ALEXANDER CITY, Ala. — Lake Martin was the last place in the world Bobby Bakewell thought he would clinch a Bassmaster Classic berth, but it turns out it was the perfect place.
The Orlando, Fla., native landed 13 pounds, 12 ounces on the final day of the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Lake Martin presented by SEVIIN to earn a comeback victory with a three-day tally of 35-15. He anchored his bag with a 4-10 largemouth, which earned Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Tournament honors.
With the win, Bakewell punched his ticket to the 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic at Lake Ray Roberts in March — a lifelong dream come true.
“I’m going to have to make room on the mantle,” he said. “That Classic berth is so sweet. It hasn’t really set in yet. After practice, I was ready to get done with this one. Now, I’m really happy we are done with this one.”
Alabama’s Josh Butler finished second with a total of 34-2 while Texas pro Dakota Ebare finished third with 32-13. Will Davis Jr, who led the first two days of the tournament, fell to fourth on the final day with a total of 32-11.
Admittedly, Bakewell is not a buzzbait guy, but it was the presentation that carried him through the week, particularly the final two days. When he arrived at Lake Martin, he unwrapped a ½-ounce Greenfish Tackle Toad Toter buzzbait sent to him by 44 Tackle, not knowing it would be the bait that would change his life.
He used several different trailers, including a Bruiser Baits Crazy Craw and then a Zoom Horny Toad when he ran out of Crazy Craws. Some form of white or silver was his best producing color. Using a 7-foot, 3-inch medium-heavy baitcaster and an 8:5:1 reel spooled with 40-pound-test Yo-Zuri braid, Bakewell used a steady retrieve.
Bakewell reeled that buzzbait along shallow seawalls in 3 feet of water and less, where he could see the bottom. The bottom also had to have rock — it couldn’t be clean clay. As the sun rose, the shade line became even more important.
“I started running it and I started getting bit, so it worked out,” he said. “I’m not a buzzbait guy. It was fun, though. I threw a Whopper Plopper and I just didn’t get many bites, and the buzzbait, I got more bites with it. So, I just ran with it. Ninety eight percent of the bass I caught bit within three cranks of the reel handle.”
A ½-ounce Bakewell Custom Jig with a Bruiser Baits Crazy Craw produced a couple of good bass as well as a Bruiser Baits Rad Shad.
Practice was not particularly kind to Bakewell, but one buzzbait bite toward the end of practice gave him a starting spot for Day 1. He mixed in the buzzbait and then some offshore brushpiles to catch 9-14. The shallow bite was much better on Day 2, as he received seven buzzbait bites in the span of an hour.
To start Day 3, Bakewell fished an area he had never fished before that he had found looking at his maps at 10:30 the night before. He landed a couple of keepers to start the day, but a cast next to a dock produced the big largemouth, which turned out to be the highlight of Bassmaster LIVE coverage.
“I was going through a little bit of a dry spell and started thinking that I should have gone to water I had fished before. Then I hooked that giant,” he said. “It was crazy. I was trying to decide whether to let the boat ram the dock or go for the bass, and I chose the bass. I’m so glad I did, too.”
After filling out his limit, Bakewell suffered a long lull, but in the last hour he caught two bass over 2 pounds along a shade line to bolster his bag.
“I kind of knew I didn’t have enough,” he said. “I had almost admitted defeat. I hadn’t got bit in hours. I got to a shady pocket, and I picked up the buzzbait and a 2.80 ate it. A pound here is huge. I ran to another shady pocket across the way and caught a 2-pound spot that culled out a 1.60. It was little decisions like that that were the difference this week.”
With bags of 9-7, 14-5 and 10-6, Butler wrapped up the tournament in second, just over a pound short of his second Opens victory of the season. While he caught plenty of bass on the final day, the Hayden, Ala., native couldn’t get a 3-pounder to eat.
“It is a little bittersweet. You don’t have a lot of opportunities to (win),” the Logan Martin champion said. “You have to have a 4½-pounder here. I was lacking that today. I had a 2½-pounder, and I started really well early. I thought I could catch some quality bass this afternoon flipping boat docks. It just didn’t happen. I caught 30 fish flipping docks, and they were all rats.”
Most of the tournament Douglas tossed a translucent Whopper Plopper around deeper seawalls that had at least 5 feet of water next to them, as well as boat ramps and the corners of boat docks.
“That was definitely a morning deal,” he explained. “That seemed to last the first three hours of the morning. After 9:30, it pretty much died. Then I locked a jig in my hand, occasionally a Senko, and fished as many docks as I could to get it in front of a big one. Yesterday I did that more than once.”
Ebare, meanwhile, landed bags of 12-7, 9-1 and 11-5 to finish his season with his second Top 10 of the season. The Brookeland, Texas, pro adjusted his strategy every day of the tournament. The first morning, the topwater bite was crucial for Ebare, but on Days 2 and 3 he needed to adjust after the morning bite dissipated.
“Points seemed to be key, no matter what you were doing,” he said. “Whether you were fishing out deep or in 6 inches of water, points were key. Some had wood mixed in, others had brush and rockpiles. The bass were definitely concentrating on those points.”
His two best bass on Day 3 came off of a rockpile. He caught the first one using a glidebait before landing his biggest bass of the day with a jig paired with a Strike King Scounbug. A topwater bait, a Strike King Baby Z-Too and 2.5 Rage Swimmer were also key baits.
The Tackle Warehouse Elite Qualifiers points race was finalized at the end of the Day 3 weigh-in. Easton Fothergill earned the title with 1,606 points while Idaho pro Cody Meyer finished second with 1,591 points and Alabama’s Tucker Smith finished third with 1,516 points. Georgia’s Paul Marks and Emil Wagner finished fourth and fifth with 1,512 points and 1,505 points respectively. California’s Andrew Loberg finished sixth with 1,495 points followed by Ebare in seventh with 1,494 points, Arkansas’ Beau Browning in eighth with 1,466 points and Canadian Evan Kung in ninth with 1,463 points.
Lake Martin-Tallapoosa Country Tourism and Alexander City hosted the event.
