Now that the Bassmaster Elite Series season is over, I’ve turned my attention to a diverse offseason schedule. It’s been a busy year, so I definitely need some relaxation, but I also have some work to do.
Like a lot of anglers, I look forward to the fall hunting season. My dad, grandpa and I will spend a lot of time hunting deer in central North Carolina.
It’s a mix of archery, rifles and muzzle loaders, but I really enjoy the muzzle loader. When you shoot, you can’t tell if you hit the deer for a few seconds because there’s so much smoke. This style of hunting has an old-school feel to it — like you’re back in the 1800s shooting a musket.
I also attend as many University of Tennessee football games as I can. I’ll miss the Tennessee-Georgia game because I’ll be traveling to New York for the first Bassmaster Elite Qualifier event at Lake Champlain, but I’ll make the rest of the home games.
I chose to fish the EQs because I finished a few spots out of the 2026 Bassmaster Classic cut. I’m qualified to fish the Elites again next year, but also making the Classic is a big part of my goals.
Each one of the EQs offers a Classic spot, as long as you fish all three. I’m committed to the schedule, and I’m strictly fishing for hardware. Winning means I get to fish next year’s Classic on the Tennessee River, so that is my mission.
This will be a “no points” scenario for me, so I won’t be looking for limit spots. I’ll be fishing for big fish, and I don’t care if I have to run 200 miles to win.
Honestly, even though there will be a lot on the line at the EQ events, this will be fun for me. The last two Elite tournaments of the year were very stressful, so I’m looking forward to just focusing on the win.
That’s how I grew up fishing — doing whatever I had to do to win and not just to make up points. I guess you can say I’m getting back to my roots for the EQs, and I’m looking forward to it.
I really like the offseason because I stay hyper-focused on bass fishing for eight months of the year. Besides the EQs, I’ll be doing a lot of trout, walleye and crappie fishing. I like fishing for other species because learning where other fish live and how they behave makes me a better bass fisherman.
After the EQs are done, I’ll probably be taking my LiveScope off the boat. I feel like I haven’t really done that for five or six years. I’ve always been able to look down at it, but with forward-facing sonar being allowed at only five of our Elite events next year, I have to get used to the way I fished before this technology.
I’m a young guy. I like technology. In school, all my books were on a computer. Technology just makes sense to me, and it’s the same on my bass boat. I’ll have to prepare myself for the adjustment.
The biggest thing I’ll be working on is making sure my GPS heading sensor is perfectly straight. This is critical because if you find something, you want to be able to make the perfect cast.
That’s gonna be a key to success on next year’s Elite Series. I want to be ready to compete — just like I did before this technology.
