Redcrest Bass Fishing Champ. report
Redcrest is KVD’s last ride
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Redcrest Bass Fishing Championship is Kevin VanDam’s last championship.
VanDam, a fourtime Bassmaster Classic champion, earned seven Bassmaster Angler of the Year titles and one FLW Angler of the Year title. He qualified for 27 Classics and won 25 Bassmaster tournaments, making him the sport’s most accomplished competitor.
VanDam will retire from tournament fishing after the Redcrest to pursue other opportunities, including a new television program. He did not advance out of the preliminary qualifying rounds, much to the consternation of the many bloggers and podcasters covering the event. Podcasters like Brian Carter, host of The Bass Cast, said that interest in major tournaments evaporates when VanDam is not in contention.
“Based on who wins and who loses, you can tell what your numbers and feedback are going to be,” Carter said. “Dustin Connell and Jacob Wheeler are the faces of MLF since KVD left. They’re the ones driving it. You can interview either one of them, and your numbers will be huge.”
Major League Fishing honored VanDam on Friday at its annual Thunderbolt Ball. The ceremony featured a video that included clips spanning VanDam’s career. Major League Fishing also honored VanDam’s wife Sherrie VanDam, who is considered the First Lady of professional angler spouses.
Connell’s strategy
Dustin Connell, the 2021 Redcrest champion, is favored to win this year’s Redcrest among Major League Fishing experts due to his mastery of shoreline and offshore techniques.
Alternating between fishing the bank and offshore structure, Connell has maintained a consistent average that exhibits greater versatility than other anglers competing in the knockout round.
At 11 a.m., Connell was in 12th place with 14 pounds, 1 ounce. He trailed Takahiro Omori by 12 ounces. He spent part of the morning in the knockout round fishing a spinnerbait against the bank, an old lure that has fallen out of favor in recent years. This surprised observers who note that Connell is one of the best at fishing offshore structure with forward facing sonar.
At 4:45 p.m., Connell was in first place with 52-15, one ounce ahead of Gerald Spohrer. MLF staffers say Connell has saved plenty of water for championship round today, which will feature the top 10 from Saturday’s knockout round.
Sonar anxiety
The effect of forward facing sonar on tournament fishing is the hottest topic at the Redcrest Bass Fishing Championship.
Some bass fishing industry insiders and anglers believe that tournament organizations will be compelled to regulate the use of the technology in coming years.
Others are not so sure. Brad Wiegmann, a fishing guide on Beaver Lake and a multimedia fishing personality, said that genie isn’t going back in the bottle.
“About the only thing they’ll be able to do is limit the number of transducers you can use, but if they do that, the manufacturers will just make a transducer that does the job of several,” Wiegmann said. “If you think forward facing sonar is expensive now, just wait until that happens.”
Wiegmann said that organizations walk a fine line obsessing about forward facing sonar because most of the money flowing into the sport is coming from the electronics manufacturers. Wiegmann said the controversy is overblown because obsolete sonar provided many of the same capabilities.
“I used units 20 years ago that showed you a spoon dropping to a striper,” Wiegmann said. “You could watch the fish take the lure.”
HOF honors Martens
At a ceremony Saturday at the Jefferson County Convention Center in Birmingham,
Ala., the
Bass Fishing
Hall of Fame presented a check for $4,500 to Lesley
Martens, the widow of the late Aaron
Martens.
Kevin VanDam, who narrowly beat Martens at the 2005 Bassmaster Classic at Pittsburgh, presented the check. The funds came from a commemorative Aaron Martens fishing jersey that David Mullins wore during the 2022 Bassmaster Elite Series Tour to honor Martens after his death in 2021.