ALEXANDER CITY, Ala. — A little over a year ago, Easton Fothergill sat in a hospital room in Birmingham, Ala., with an infected mass in his brain, wondering if he would ever be able to bass fish again. Now, he has achieved a lifelong goal of becoming a Bassmaster Elite Series angler.
The Grand Rapids, Minn., native claimed the Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers Angler of the Year title with a total of 1,606 points, earning himself an invite to the 2025 Elite Series roster and a $45,000 check. His remarkable season included two victories at Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma and his home fishery of Leech Lake, as well as five more Top 25 finishes in Opens competition.
“It was super cool how it unfolded. I really didn’t think I was capable of this, but here we are,” Fothergill said. “(Opens pro Cody Meyer) came to my hometown of Grand Rapids, Minn., when I was in eighth grade, and I went up to him and met him. I told Cody that, and he didn’t remember it, but it was a really big moment for me. He is someone I have always looked up to, and for me and him to go neck and neck was a super cool experience.”
That doesn’t include his 16th place finish at the 2024 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Jockey Outdoors.
Fothergill earned paid entries into the 2024 St. Croix Bassmaster Opens presented by SEVIIN by winning the 2023 College Classic Bracket presented by Lew’s, a tournament he wasn’t even sure he would be able to fish after he underwent emergency brain surgery to remove the infected mass a month before the tournament.
Representing the University of Montevallo, he became the first College Classic Bracket champion to advance to the Elite Series in their first Opens season.
“The craziest part is, without winning the Classic Bracket, I wouldn’t have even been here this year,” he said. “Then to come here and have the year that I had, it is a crazy feeling.”
He entered the final event of the season at Lake Martin with a slim lead over longtime pro Meyer, who also happens to be one of Fothergill’s mentors. While Meyer made the final day, Fothergill finished the season with a 17th place finish, earning enough points to wrap up the title on Day 2.
“These were the first tournament days of the whole season where I really felt nerves. I was sitting there shaking going out because I wanted to win Angler of the Year so bad,” he said. “It wasn’t a good feeling trying to accomplish my job on the water.”
Fothergill has certainly learned a lot as an Opens angler, but recognizing when to value points over victories went a long way in determining his fate.
“I have grown leaps and bounds as an angler,” he said. “Just changing my mindset of trying to win every tournament to sometimes, ‘Hey, I have to grab a limit just to grab some points.’ You have to play the long game in the Opens; I learned that pretty quickly at Santee Cooper. I bombed Day 2 of that tournament because I had a really good Day 1 and some big bed fish. I went all in on those bed fish to try and get a Top 10 and it really bit me.
“But I learned from my mistake there and made sure I had limit holes at each tournament.”
Fothergill opened the season at Lake Okeechobee with a certain amount of imposter syndrome. “Am I good enough to be here?” was a thought that often crossed his mind as he looked around and saw anglers like Meyer, Dakota Ebare, Randall Tharp and Scott Martin. He notched a seventh-place finish at Okeechobee, which gave him some much-needed confidence.
“I felt like the complete underdog at Okeechobee,” Fothergill explained. “Feeling like I maybe didn’t belong and wasn’t ready yet. To have that good finish there changed my mind set, and I felt like, ‘OK, I might be able to do this.’”
But even with that finish and then an 11th at Lake Ouachita, those thoughts continued to linger, especially after his 83rd-place finish at Santee Cooper Lakes. The next event at Logan Martin, however, turned the season around as Fothergill scrapped his initial game plan and followed his instincts to notch a 25th-place finish. He then won at Lake Eufaula, again giving him a sign he can hang with the rest of the field.
“I honestly don’t know if that feeling has totally disappeared, but my win at Eufaula was when I finally thought I was good enough to compete at this level,” he said. “I thought those first couple tournaments might have been a fluke. I kept having good finishes and it didn’t feel real.
“But Eufaula was really not in my comfort zone with how muddy it was and how it laid out,” he continued. “To have that good of a finish, that is really what showed me I’m versatile enough to compete and maybe make things happen.”
Following his instincts the rest of the season, he said, is largely the reason he can call himself an Elite Series qualifier.
“Moments like Logan Martin where I made a complete game plan change on Day 2 and threw everything out the window to do something new, it was stuff like that all season that made the difference,” he said. “It was just gut feelings. Trusting that all year long has led me to this.”
Now, Fothergill will set his sights on the 2025 Elite schedule, something he has dreamed about since he was a child.
“Just to spend every day on the water with all of the guys I have watched on TV my whole childhood is something I’m super looking forward to, and hopefully I can make a career out of it,” he said.
Fothergill’s Top 4 Presentations from 2024
- A Neko rig
- A jighead minnow
- A Drop Shot
- A Jig.
