Hey Hall of Fame family,
Good evening to everyone reading this. Paul and I recently got home from a little trip down to Oklahoma for the 2024 Bassmaster Classic at Grand Lake O' the Cherokees. Let me preface this by saying this event was the single coolest sporting event I've ever been to, including NFL, NCAA, MLB, and NHL games. It was incredibly well put together, professional, entertaining, and it truly felt like the Super Bowl of bass fishing. Paul and I booked our campsite months ago, and the anticipation built and finally peaked the night prior to leaving. I may have gotten 2 full hours of sleep. You'll read Paul's account of our weekend in next week's blog post, but I wanted to share it from my point of view. This blog post is not a recap of the tournament, I'm just simply sharing the amazing experience I had while attending this event.
Paul, my cousin Jordan, and I left my house at 5 am on the Friday morning of the Bassmaster Classic. Our plan was to hit a trout fishing spot on the drive down to our campsite in Oklahoma, and fish there for the day before finishing the drive. We've been talking about fishing this location for a few years, but never had due to it's distance from Saint Louis. Friday was the day, though, and we arrived at the park office for our trout tags at 9:30 am. By 10:15, we were fishing, and by 10:30, Paul had caught the first fish near the park's hatchery. We fished and explored the area around the hatchery for a couple hours, and Paul and I each had a fish on our stringer. This area had fish, but there were a lot of other people fishing, leaving little room for the three of us. We then worked our way downstream, not having much luck. It was until we reached the park office again where we started catching fish. I quickly filled my limit of trout from one hole, and Paul and Jordan caught a couple fish here each, as well. By this time, I was strictly fishing catch and release, while Jordan and Paul still had room on their stringers. We broke for lunch at a less than good restaurant at the park, but we were starving. We found fish again after lunch in the fly fishing area, and by the time we had fished our way to the end of the park, we had caught a total of 14 trout all together. Not terrible for a few bass guys fly fishing. We cleaned the few trout we kept while still streamside before finishing the 2 hour drive to our campsite.
By 9:30 pm, we arrived at our campsite on the Neosho River at Cherokee State Park, just below the dam. We pitched our hammocks and tents in the dark, the area illuminated by the high-beams of my Jeep. Our first night was probably the windiest, and second coldest night I've ever been camping. Wind gusts made it difficult to set up a tent or hammock, and we did not make a fire due to the strong winds. Keep in mind, it was 35 degrees outside, and it was dropping into the 20s. We set up as quickly as we could, cooked our fresh trout filets, (SOOOOOOO delicious by the way, probably the best thing we ate), checked out the day's tournament highlights and leaderboard, enjoyed a couple strong sips of whiskey, and hunkered down for what would be the long, frigid night ahead. Despite exhaustion, it took me forever to fall asleep due to the cold. The wind was so strong while in my hammock, it felt like turbulence on an airplane. In the middle of the night, Paul bailed from his hammock to his tent in search of warmth, but he said it was in vain.
We survived the night, but were no warmer by the time we woke up on Saturday. We were rudely awoken by a loud siren at around 6 am or so, right when I was sleeping somewhat soundly. They were letting water out of the dam. What a nice wake up call! We lumbered out of our hammocks by 7 or 7:30 and started cooking breakfast: bacon and eggs. We weren't in a hurry to get anywhere, as the Classic Expo didn't start until 10 or 11 and we were too cold to fish anywhere at the moment. We left the campsite by 9 am, and decided to fish on Grand Lake at a marina near the dam. We were fishing from the bank, but we were still excited to fish Grand. When we got there, we saw pro Austin Felix fishing dock slips at the marina. He was throwing a white reaction bait, I think a bladed jig or a swimbait. I couldn't really see. Jordan and I saw him catch a tiny bass before releasing it and taking off from the marina. After he left, we started fishing the same area he was just in. Paul and Jordan each caught bass in the back corner of the marina near a drainage pipe, which was cool to see after a pro just fished that same spot. I wasn't as lucky to catch a bass.
After fishing in the morning, we headed for Tulsa for the Classic Expo. This event was unlike anything I've ever seen or been to. The Cox Business Center in Tulsa is a huge venue, and every inch of it was covered with something bass fishing related. Booth and vendors for everything, lures, rods, reels, apparel (we'll be there with a booth one day), boats, marine batteries, kayaks, etc., every brand you can think of. Tons of people everywhere, pros everywhere, this event dwarfs any other fishing expo I've attended. Paul, Jordan, and I walked past Bill Dance, KVD, and Randy Howell, and met Mike Iaconelli, Rick Clunn, and Jordan Lee. I got a free spook from the Booyah booth signed by all of the pros we met! It took us hours to get through the entire Expo. There was food trucks outside, as well as games and other things to check out along the street. The Expo had tons of giveaways and prizes to win, but we didn't win. Bass Pro Shops was a major sponsor of the Classic, and they had a very large booth in the main section of the venue. By the end, Paul bought a reel, and we all bought a 6th Sense travel rod. We got all the free giveaways, like a lure or spool of line, but mostly stickers or coozies. We all also bought a Bassmaster shirt. The entire expo was so cool, I can't wait to go to another!
After the Expo, we went to the Saturday night weigh in at the BOK Center. It was really cool to see the entire field weigh their fish, and we knew a good majority of the anglers competing. A 17 year old kid caught the big bass of the tournament on Saturday, 6 lbs. 12 oz! We could see how big that fish was from up in the rafters where we were sitting. We watched our favorites, like Palanuik, Robertson, and Christie weigh in, as well as seeing Justin Hamner extend his lead to 5+ lbs going into Championship Sunday. The weigh-in had a lot of ads and commercials before it started, but none during. It was well paced and entertaining throughout.
Following the weigh-in, we grabbed some Oklahoma style burgers at a place called Society (these were really good, too). After dinner, we headed back to the campsite for the night. Jordan checked in early, but because it was about 20 degrees warmer than the night before, Paul and I decided to fish the Neosho River next to our camp. We found the river to be shallow, and seemingly void of life after fishing for about 45 minutes. He and I checked out a few more tournament highlights while talking about how much fun our day was. Afterwards, we called it a night, and hit the hammocks. It still got cold on Saturday night, but not nearly as bad as Friday. I managed to actually get some sleep. However, I didn't like going to bed comfortable, but waking up really cold.
On Sunday morning, we went to the launch on Grand Lake to see the final takeoff. It was really crowded, especially for 7 am on a cold, windy morning at the boat ramp. The National Anthem was sang, prayers were said, and the remaining top 25 field was introduced as they took off from the dock. I got chills watching them idle from the ramp and then blasting off out onto the lake. On the final day, there was a strong change in wind direction, and the pros seemed unsure of how that would affect the fishing.
We then left to go pack up camp before trying to catch some fish of our own. On our way back to camp, we saw pro Brandon Card fishing while driving across the lake. There was a small convoy of boats watching him, and we joined the group of cars onlooking from the bridge. We watched him fish for about 10 minutes, before he left for another location. It was so cool to see all these pros fishing the same water as us. After packing and cleaning up the camp, we fished another spot on Grand near another dam. Paul and Jordan both caught bass on a jerkbait here. After a couple hours, yours truly was still skunked on bass, and we wanted to try somewhere else. We headed for Tulsa, with eyes set on the Arkansas River.
This was kind of a terrible idea, though. The river through Tulsa is extremely urban. We encountered muddy water, homeless encampments, police officers, graffiti, trash, sewer pipes, and needles. Not the best spots, to say the least. You can guess how many we caught...
After that fail, we headed back to the BOK Center for the final Championship Sunday weigh-in. We had much better seats this time, as we got there a couple hours before the weigh-in started. We were stoked to see the final results, even though we kinda knew Hamner had a good chance to win from following BASS and social media throughout the day. By 1, we knew Hamner had a big one in his livewell. We saw college anglers weigh their fish from a tournament at nearby Keystone Lake before the Classic anglers. We were all so stoked to see this thing shake out.
KVD, Johnny Morris, Rick Clunn, and others had some words to say prior to the weigh-in, but they then quickly got started. The lead changed a couple times prior to the final 6, but Jay Przekurat held it down until Cody Huff took it right before Hamner time. Justin Hamner's bag easily landed him in first place as the 2024 Bassmaster Classic Champion! Confetti fell, smoke blew out, and the crowd went nuts. He will be in the record books, and his life changed forever. Congrats to Justin, a truly dominating, wall to wall performance! Us at Hall of Fame Outdoor Company had a great time watching you fish, and we can't wait to see where your career takes you!
We headed home after the weigh-in, and arrived safely in the wee hours of the morning, all still a little high from the weekend adrenalin rush. I hope you enjoyed reading my experience, it truly was a great one that I will not soon forget! What an incredible time.
Tight lines!
Erik Hoffman, Hall of Fame Outdoor Co