Even though there were glitches, the 2021 Bassmaster Elite Series season went off without a hitch.
The weather played a major factor as fog, storms and high water threw curveballs at many of the fisheries. The tournament team, led by first-year tournament director Lisa Talmadge, made all the right calls, anglers said. Despite some drastic conditions, the season was held in full and produced high drama.
A new TV contract with FOX Sports helped broaden the audience of bass fishing, a sport that was experiencing an influx of new anglers because of the pandemic. The inherent drama of big catches and big misses unfolded on Bassmaster LIVE to record viewers.
Seven of the nine winners were first-time Elite Series champions, starting with the opener on the St. Johns River. Bryan New started the season with a bang in winning his first Elite, repeating his feat from the previous year when he won in his first Basspro.com Open.
Jeff Gustafson went wire-to-wire to become the second Canadian to win an Elite. Bill Lowen, who has fished the series since its inception in 2006, broke through for his first title, and Jason Christie was victorious in his return to the series.
Wes Logan scored an emotional win on his home water, Caleb Kuphall rolled to a title by the second-greatest margin, Bryan Schmitt scored a last-second win on his favorite lake and Japanese angler Taku Ito had a monster day in a tight leaderboard.
In the Classic, Hank Cherry reached legendary status as he repeated, becoming the fourth back-to-back winner and the seventh angler with more than one championship.
Seth Feider completed a dream season with four Top 10s and no finishes worse than 29th to become the 26th man to win Bassmaster Angler of the Year, while Josh Stracner climbed over four other anglers in the final event to take Rookie of the Year.
All were certainly memorable, but Lee Livesay’s final day on Lake Fork was perhaps the most momentous of the season. With 42 pounds, 3 ounces, Livesay recorded the third-best day in B.A.S.S. history to win on his home lake with 112-5.
Let’s look back at the five-month, seven-day season that seemed short in comparison to 2020’s COVID-delayed season that ran nine months, three days.
AFTCO Bassmaster Elite at St. Johns
DATES: Feb. 11-14
WINNER: Bryan New 79 pounds, 7 ounces
BIG BAG: Patrick Walters 26-7
BIG BASS: Derek Hudnall 9-8, Brandon Palaniuk 9-8
OF NOTE: After a fog delay of three hours, Phoenix Boats owner Gary Clouse took the lead with 25-12 and held a 7-plus margin after Day 2 before his area depleted. New, a rookie who won his first Basspro.com Open the year before in Florida, stood 22nd after Day 1 but would climb with two 20-plus bags and head into the final day in seventh, 5-7 back of the lead. New’s bag of 26-4, the best of the day by almost 10 pounds, gave him the win by 9-9.
QUOTE: “I’ve always heard that slow and steady wins the race. That’s not always my style, but I can do it,” New said of the required bait presentation that helped him win in his Elite debut. “I have a pretty good start!”
Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Tennessee River
DATES: Feb. 25-28
WINNER: Jeff Gustafson 63-0
BIG BAG: Steve Kennedy 20-14
BIG BASS: Brock Mosley 6-10
OF NOTE: Rain hit the venue and there was a fog delay on Championship Sunday, which worried Gustafson. Gussy found a deep school in the canal connecting Fort Loudon and Tellico lakes.
QUOTE: “It was lucky, like super lucky,” Gustafson said of discovering the spot and having it hold out all four days. “More than anything, I feel grateful every day that I get to fish the Elite Series and how I got super lucky in the way everything happened.”
Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Pickwick Lake
DATES: May 20-23
WINNER: Bill Lowen 83-5
BIG BAG: Koby Kreiger 25-12
BIG BASS: Bill Lowen 8-5
OF NOTE: A storm delayed the event two days for an unusual Saturday start, when anglers were greeted to water levels as much as 6 feet higher. A consistent Lowen, the only angler with three limits topping 20 pounds, went into Championship Sunday tied for the lead, but an 8-5 mid-morning gave him his first victory in his 157th B.A.S.S. event.
QUOTE: “There were so many feelings going through my head. You could hear me screaming and hollering and that’s not me,” Lowen said. “But that’s 14 years of excitement built up for this day. It all came out.”
Dovetail Games Bassmaster Elite at Sabine River
DATES: April 8-11
WINNER: Jason Christie 43-15
BIG BAG: Brock Mosley 15-10
BIG BASS: Marc Frazier 6-6
OF NOTE: Long runs in opposite directions put the top two contenders some 150 miles apart as the crow flies. Mosley ran to near Houston while Christie followed the Sabine into Cow Creek. That’s where he did much of his damage, although he culled near check-in for a winning margin of 1-6. With his sixth-place finish, Seth Feider took the lead in the Angler of the Year race, one he never relinquished. With 40,107 attending over four days, Orange, Texas, took back the Elite attendance record that it’s seesawed with Waddington, N.Y.
QUOTE: “The first two days of the event it was super treacherous to run; there were logs, sandbars, stuff like that,” Christie said. “That’s what kept people from going up there.”
Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Lake Fork
DATES: April 22-25
WINNER: Lee Livesay 112-5
BIG BAG: Lee Livesay 42-3 (third all-time)
BIG BASS: Clifford Pirch 9-13
OF NOTE: Patrick Walters picked up where he left off in winning last November on Fork with 104-15, as he again earned a Century Belt with 102-5. But that was only good for second. Livesay outdueled him in the end, landing “baby whales” going 9-2, 7-6, 8-15, 8-14 and 7-14 for 42-3, the third heaviest five-fish limit in B.A.S.S. history.
QUOTE: “The final-day heroics — the hometown kid gets the prom queen and the 42-pound bag on topwater, I acted a little different,” Livesay said. “You could hear it in my emotions. I don’t ever yell and stuff like that. It came from the heart. I wanted to kill that tournament.”
Whataburger Bassmaster Elite at Neely Henry Lake
DATES: May 7-10
WINNER: Wes Logan 57-9
BIG BAG: Brock Mosley 16-15
BIG BASS: Paul Mueller 6-6
OF NOTE: Storms during practice delayed the start one day and created fluctuating water and sediment issues. Logan, who had fished Neely since he was 5, went in with an open mind, and he caught two in unusual fashion to take the lead heading into Championship Monday. With 14-1 on the day, he scored an emotional victory by 1-6.
QUOTE: “Truly at a loss for words,” Logan said. “The Good Lord was looking out for me like he always does. All I know is his timing is perfect. Unbelievably blessed in so many ways!”
Berkley Bassmaster Elite at Lake Guntersville
DATES: May 20-23
WINNER: Caleb Kuphall 85-14
BIG BAG: Caleb Kuphall 27-10
BIG BASS: Caleb Sumrall 7-6
OF NOTE: Kuphall bagged the biggest limit on Day 1 at 27-10 and never looked back, becoming the first pro from Wisconsin to win an Elite. With the big bass on the final two days of competition, Kuphall won by 17-14, the second most lopsided victory in the Elites.
QUOTE: “Catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world,” Kuphall said. “Having as much of a lead as I did, it was very nerve-racking, because you don’t want to blow it. You’re like, ‘I’ve got this lead and if I blow it, it’s a catastrophic train wreck.’ I kinda just rode that wave.”
Academy Sports + Outdoors Classic presented by Huk
DATES: June 11-13
WINNER: Hank Cherry 50-25
BIG BAG: Steve Kennedy 23-0
BIG BASS: Frank Talley 8-3
OF NOTE: Following a season trend, weather affected fishing as a storm delayed Day 2 by two hours, altering the bite and game plans. Hank Cherry led after bags of 20-4 and 17-10 and, with 13-1 on Championship Sunday, held off a hard charge by Matt Arey, who weighed 18-0 and lost the potential winning fish. Cherry is only the fourth repeat champion in 51 Classics and the seventh angler to win more than one title. The venues in Fort Worth and Lake Ray Roberts had the second-highest Classic attendance at 147,197.
QUOTE: “I feel bad for Matt, and I told him I’ve been where he was,” Cherry said. “I had the same thing happen to me and mine happened a lot closer to the boat. I’m not giving it back — not apologizing for it. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”
Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain
DATES: July 8-11
WINNER: Bryan Schmitt 78-5
BIG BAG: Buddy Gross 21-13
BIG BASS: Dale Hightower 5-15
OF NOTE: It was the closest event of the season as the Top 10 began Championship Sunday separated by 5-7. Schmitt called Champlain his favorite fishery, having won multiple tournaments there including a Basspro.com Open. He took the lead after two 20-pound bags but suffered a slower final day before a late 12-pounce cull gave him the title by half a pound.
QUOTE: “I pulled up to a buoy cable this afternoon right before time to come in and saw two fish on my (Garmin) LiveScope,” Schmitt said. “I threw that drop shot in there, felt the bite and didn’t really think it was a bass. But it turns out it was a bass — and without that fish I don’t win. When things like that are happening, man, it’s a special week.”
Farmers Insurance Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River
DATES: July 15-18
WINNER: Taku Ito 90-0
BIG BAG: Taku Ito 26-0
BIG BASS: Patrick Walters 6-5
OF NOTE: The long runs from the launch in Waddington to Lake Ontario paid off for the top anglers. Saying it was “Taku Time” and his boat was “smallmouth Disneyland,” the popular Japanese pro found a monster school in the lake. He climbed from 38th to 11th then finished his comeback from seventh with the biggest bag of the event, 26-0, on Championship Sunday. Ito eclipsed Justin Atkins and Clark Wendlandt, both of whom needed the tournament’s win-and-in Classic qualification, by 4 and 6 ounces, respectively, in the closest finish of the year.
QUOTE: “I love Waddington — I’m very, very happy,” Ito said. “When I was 8 years old, I won the (Bassin’s Black Bass with Hank Parker) video game and now, on the St. Lawrence River, I won the Bassmaster Elite Series. Big Bass. Big Stage. Big Dreams. Bassmaster!”