king of Fantasy Fishing among the Bassmaster crew. And if you dig into the numbers of both fantasy games, it could be said I had the best overall season of the bunch.
Early in the Elite season, Bassmaster LIVE analyst Mark Zona goaded Ronnie Moore, who does TV spots on Fantasy Fishing as well as Mercury Bassmaster Drain the Lake Challenge, to proclaim he was the king of Fantasy Fishing on the show. All in good fun, Moore did so during his fantasy segments at the Screen of Knowledge … all season long.
His reports included things like the most selected anglers, the best teams and how his selections were faring. While Ronnie was down on his luck early, which Zona loved pointing out, LIVE host Tommy Sanders was the talk of the town.
I had gotten off to a hot start (for me anyway), picking anglers from the five buckets determined by Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings. It was certainly nice selecting St. Johns winner John Crews in the first event, and all five picks at the Harris Chain made the two-day cut. At the Classic, Group D and E picks Bryan New (ninth) and Justin Hamner (fourth), respectively, salvaged my event, so I stood in the 99th percentile of players and led the B.A.S.S. group, Micropterus Publicatus.
That was before the big fall. At Santee Cooper Lakes, my sad, sad team included Classic champ Jason Christie, who went first-to-almost-worst 93rd. What?? Of course, he goes and wins the next event at Chickamauga, where my picks of expected hammers hammered my total to a season-low 840. Egad, that’s bad!
Sanders, meanwhile, made a big move. His five Santee Cooper selections all placed in the top 15, giving him the No. 1 team in the nation by 20 points. Drew Cook won wire-to-wire (20 bonus points, five for each day leading) and Luke Palmer was fourth with big bag (40 points), helping Sanders score 1,392 points, which turned his 59-point deficit to me into a 457-point lead.
But it’s a long season Sanders. (Strong words now. At that time, I thought I was done.)
Despite cashing in on the no-brainer pick of Lee Livesay to win at Lake Fork, the Sooch was reeling. With four events left, Sanders had 6,790 points, 548 more than me. Time for the rally cap, and rally shirt, shoes and socks. That’s a lot to make up, so let’s get to work.
Selecting winner Brandon Lester at Pickwick was a windfall with 55 bonus points added to his 300 for taking first, and Jacob Foutz (fourth) and Justin Atkins (eighth) helped provide my highest total of the year at 1,292. Gaining 116 on Sanders was hardly noticed, but down the stretch we come.
All the usual suspects — Cory Johnston (second), Austin Felix (third), Taku Ito (ninth) and Clark Wendlandt (11th) — doing well at St. Lawrence allowed for a 1,216-point event and another 93 points picked up on tsan, Sanders’ Fantasy Fishing team name.
Ok, full disclosure. I contacted Austin Felix a couple of weeks before the Lake Oahe event for an article on anglers who needed to excel in the final two events to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic, and the following is one of Felix’s quotes in the story.
“I feel like I should excel at Oahe. If I don’t, I’ll be pretty disappointed in myself,” Felix said. “I feel like I have an advantage over most the field because I’ve been, and it’s smallmouth. I’m going to try to win Oahe, that’s the goal.”
Point taken. With that insider knowledge, which was available to all players, I did pick Felix from Group C, and his victory and 50 bonus points helped make up 170 points on Sanders. I still had no inkling I’d have a shot to win the Bassmaster group, still being down close to 200.
The coup de grace was another Group C pick, Bryan Schmitt, winning at the Mississippi River. It was Schmitt and two others inside the Top 47 cut that gave me a modest 1,048 for the event. However, Sanders bombed. With one angler making the cut, Sanders added only 802 to his total, and that 246-point differential put me on top with 10,987 points. Sanders was second in our group with 10,920, and digital VP Jim Sexton (who assigned this story and gave me an extra $5 to mention his name) was third with 10,796.
Ronnie Moore, remember him, finished a distant fifth with 10,581 points, and his overall ranking in Fantasy Fishing was 3,426th. That was in the 90.8 percentile, still an A but just barely. Ronnie hosts a group appropriately named Beat Ronnie Moore — I was 196th among the 2,504 players while he was 688th.
All season, Ronnie and Kyle Jessie offered Fantasy Fishing thoughts on a podcast, breaking down who should fare well at each fishery before making picks. I kind of get their oft-used reasoning that an angler picked by 30, 40 or 50% of the players turns them off. They argue you can gain ground with a sneakier pick from that bucket.
I believe that goes both ways — you can lose ground on the field. Picking chalk can backfire. I was among many who got burned with Cliff Prince not continuing his great run at home fishery St. Johns. Yet I find it so hard not to pick home-lake favorites like Buddy Gross at Chick, the Johnstons at the St. Lawrence or Livesay at Fork
That burned Ronnie this year. How can ya not pick the Lee Livesay at Fork? “Oh, he was selected by the majority of the players.” So what? I get that reasoning at times, but it fails me in that scenario. And oh yeah, Ronnie heard about that one.
Fantasy Fishing is a hard game, Ronnie repeatedly says, and I agree. Drain the Lake is quite possibly harder. That’s where Moore said he would excel, and he did. Before the season, Moore challenged Sanders and me to pick our eight anglers for each event. Remember, in Drain the Lake, you can’t use the same angler twice.
So I did a little spreadsheet and put down the three or four anglers who I thought could win at each fishery on the schedule and back-filled in the rest. I did pretty well.
Moore not only won Drain the Lake in the B.A.S.S. group by 42 points over Jessie, but he finished 89th overall, and he’ll tell you he could have beaten the entire field if not for blah, blah, blah. It was impressive, finishing in the 99.6 percentile with 18,336 points, especially on picks done in January.
The Sooch was fourth in the Drain the Lake B.A.S.S. group, scoring 17,704 to finish in the 97.8 percentile at 455th overall. I had winners on my Drain the Lake team in Crews, Christie (in the Classic, which gave triple points), Fork and Oahe.
Ronnie also had four winners, and he lays claim that his Drain the Lake season was more impressive than my Fantasy Fishing results. I agree. It was. My argument stands that I did better overall when you combine both games. My percentile for beating other players, 98 in FF and 97.8 in DTL (195.8) is better than Ronnie’s 90.8 in FF and 99.6 in DTL (190.4).
Ronnie and I both appreciated that former B.A.S.S. CEO Bruce Akin, a stalwart fantasy player, noticed our accomplishments, however, minor they might really be.
“The TV boys swept the Fantasy Fishing! Feel like I need to come over and hand off the trophies,” Akin texted the LIVE crew.
Wait, what? There’s trophies?! Bring it.
Finally, I do want to brag on my tiebreaker weights. At each event, players can guess the winning weight. For the first time, there were three Elite events won with more than 100 pounds. Before the season, Ronnie actually gave me the story idea that the Elites could belt out big weights in 2022.
Sure, I was pushing, hoping, praying for some Century Belts, and there were eight on the year. My 102-12 guess for Harris Chain missed by some 25 pounds — Ronnie’s 118-2 didn’t come into fruition either as Gross only needed 77-11. For Santee Cooper, I was close, guessing 101-12, a couple pounds under Cook’s winning 105-5.
After talking with Livesay about belting out 100 (more insider knowledge), I went a little crazy at Fork, saying 122-0 would take it while Livesay only needed 113-11. (Ronnie’s guess was 123-4.) And at the St. Lawrence River, I guessed 100-8, which second-place Cory Johnston was 3 ounces from achieving and winner Jay Przekurat topped with 102-9 in what was the Elites’ biggest year ever.
The Fantasy Fishing and Drain the Lake games are fun and provide a lot of water cooler talk. And I’ll predict one more thing: Ronnie Moore will need to answer my claim of Fantasy supremacy. It will be something akin to someone having to respond to “shave and a haircut …” or “Sweeeeet Caroline …”
Just wait for the ba, ba, ba, it’ll come.