Kyle Welcher and Jake's Take on MERCER-208

Stone Cold Kyle Welcher is a 3 time Classic Qualifier and a 2 time Angler of the Year. He joins the podcast hot off his record-breaking victory on the Pasquotank River where he shattered the all-time win margin record by winning his first Elite Series tournament by 45lb 7oz. But that’s not all! We are then joined by bassmaster videographer, Jake Latendresse with the ultimate Bassmaster behind-the-scenes show, Jake’s Take.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
OK, buckle up because once againit's time for a double dose of
goodness. He is a three time Bassmaster
Classic qualifier, A Bassmaster Angler of the Year, and he just
set the record for the all time greatest win margin in
Bassmaster history. First we are joined by stone
cold Kyle Welcher. But that's not all.
We are also joined by Jake Latonres with the ultimate

(00:22):
Bassmaster behind the scenes show.
Jake's take. He was with Kyle for three days.
We break it all down. Both of them join me this week.
I'm Bob Cobb for the Bassmaster.Welcome to Mercer.

(00:46):
Welcome on. Welcome all, friends, family,
freeloaders, fishing freaks, andof course you, my humpers.
Happy hump day to all of you andwelcome into the Awkwardly
Honest Fishing podcast that goesby my last name, which is
Mercer. This is the 208th edition of the
Mercer Podcast and I hope wherever you're watching or
listening from that life is treating you well.

(01:09):
We have a great show here this week, but unfortunately, we're
going to kick things off with some sad news.
Just a few weeks ago, you heard me talk about Pam Martin Wells
and her battle with cancer. Unfortunately, Pam Martin Wells
has passed. Pam was quite simply the most
accomplished female angler in the history of the sport.

(01:31):
What she brought to this sport, whether it be through
inspiration or education, whether it be as a competitor,
as a coach, is truly amazing. And I just wanted to take a
quick moment and let anybody that was lucky enough to call
her a friend or a family member know that we are thinking about
you. Our thoughts and prayers are

(01:53):
with you. Pam Martin Wells is gone but her
legacy will live on for many, many more years.
That being said, we are hot off an incredible event on the
Bassmaster Elite Series with an incredible champion.
Stone Cold. Kyle Welcher not only won his

(02:16):
first Elite Series event but he set the all time record for the
greatest win margin. Previous to him it was Patrick
Walters who had it from Lake Fork £29.10 oz.
Not anymore. Cal welts are won by 45 lbs
seven oz. It doesn't look right on paper.
It doesn't sound right coming out of my mouth.

(02:38):
It just doesn't seem right to win a tournament by that much.
I mean, if you look at the Sunday weights, he literally
could have given the rest of thefield two more days and they
might not have caught him. What he did is mind numbingly
amazing, I mean. And it should be respected and
celebrated. So congratulations, Kyle

(03:01):
Welcher, we will talk to you in a little bit as part of this
show, which I got to say, thank you, Kyle, for making time for
this show. He's in the middle of another
tournament and we'd record really late at night.
But I'm sure thankful that he found time to squeeze us in and
make sure he's part of this show.
Speaking of celebrating what he did, what a celebration it was

(03:25):
in Elizabeth City, NC Thousands and thousands and thousands of
people came out. It was truly an incredible
crowd, such a responsive crowd. So fun for me.
I mean, when I asked you guys tomake noise, you made noise and I
love you all for it. I had never been to Elizabeth

(03:46):
City, NC, but I can guarantee you I will be back and I hope
Bass is back. I mean, it took me a while to
learn how to say Pasquotank River, but I'm sure glad I
learned it because that part of the world, truly some amazing
Bassmaster fans. And while I'm up there in the
stage and I have the best view, I get to see how wide and how

(04:09):
deep that crowd goes. And I mean, the anglers get to
see it, but they're already up there for a minute or so.
I'm actually up there the whole time and I get to stare and just
see how many amazing and how rabid the bass fans were that
were there. And I just the whole time I'm
like, I just wish the Internet could see this because the guess
what? There is a lot of goodness in

(04:31):
the fishing world. And this past week showed it
out. It was absolutely incredible.
So I cannot wait to return to that part of the world.
It was an incredible tournament.And the crazy thing is, by all
accounts, it could be so much better.
I mean, in pre fish, the angler said that the they were catching

(04:53):
50 to 100 fish a day, lots of frog fish and stuff like that.
So it's hard to believe that it could actually be better.
We had a very extreme cold front.
The water temperature drop big time.
So yeah, I can't wait to go backthere and see it when it's good
because if this is when it's off, Lord knows how good it

(05:13):
could be. Speaking of things going good,
you guys think that, I mean, often times you'll read, oh,
they don't listen. They being BASS or any
tournament organization or I don't listen and and nothing
could be further from the truth.And I think if you tuned into
BASS master coverage this past weekend, you saw that they

(05:35):
listen. A lot of people said, hey, not
enough time in the anglers. We're going to too many
interviews and things like that.There was a concerted effort to
make sure we stayed on the water, which to be honest is
where I want us to stay. I love bass fishing.
I want to see bass fishing. Bass loves bass fishing.

(05:57):
They want to show bass fishing. So they are making an effort to
make sure we stay in the water. And I think if you tuned in this
past weekend, you saw it. I mean, I enjoyed it.
I mean, even the halftime show, which is literally pulls us off
the water. We did a lot more on the water
stuff. I mean we saw Kyle Welcher catch
a freaking 10 pounder on the halftime show.

(06:21):
So trust me, we are always working to make things better.
We are always working to give you what you want and I think it
was a lot closer to that this past week.
We will continue to try and giveyou the exact show that you want
and I'm proud to work with a group that is willing to do

(06:45):
that. Speaking of, willing to do
something in the middle of a tournament, but willing to do
this interview late, late at night.
And I am so thankful for that. So I will could ramble on for a
while, but I won't. Let's just jump right into it
with the newest Bassmaster EliteSeries champion.

(07:06):
The all time biggest win margin in Bassmaster history.
Kyle Welch. Stone cold.
Kyle Welcher. Elite Series freaking champion.
Sounds pretty good. Has it set in?
Yeah. Not that you won, but did you

(07:26):
won by more than? I mean, it's the greatest
victory in history, literally. Yeah, You know, I hadn't really
thought about that much. You know, I fished 47
tournaments, the 47 Elite Seriestournaments before this, you
know, and I was on the other end47 times in a row.
So I haven't like, it's not likesome crazy high because I

(07:50):
understand that how the varianceworks a little bit and like, you
know, it's very possible that itdoesn't happen for another 47 or
100 times. So I, I've definitely enjoyed
it. I'm super, super proud of it.
But you know, it's not like I'm not trying to beat my chest or
anything, you know? I I don't think you'll ever be
that guy, though. Yeah.

(08:11):
I mean, how many would you have to win before you'd start
beating your chest? Probably like 30 in a row.
How did you win this tournament?I mean to like, really?
I know you get, I mean, I interrupt free for the story's
pretty, but I mean, I know you're analytical.
Look, why in the hell did this work out the way it did?

(08:33):
So there's a, there's a few things that I think happened #1
there's no history on that place, right?
And if there was history on thatplace and it was and it was
known as a community hall spawning area or pre spawn area,
whatever that people that you know, everybody knew to look at.
And because it like when we go to community hall places like

(08:55):
Saint John's, we know where they're going to be spawning.
Even if you don't see them there, they want to practice.
That doesn't mean you don't check it again on day one of the
tournament or day two of the tournament because they're
coming, you know, and and because we didn't have that
history, I was kind of the only guy there where, you know, and
and that is only because the elites have never been there.
Like, and from now on, forever time we go, that place will be

(09:18):
checked, you know, obviously so,and not only that, but it was
the full moon. And also, man, getting off to
that start on day one allowed meto take my time on day 2 and
really gamble because I didn't have any, like only had one fish
found going into day 2. And it's because I couldn't get
it to bite the day before. So it allowed me to really

(09:39):
gamble having that lead, knowingit already made day three to
expand and really try to dial inwhat was happening.
And I had a clue on day one. But on day 2 is whenever I
really felt like I kind of figured out what the fish were
actually sitting on and then I could run it.
But you know, that's only because I had the area to
myself. I could really expand, you know?

(10:01):
But other boats fished it right?Or did you have it totally to
yourself? Other boats fished it, but not
the same way there. There was one boat that fished
it day three and day 4. But you know, the first day or
two, the first day I only saw like one boat on it.
Day 2 I probably saw two boats on it and you know, that's just
kind of them running over there to 1 isolated place while

(10:23):
they're kind of making their wayup.
I really didn't see anybody working up and down it at all
until what, day three and day four I did.
But before that, I really did. Wasn't around anyone, you know?
Watching you fish it, it felt like you were fishing a lot
slower than everybody else do. Do you do you think that's true?
Yeah, I definitely think it's true because, and that's not my

(10:44):
style at all, you know, but it was like, but because the bottom
composition makes it so hard to see them and I could not go much
faster without potentially breaking something.
It was so, so many stumps under the water that like half the
battle was moving across withoutfolding your troll motor up

(11:04):
underneath you, you know. And that because, I mean, it was
like really, really bad. There were stumps everywhere.
And it got really tough on day three and day 4.
But if you went too fast, you weren't going to see them.
And then if you went obviously too slow, you're not going to
cover enough water. So that was another thing is
like with me, when I'm not catching them, I want to go
faster and when and then having a little bit of cushion allowed
me to go slower than after I have confidence in it.

(11:27):
You know, it's, that's what it is.
And you know, patience comes with confidence.
If you're not confident in something, you cannot possibly
have patience at it. Like nobody does, like nobody
has patience at something they don't have confidence in.
So after I had a lot of confidence on day 2, I really
felt like I had the area that I needed to be in and I had all
day to go up and down, you know,So I just, I went really, really

(11:49):
slow and try to make sure that Ididn't spook any and, you know,
capitalized on them. What was your actual goal going
into the tournament? I hate to even say that.
OK, so before practice, I wantedto win, you know, it was going.
I I love river systems. Like I, I had that one circled
all year, but after the cold front and the wind and all that

(12:12):
stuff, man, it was really light.I just got to figure out how to
get a check and make it a day three.
And I'll be honest with you, I practiced in that river day one
and day three of practice. And when I got off the water on
day three of practice, I was pretty pissed that I've spent
two days in that river and I couldn't figure out how to catch
them. And so I fished 2 days in that
river and I was going to leave it.

(12:32):
So I was like, I wasted two practice days fishing here and
then I ended up fishing there the entire time.
So I mean that the expectations were pretty low going into day
one. How did you avoid the I mean, it
seemed like everybody before we even got there, it was going to
be a story of big monster runs. How did you avoid that

(12:53):
temptation that clearly lured inso many others?
You know, the wind was the main factor.
I knew how difficult the wind was going to be on to get
anywhere day one or day 2. And I mean look like if you look
back historically, when's the last time you remember somebody
winning on a long run that's notLake Ontario.

(13:15):
It literally like is super rare,like second, third, fourth, top
10s. It happens all the time.
But like you when you give somebody 8 hours of fishing time
and then you get you give yourself 4 hours because you
made some kind of a crazy run, you better be going to Lake
Ontario because I've never been anywhere where it was that

(13:37):
special. I mean, the, the, the last one
that I remember where somebody went somewhere super special was
Christie on Sabine and he wasn'tgoing that many miles, but it
was just a treacherous run. And then also on Sabine, we all
remember Mike McClellan making the crazy run.
But outside of those two, I don't really remember that many
long runs paying off. So I mean, in my mind, it's kind

(13:59):
of a math game. You know, there's rarely
anywhere that's that special. And eight hours of fishing times
much better than 456 or even 7, you know.
Is that how you make all your decisions?
Like, is it almost like what percentage of your on the water
decisions are a mathematical equation?

(14:20):
I would say most of them are, but man, I've got, I'm so
passionate about the sport that sometimes like I just want to
catch them on a frog, you know, or I just want to catch them on
a swim jig or flipping or something.
So like, I'll, I'll push it a little bit too much.
But I would say it is more on new bodies of water because on

(14:41):
new bodies of water your focus level is higher because you've
never been there. You're paying attention to
everything that's around you a lot more.
And then so I feel like I'm thinking a lot more on new
bodies of water. Whereas we go to St.
John's and, you know, I kind of know where it's about going to
be 1 almost every single time. You know, there's two or three
different places. Well, Bill Owen found a, a
fourth one, but there's two or three places most the time.

(15:03):
And you know, new places, I'd say I weigh a lot more.
The math matters more to me and the math is not correct.
It is definitely an incorrect equation, but it's the best
equation I can. Come up with why is it not
correct? But because you can't, you can't
prove it in bass fishing becauseyou don't know how many fish are

(15:26):
somewhere and you don't know howbig they are with with absolute
certainty. So if if you're starting off a
mouth problem with uncertainty, your end result is definitely
going to be also uncertain, you know, but it's the best we've
got is what makes sense to me. Yeah, I guess with the playing
field being unlimited and the result being unlimited, it's not

(15:47):
like cards where you're like there's this many cards, there's
only so many possible equations.The equations are limitless in
fishing. Is there anything you would
change about this victory if youcould?
You know, I'm not really, no. Everything went like crazy.

(16:08):
Good day one, I, I kind of, I don't like the way that I
adjusted on day one. It took me a little longer than
it should have to settle down inthat area.
But outside of that, I feel likeI, you know, did pretty well and
made pretty good decisions. You know, day, day 2, day three
and day four there was no decisions left to make.

(16:31):
You know, I was 100% committed. But day one, there was actually
some a good bit of decision making going on day one.
And I don't think my decisions were an A+ basically, I think
they were probably like AC if I had to guess.
I don't think I made great, great decisions on day one, but
we ended up in the right place before the end of the day.

(16:51):
So could you? So if you made better decisions
on day one, could you have won this tournament by 55 lbs?
I I I don't believe so, yeah. But.
Wow. I mean I so on day one I had the
vice to have 34 on day one I weighed A2 pounder.
You know, like it was, it was crazy like, but I've never, I've

(17:13):
never seen anything like it where I mean for the first two
days it was like every fish I found what like over half of
them were 7 pounders. And that was just unbelievable
because in practice I was like, when I started practice, I
thought they had to be 12 inches.
And I was like, oh, it's going to be real easy to catch a
limit, but hard to catch a good one.
And this time I told them they had to be 14.
And I was like, I'm not even going to catch a thing.

(17:33):
Limit this thing. But.
Yeah, and then in in the tournament, they're like 7
pounders. It was just unbelievable.
You always hear the analogy, youknow, bad practice, good
tournament. And do you just think that's an
analogy? But watching you compete in this
one, it definitely feels like ifyou had a had a good practice,

(17:54):
it might have been almost impossible to do what you did.
Am I reading that right or wrong?
Yeah, especially in the spring when fish are coming to you to
really have a great tournament, they need to be coming to you.
And I think back to like there was another area I was in where
I lost two big ones in practice.I lost both of them back-to-back
and I was like, I know them werebig bass, but I caught some

(18:15):
stripe in the area and I was like, I really feel like those
two were big bass, but I lost them both.
And if I'd have caught one of those fish, I almost certainly
would have went there like straight away, first thing, you
know, or I would have went and caught the bed fish that I had
found and then went there like instantly.
But I didn't catch either one ofthem, so I didn't have.
So I wasn't like 100% sure they were bass.

(18:36):
So like all kinds of stuff like that that turned into me staying
right there, you know you. Use forward facing sonar to win
this event and in in shallow water that you were fishing.
I mean, a lot of people would think you would go perspective
use forward mode. Why?
You know, for me, I have, I'm I'm not very patient fisherman

(18:59):
and I had a hard time seeing my bait on perspective.
You know, for me, if I can't seemy bait, I really, you know, I
just feel lost if I can't see mybait using that technology.
So if I'm not going to be able to see my bait fall and where
it's at, I would rather just turn it off.
So that that's why I didn't use it because I don't have like I'm
not that good at perspective forwhatever reason.

(19:21):
It just does it really, it doesn't really compute to me
because I just can't see my bait.
If I can see my bait, everythingwill be fine.
And I know some guys say they can, but most people I've talked
to say they can't really see their bait when it's on the
bottom of perspective unless it's like ultra flat smooth
bottom, which we did not have there.
There was cover everywhere. Did did the event, did the

(19:48):
ability of not being there and not having history, did that
make it easier? Because I know you also battle
the forward face and sonar thingwhere you're good with it.
I mean, you used it in part of your Angler of the Year, you
know, victory and. But you, I also feel like you're
a very conflicted man in the waythat that you're always being

(20:09):
pulled away from it. Did the lack of education from
that area or history make it easier to kind of stick with
that? No, it's kind of like one of
those things where now if I can find that bite and I can find
where the females are with that,the technology, I'm going to do
it like in a tournament, I'm I'mgoing to do it as much as

(20:31):
possible because this sounds super like cheesy, but you're
just so much more efficient whenyou throw in front of ass, you
know, like it's, it's like that sounds stupid, but it just is.
And I mean, I am conflicted because feels up to me.
We wouldn't have it, but I just won with it, you know, So it's
weird, but I'm as a competitor, I'm going to use it every single

(20:56):
chance I get as much as possible.
But as a passionate bass angler,you know, that's not where my
passion comes from is using thattechnology.
And that's just me and how I grew up and where I grew up, you
know, so everybody's a little bit different, but you know, it
definitely is one of those things where if you can see them
with that and you can tell they're the better quality, you

(21:18):
don't have another option. Like you can say I'm not going
to do it and that's fine. You'll be on the couch on day
three. You know that that's just how it
is nowadays. Yeah.
I mean, I remember that line from when you won Angler of the
Year, and I don't know if you said it on the interview or you
just said it to me in conversation, but you said in
the history of bass fishing, you're more effective when

(21:38):
you're always casting out of bass. 100 percent, 100%.
Does the record mean anything toyou?
It does. Like I'm proud of it, but I
mean, it would have been different if I'd have had like
some crazy plan going into the tournament that worked out

(22:01):
Florida State. And I was like, man, I just game
plan and strategize. And then this this happened the
right way. It was kind of one of those
things where I honestly felt like I was just in an area and
they were just swimming to me. Like I so I mean, it does mean a
lot that I had a lot of confidence in what I was doing
and I'm obviously pretty good atit.
But, you know, the record is, I mean, it's cool, but it's not

(22:26):
like it's something I could tangibly control, if that makes
sense. And I'm, yeah, I'm the most
proud of the stuff that I can really control and make happen.
And, you know, that's not one ofthem.
That's just kind of a result of a very fortunate week.
Well, and you can't control keeping the record and moving
forward. But I mean, I feel like, and I

(22:47):
never say this, I always say records are made to be broken
and they are. But dude, it went from 29 lbs to
45 lbs seven oz. You have to feel like, I mean,
that's a record that's safe for a while.
Would you not assume? I think it's safe for a while.
The only way it wouldn't be is if we went to some kind of a

(23:07):
crazy crazy good lake like in Texas or something with no
history. Like I literally believe it has
to have no history. Like when Patrick Walters done
it, there was no history on whathe was doing.
There was history on fork. There was no history on on that
technique on fork. So he unlocked a whole new part
of the lake. So that's what is going to have

(23:29):
to happen. And it's going to have to be a
place where, you know, you're catching 120 a 130 lbs, you
know, and then everybody else inthe field didn't really crack
the code. Like that's that's what's going
to have to happen. So it's got to be a new body of
water and it's got to have a buthave a lot of big ones in it.
When in your head did you think I'm going to win this

(23:50):
tournament? It really wasn't until Day 2,
whenever I expanded and I found more of them.
And then at the end of Day 2, whenever I caught 30, I went
looking and I found four or fivemore.
And I was like, I think we got we got to know for at least a
good start. Tomorrow it'll be it will be all
right. The momentum that people talk

(24:11):
about after a victory, do you feel that now?
I don't know what it I don't know what it would feel like,
you know, but I don't know. Maybe we'll see.
I do have, I do feel very confident in what and you know,
my fish right now, my decision making, but I don't know.
Momentum's not it's hard to put momentum in the word.

(24:34):
Just kind of just like good things happening in a row.
So as long as good things keep happening in a row, we'll, we'll
have the momentum. You you need success to have
confidence, correct? You don't have to, but, and you
know, because I get a lot of confidence from reflecting on

(24:54):
myself and my decisions I made and you know, like execution and
stuff like that. It gives me a lot of confidence
whenever I go back and think about how I moved and decisions
I made and if they were good or bad, even when I had really bad
tournaments and but a good result.
It probably does trump all as far as confidence, but it's not

(25:15):
the only way to get it. But it definitely does does
help. But you can't let it, you can't
let your ups and downs be completely determined by your
results or you're going to be constantly cloud 9 and then in
the dumps, you know, like you kind of got to be even keel and
and you got to find a different way to measure it, a different
metric to measure it because you're going to lose so often.

(25:35):
Like, yeah, you know, you can't just let that be what gives you
the confidence. So you can have a bad event
finish wise and still leave it with a lot of confidence.
Absolutely. When I left Saint John's, I left
it with so much confidence because I, I felt like I was so
close in that one to, to doing really, really well.

(25:58):
And I mean, I, I literally just,and I, I'm not a guy that talks
about lost fish, but like, I, I felt like I, I fished really,
really good in that one and theyjust didn't come in the boat.
Like that's just, that's how it felt.
And I made good adjustments on day 2 And I, I could have had a
really, really big bag and they just didn't come in the boat.
So, you know, the, the result was terrible.

(26:20):
I think I came in well, 69th, but I think I wasn't 70th and
then but. Oh yeah, yeah, sorry, I just put
that together. And then I, but I felt like I, I
made good decisions and I fisheda good tournament.
I just didn't have a good result.
And I've had other tournaments where like I've had good results

(26:41):
and really felt like a fish, just super, super poorly.
And I need to fix it, you know, and I might have came in 25th or
30th, but I just felt like, whatwas I doing out there, you know,
whenever I think about it afterwards.
But you just got that one bite that was lucky, you know?
And yeah, that that's that to me, that's way more important.
And that's kind of where my pride comes from is in making

(27:02):
good decisions. Like that's, that's what I want
to be. I want to make good decisions.
Like not it's not always about the trophies.
It's about, you know, doing everything correctly.
One of the things you did that'sso rare is dude, you locked one
bait, one rod and reel, I believe in your hands.
And I mean, it went fishing and I mean, I saw you pick up the

(27:26):
glide bait a little bit, but I feel like that was more or less
just to stretch out your arms. How did you?
I mean, other than the obvious that, hey, I'm just keep
catching 30 lbs, so why would I mess with it?
Yeah, but did you imagine that this would be a one bait Derby
for you? No, I didn't, you know, whenever
we started day one, I probably on day one, I bet I had 12 or 15

(27:48):
rods on the front deck. And then by day, day 2, I
probably had four or five. Day three I had three rods and
then day 4 I had three rides, but like one of them was
different. It's like I had some, I had a
back, a couple little backup like more finesse rods, but I
didn't never want to throw them.There was a couple times I'd
have one of those really, reallybig ones, like look at a drop

(28:08):
shot and I'm like, yeah, I'm notcatching you on this rod.
And I really didn't. I flip a big rod to it.
So much cooler on a big rod. 100% like there's nothing like
when I hooked that 10 pounder that the time when I lost it
even more than the time when I caught it, like when I hooked
it. It's just a whole different
feeling, you know? And like you hook on a spinning

(28:28):
rod and like it pulls drag and you're just holding it, you
know, and you're only holding really like 2 lbs because it's
pulling, you know, you got like a pound 1/2 or 2 lbs of drag
that is pulling. And I hooked it on that big rod
with like no drag at all. And it's just like I couldn't
turn the real handle. Like it's a whole another
feeling. It's like you're hooked to the
to a truck or something. That's also got to build your

(28:49):
confidence to go to an event andlose giant fish multiple times.
But just be like, yeah, I mean, I was amazed when we're watching
live and we could see your screen.
Me and Pollock were doing coverage at the time and we're
like, oh, he's going to cat likethat 10 pounder.
I wouldn't let us go to commercial break like my
producers like we're going to commercial break.

(29:10):
I'm like, no, no, no, we're staying on them because you're
because they came back so quick.I mean, those fish, do you think
they had just come up? Yeah, I think they were super,
super fresh because I fished through that area, the same
area, you know, and like, I'm not going to miss A10 pounder, I
hope, you know, because I mean this, it was, it was a huge
return. And I fished through there the
day before and then that day I caught the 10 and the next day I

(29:33):
caught a four off the exact samespot, you know?
So I mean, it was just super, super fresh.
But a big female like that, whenit decides to guard, it is the
most aggressive fish in the lake.
And when they decide to get weird, you cannot make them bite
for anything, you know? And yeah, for whatever reason,
that day she was super, super mad.

(29:54):
And I mean, she she bit first flip at 1st and I lost her and
then she bit again like 10 minutes later.
So now I lost her twice and thenshe bit again like 10 minutes
later. So it made for a heck of a
story. Today's high tech fishing world
can be a real pain in the neck, especially if you're running the
wrong mount. Beat Down Outdoors, they bring
the graph to you and they support this podcast and care

(30:18):
enough about you to make this a short ad read.
Check out Beat Down Outdoors. Now back to the show.
It was awesome to watch. It's an awesome victory.
I promised you that we'd be quick here today because I mean,
thank you for jamming this in. I mean, we're doing this really
late at night and I appreciate you finding a few minutes.
We can get together another timeand have a longer conversation
about this. But wow, it's all I got to say

(30:41):
is, I mean, it was freaking. I'm supposed to be pissed when
people win tournaments like thisbecause it makes my job harder
on stage. But sometimes just some crazy
crap happens and it you just have to sit and be like, wow, I
mean, to win by that last question, did you ever like on
Sunday? Did you ever think maybe they're

(31:02):
going to blast them? Or were you just like, yeah, I'm
just out here for fun today? You know, island out on Sunday,
I was like, if something happensand I zero and somebody catches
like 34 and I lose, this will bethe most dramatic, catastrophic
loss of all time. So that was I felt a little bit
of pressure, but then whenever Icaught the first one, I was

(31:24):
like, OK, now they need like a crazy bat.
But my favorite part of the entire week because when I
walked up on stage and you said you need absolutely nothing to
win this. Tournament.
That was my that was my favorite.
Part of the entire week. Well, throughout your career, I
feel like we'll have a lot of those moments at the stage
beside each other. I don't think I'll be saying

(31:47):
that very often because it's, it's so and it seems less rare.
But you, because you look at Paul Nick, I mean, that's 2
terms in a row. Literally 15 years I've done
this and there's always been someone loaded the hot seat
except for last year. Corey did it when we were in
Florida. And then Paul, Nick did it last
event and now you did it, which is, but nobody's ever done it

(32:08):
like you. I mean freaking have you talked
to Patrick Walters yet? No, I have not.
I've probably seen him tomorrow.Well, good, good.
Tell him thanks. I appreciate your time.
I'll let you get back to your family.
I know you got an event startingtomorrow.
Keep kicking ass and we'll see you in a few days.

(32:30):
I. Appreciate it.
See you. Once again, Jake's take is back
in your life and this is a very special Jake's take.
Not just because I mean, he was with Stone Cold Kyle Welcher for
three days, a four days of competition.
He's got the Bates in his hand. He was there for a history
making event. The biggest wind margin in

(32:52):
Bassmaster history. What is your freaking birthday
dude? Happy birthday.
Oh, I forgot about that. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
I purposely didn't say happy birthday to you when we jumped
on the stream thinking that, making you think I forgot or
something. But no Happy birthday.
Thank you so much. It's a income tax day here in

(33:14):
the United States every single year, so it's something that I
can't ever forget. I either have to get my taxes in
or file for an extension. Nice, nice.
Well, I hope that all works out good.
I would like to wish my sister ahappy birthday as well.
She's two years older than me but we share the same birthday
and she's my big sister. It's something I look forward to

(33:36):
every single April 15th. Not so much my birthday but that
I get to share it with her. And we're not twins.
Two years apart, but she's always been there for me and
she's one of my very best friends in the world.
So happy birthday, Gina. Do you think Gina actually
watches this show? Probably not, but that's OK.
She might. She does.

(33:56):
Look, she likes to fish. And we grew up, you know, in the
woods and West Tennessee together and finding salamanders
and catching crawdads in the Creek behind the house.
So she she can relate, that's for sure.
Well, happy birthday, Gina, and happy birthday Jake.
Let him know in the comments. Blow it up.

(34:18):
I mean, everyone loves Jake's steak, so you better love his
birthday. But you had a big week.
I think bass fishing had a big week.
I mean, that event. Unbelievable.
I don't make those decisions, but I'm pretty sure we'll be
back. Phenomenal fishing, phenomenal
crowds. The crowds were great.

(34:38):
I love going to new areas for that very reason.
But yeah, no, just a great week.And the crazy thing is, and I
kept saying it on live, but it wasn't even good.
I mean, it was good for the guy you were with.
But other than that, like, I mean, you talked to anglers, pre
fish was a lot better. Like before that cold front

(34:58):
rolled in, I heard guys saying 50 to 100 fish a day, lots of
frog fish. So we need to go back there when
it's good if this was tough. I agree they, it wasn't good for
everyone else, but it was like you said, really good for bass
fishing and the, the event, the location it I, I guess I don't

(35:20):
know if this is the right analogy or comparison or not,
but that's to me that sort of the Saint Lawrence River for
largemouth bass for us now it's like this is huge, vast, you
know, whatever it is, 2 or 3,000,000 acres of open water
for everyone to choose from. And to narrow it down to one
spot like that was just freakingunbelievable.

(35:43):
And, and you know, how he stumbled across that spot was
really remarkable. It's a really great story and I
I can't wait to start talking about it.
All right. Well, before we get into that,
day one, you did not start the tournament with Kyle Welcher.
Day one you started the tournament with Brian Schmidt,
who this is the closest and leadseries events ever been to his

(36:05):
house. You should have, you know.
I'm sure he expected a big week,but unfortunately it was not.
I'm pretty sure that he told me that he might be the only angler
in the entire field, the elite field, that had ever fished or
at least fished that body of water or that area in a

(36:28):
tournament which he had done years ago.
And so while it was I think 4 hours from his house is what he
told me and he had some experience there, he didn't have
a ton of experience there, but he definitely, I think he felt
the pressure of that being sort of his home lake like everyone

(36:49):
does. And man, you know, I know this
might be beating a dead horse attimes, but feeling that pressure
of of trying to do well in a tournament in your backyard or
your home field, whatever that is, is extremely difficult.
And it is rare. It is so rare that anyone ever

(37:10):
does super well. I'm not saying they don't.
I mean, Lee Livesey prove that at Lake Fork and you know, the
Johnston brothers prove that up on Saint Lawrence and Lake
Ontario. But at the end of the day,
that's a lot of pressure and I think I'll often times guys that
fish their local waters and don't do well are just really

(37:30):
glad when it's over so they can move on.
Yeah, and I think what it is is,I mean, I think this is a prime
example, too, of what happens tothem.
You know, like you literally could not do what Kyle Welcher
did if you're from there. I mean, he went to an area that
he had. I mean, I'll let you get into
it, but you know what I mean? Like you couldn't have blocked

(37:53):
out all of those other things and said I am locking it in and
I am not moving. I'm sitting right here.
But Brian Schmidty, great dude. Sorry we don't have a lot of
fishing to talk about. One of my favorite guys.
I just don't always have time totalk to him.
He's a slow talker. He is a slow talker.
He's got, you know, he's from upthere, but he almost seems like

(38:13):
he's from the South because he'sgot a long drawn out accent and
it's almost southern of a kind of a lazy laid back southern
accent. But he is the guy is just a
phenomenal human being. And I remember I gave him a big
hug after day 2 after he got offstage with you at weigh
insurance and you know, he was saying goodbye to the crowd.

(38:35):
I could having been there with him all day on one, I could feel
the relief that he felt when he left and he he came back through
he he, he got his receipt and was walking down the path that
they had opened up for the anglers.
And I ran up behind him. I gave him a Big Bear hug.
And you know, the first thing hesaid was I'm headed home to my

(38:56):
family. I can't wait to see them.
This was a great experience. Oh my God, what?
You know what a great job Welcher's doing and he was very
humbled by the whole situation. And he also said he hopes that
we come back to that area. I hope we do too.
That place is freaking phenomenal.
And he he was just very humbled by the whole scene and the whole

(39:19):
situation, the appreciation to be close to home and all that
stuff. And that's really who he is.
He's a very respectful and appreciative individual.
Just being in the elites and having that opportunity, I
really like that guy a lot. Yeah, yeah.
Great, great human being, great family and just a slow talker.

(39:39):
I mean, it's the kind of guy that when you see him in the
morning, like, you know, when everyone's rushing around and
going places and you say a good morning to people and you're
just like, hey, buddy, good morning.
And it's, you know, me and you 2at all time we're passing each
other. We know we're.
But with Brian, it's like, hey, Dave, how are you?
It's very, he enjoys it. I think he holds a coffee cup

(40:01):
with two hands. That's what I'm saying.
He enjoys life. When I jumped in his boat the
first day that morning. I've never been with Brian
Schmidt, but I've, I like to, I like all those missile bait
guys. I like John Cruz, Ed Loughran,
Brian Schmidt, all those guys, even the Derek Hudnall, you
know, all that stuff. And, and they're, they're a

(40:21):
little crew, they're a little, you know, gang, missile gang, if
you will. And when I first jumped in his
boat, you know, I said, man, this is a first for us.
And he literally he's like 6-3, probably 6263.
And I hear I'm at 5/8. He gave me a great Big Bear hug
on the front of the boat. And, you know, that's just the

(40:42):
guy he is. But anyhow, what a great
tournament. The situation with Kyle Welcher
was just unbelievable. Was that not a a nuclear bomb or
what? It it was incredible.
And before we get into Kyle, since you mentioned missile, I
got to give John a shout out. Obviously April is Autism
awareness month. Obviously that is something very

(41:04):
near and dear to my heart because my amazing daughter
Cadence is autistic and through her I've met so many amazing
autistic kids and people and what Cruz does every April is
awesome. I mean, every year it's
different. Last year, I think it was the
year of the caregiver and where he took care of some, you know,
they did raise some funds and did some awareness, but took

(41:28):
care of some families that that deal with it.
And this year, it was about the local community and he raised
some money for a local autism charity.
Going to be doing that again at Hartwell.
So thank you for being who you are, John Cruz.
The world needs more people likeyou.
And here's the crazy thing, and I say it a lot about John, He

(41:53):
had no connection to autism before this.
Like, that's what amazes me because let's be honest, that's
how mankind is. I mean, sadly, if somebody in
your world deals with cancer, you start raising money for
cancer, you, you know, he had noconnection to anyone really.
And and now he's got a ton of connections, but he just saw it

(42:15):
as something that needed a little bit of promotion, need a
little bit of awareness and hooked his bumper to it.
So I think that speaks tenfold. I mean even the local Community
Center that I dealt with and I'mmaking a donation to thanks to
Kyle Welcher catching the crap out of them.

(42:37):
I agreed to a certain amount perpound he caught, which was
worked out to a lot and I'm onlytoo thankful.
But the the lady who runs it, and if I was more professional,
I'd have her business card here and I would give you her name,
but her kids both are autistic. So most of the time it's
somebody who's connected to it. For John Cruz to do this out of

(42:59):
the goodness of his heart is really cool, so.
That's who he is and. How he is?
Super great guy. His dad, like you can see where
you know the apple didn't fall far from the tree because of his
dad. And John Cruz is a hugely stand
up individual. So all that you said and more,

(43:22):
John Cruz. So day one, weigh insurance
going smooth. I mean, it looks like we're
going to have Trey McKinney and Easton Fothergill, them first
and 2nd place. I mean, that's what it looks
like for Bastrack. And I love when Bastrack gives
us a little gift of you didn't know nothing.
Kyle Walter weighs in 30 lbs on day #1 which at the time I

(43:45):
thought, wow, that's incredible.He'll have something to build
off there. And it turns out that was his
smallest bag. For the next two days, they just
kept getting bigger. You get paired with them on day
2 and I'll let you do the talking.
Well, Brian Schmidt called it onday one.
You know, he was, he already knew he when he pulled into this

(44:07):
little Creek in this little cul-de-sac pocket that he was in
to protect himself from the wind.
He went in there and felt like he was catching little fish and
he kind of knew this was not going to work out because there
were way more people in there than he thought it was going to
be. But as we were talking, he was
pulled down. He was throwing a jerk bait and
he was just, you know, we're just chit chatting.

(44:28):
And he said someone's going to find the mother lode and they're
going to catch. I mean, this place is capable of
£30 a day. He literally told me that on day
one. So he was, you know, more than
correct. And getting paired up with Kyle
when when Brian left, he didn't make the top ten.

(44:49):
I got a new pairing and just so happens I got hooked up with
Kyle Welcher, would I which I had been with him several times
before, but the biggest most recent time was when he won AOI
when he kept that off up on LakeOntario.
And you know, it seemed like a lot went wrong on the last.
That That's the big rough water day.

(45:11):
That was it. And, and the irony to that is,
you know, he goes and pulls off this historic tournament on the
Pasca, Pasca Tank River Pat Well, there's two, there's two
versions of that. I'm I'm, I'm still trying to
figure that out, 'cause Brian Schmidt called it the Pasca Tank

(45:32):
and then I asked some locals andthey're like, you got to get
that qua in there so. Well, I go by the locals.
Yeah, there you go. We've already talked about Brian
Smith speaking. He's more like probably good,
say. And his, you know, his, this
event was just, I mean, he just blasts him and the way he, the

(45:55):
way, you know, the, the irony is, is that the last time I was
with him, we were in literally, I know people don't believe
this, but we were in seven and eight footer swells on Lake
Ontario, literally just hoping to get back to the ramp.
And on this occasion, while everyone else was making these
long runs, 50 miles this way, 60miles that way, and 80 miles

(46:18):
that way, burning fuel, Kyle Welcher hardly had to get off
plane because we went under the bridge.
We took a left when everyone else took a right.
And he literally went through the six minute idle zone.
And then he got on plane for maybe maybe a half a mile at at

(46:38):
the mode, maybe maybe 3/4 of a mile, came off plane, kicked his
trolling motor out and literallyhardly ever picked it up from
that point forward. And the interesting is the
interesting thing is, is that Kyle, you know, he was on on day
one. He was about to, he had two
hours left of fishing. And I may be wrong on some of

(47:00):
these details, but I think this is how he told it to me.
He had two hours left in the dayon on day one and he had caught
a few big fish in that area and but he was about to leave
because he wanted to go somewhere else because he wasn't
catching any fish there and he just felt like it wasn't right

(47:21):
for some reason. He went back to this one spot,
pitched in there and caught A7 pounder and then that really
started his first 30 LB day. So he he didn't have any
confidence in that spot until like late in day one when he
decided to stick around and caught A7 pounder and then
caught another one and caught another one and caught another

(47:43):
one and that's how he ended up we.
Have to ask Kyle because the wayI thought he explained it was
that happened early like he and it could you and neither of us
were with him. We'll find out.
But right, I believe what he said on live is he wanted to
give himself a chance at suckingclose.

(48:04):
I think that was his exact because he didn't eat a horrible
prefish. I mean it was a stereotypical
bad prefish great tournament, but he said in that and he was
about to leave. I'm certain this is what he said
to me when we were talking to the tanks before weigh and he
said I was about to leave and make a run because he said he
started. So regardless, I mean he throws

(48:27):
it across it on day one. Didn't realize what it it was.
You know, had caught a decent fish there, but those two fish
made him stay there. He catches 30 on day one on
stage. He had a great line.
He said yesterday I left the dock or this morning when I left
the dock, I had no idea where I was going.

(48:47):
I got a clue now and that clue played out.
And he he obviously like there was no question.
I didn't, I honestly didn't knowhe was that close after day one.
So my job was to tell Wes because everything is so vast
and Wes Miller runs the live drone.

(49:09):
So he asked me to get a pin fromhim and send him the pin so he
would know where to go 1st and then he would have to maybe go
50 miles or two hours to make run to to cover someone else
with the drone. And when I got the pin, I was
like, well, that didn't look right because that's like
basically right where we are. And then Wes went to Kyle, got

(49:31):
the pin and and confirmed and sure enough, he was literally
right past the bridge. So that was really cool.
I didn't get beat up. I had no, I had no rough rides
or it was, it was really. Did all the other camera guys
hate you? I mean, watching them walk off
the water every day was like watching The Walking wounded,

(49:53):
like everybody just limping and dragging their stuff.
And then there's you. Me skipping, skipping back to
the camera trailer with 30 lbs on my camera.
I did. I did film this quite
differently than I normally do. I did it one day last year with
Greg Hackney on Lake Seminole because he was methodically

(50:15):
catching those fish in shallow water and everything was so
interesting, but you really didn't get the vibe of what was
going on unless you knew what hewas doing.
From the moment he, he, he felt like there would be a fish in a
location. And so I would, I would film
these extraordinarily long clips, like 20-30 minute clips

(50:35):
holding my shot, whether I was live or not, because I wanted to
capture the whole story about every fish because all these
fish were so big. And, and it reminded me a lot of
film when I filmed Drew Cook when it's Santee Cooper, while
he was sight fishing in very Clearwater and he could see the
fish moving up the fish that were on beds.

(50:56):
He could see where the female was and where the male was.
So he knew do what he was doing visually and it but it reminded
me of that because everything hecaught was freaking huge.
And it was just, it was just, itwas ridiculous.
It didn't even didn't even seem real at times, you know?
Yeah, doing the same thing. The shake too, Non, you know,
just shaking them. I mean bed fishing.

(51:18):
He can't see them visually, but he's seeing them, you know,
obviously with forward facing sonar, but it's the exact same.
It's funny because we were joking on the live set when
we're watching that. And I'm like, I remember, it's
so funny how things just become commonplace.
I remember editing this shake out of TV shows that that I've
hosted, you know what I mean, where I'm shaking the bait.

(51:39):
And they were like, I don't knowif I want to show the shake
because it at one time it was a secret.
And now it's just, I mean, everybody shakes their bait.
And I zoom in on it when they shake the difference between so
Drew Cook, he taps it on top of his rod and Kyle Welcher taps it

(51:59):
on the bottom. Not that that matters, but
there's a little difference there.
But yeah, the sound, the sound of that tap that.
And you know, if you, if you canimagine for those of you that
most of you probably understand what that does.
But for those of you that don't,when they're using a creature
bait with, with tentacles and legs and stuff.

(52:22):
And like Kyle was flipping a Texas rig, as was Drew Cook with
that, with the bait on the bottom like this, they, they run
up a loop in their line. It's a loose line.
When they're tapping the rod, all it does is shake the line
and it vibrates all the way downto the end.
And at the very end of that line, all it does is make the

(52:45):
legs move and it makes it look alive, but it's actually not
moving the bait forward or it's.Moving the bait without actually
moving the bait, you know exactly.
Which is the whole place in a bed.
Yeah. And so and.
And the other interesting thing about what Kyle was doing was
like the stain in the water, youcouldn't see.

(53:07):
I don't know what the visibilitywas down there, but it wasn't
very much because the water looked like, you know, coffee,
like straight up black coffee. And what Kyle was doing, he
didn't even have it. His four front facing sonar in
perspective mode. He had it in down.
Forward. Forward mode and he was

(53:29):
literally spotting fish in oftentimes 18 to 24 inches of water.
And what he had figured out on day one was how to spot the big
fish on beds inside the Cypress knees.

(53:51):
Obviously there were he was fishing at this Cypress Grove
and the knees of the Cypress trees came way out from the
shoreline. So while he's maneuvering, he
had to track himself through thethe Cypress knees to find his
trail that he could maneuver through there without making a
ton of noise and banging the boat and all that stuff.

(54:13):
So that was one of the variableshe had to deal with.
The other one was when he spotted the fish, he would
literally he was literally goingback and forth when he was
tracking through there, just like Fujita does, just like Taku
does, just like everyone does out in the open water.
But he was looking for glow. The new word, the new buzzword
and Ford facing sonar to me is glowing because now that's you

(54:36):
heard Easton Fothergill say thatabout, you know, about the fish.
When he could tell how big it was, he could see the when he
when it flashed, he knew that the fish was turning around.
And I think that was one of the things that Kyle understood
about what he was doing was whenhe scanned in the Cypress knees,

(55:00):
he would see a fish or what he thought was a fish and it was if
it was glowing, then he would stop to fish it.
The other specific thing that was really interesting was that
most of the fish that he caught,they weren't by themselves.
They always had a male with them, but the male often times

(55:21):
was on the other side of the stump or on the other side of
the Cypress knee and the female was on the other side.
So he was literally having, if you can imagine, 2 foot glowing
footballs, you know, a Cypress knee here and a glowing football
on both sides. I could see it.
One was bigger than the other soyou could tell which one the
female was, so he didn't have todeal with a male very often.

(55:42):
Sometimes he would catch the male just to see if it would
stimulate the female into becoming more aggressive, but
most of the time he was pitchingto the female almost 100% of the
time. And it also felt like he was his
fish were fresh fish, like they had just moved in.
So I mean, the fish were not actively spawning.
I mean, it takes sometimes days for that to actually happen.

(56:05):
But, but I've always, in my experience, the sooner you get
that female, when she moves up alot more, she's a lot more
aggressive. As that process moves on.
That's when you get those pesky males that that will like
relentlessly. You can catch them, let them go
and they'll continue to smoke the bait.
Did you ever ask him why he wasn't using perspective mode

(56:27):
and why he chose to use forward as as opposed to perspective?
Yeah, because he can't see his bait.
I asked him that specifically and he said, you know, in
perspective mode I could see thebeds and front facing you can't
see the beds, but you can see the fish.
And I think he knew he as, as helearned so much as the, the

(56:50):
tournament progressed and he learned every single day, even
on day four, he ended up going back to, there was like, there's
like this what, maybe a mile stretch, not even 3/4 of a mile
stretch of, of shoreline Cypresstrees that he was fishing.
There was one little cut involved in, in one spot.

(57:13):
And then there was a Marina, a boat dock, yeah, involved in
the, in the other spot. And so he was learning
throughout the whole process. And with that 3/4 of a mile or a
mile stretch of of area that he was focused on, he expanded it
every day. He kept checking the outer
perimeters of it. He would go to the far left to

(57:35):
that point where he actually caught fish during practice, and
he never even saw one up there or caught one up there during
the tournament. And then he would fish all the
way back almost to the idle zone, which was the far reaches
of the other side of his area. So he kept having to expand it.
And what he found was that as heexpanded it, the further away he

(57:58):
got from that core area, the less fish he saw.
So he sucked it back in. And then from that point, let's
say he narrowed it down to a half a mile section, cut that
whole thing in half in the middle.
Then he found that almost every single fish that he caught, big
fish that he caught came from the same beds next to the same

(58:20):
stumps. And, and, and another specific
that, you know, that he was acutely tuned into was that
these fish were were set up besides stumps that were out of
the water. And his theory was that those
stumps were were absorbing more heat from the what sun was out

(58:40):
and then it would warm the base of that stump up.
And those those fish were huggedup tight to those stumps.
And it's like, you know, when, when you when you experience
when you experience levels of acuteness like that, then you
know, these guys are just tuned into what's going on.
Like, who would have even thought that?
Maybe, you know, there's probably other other pros that

(59:03):
would have thought of that, but for him to have tuned into that
and what did he catch? 13 fish over 7 lbs?
Is that is that right? Something like that.
It was it was ridiculous, totally ridiculous.
And the way that he expanded andreally managed his fish was
remarkable because he didn't on day three, he went he's like,

(59:25):
I'm not going to manage these. If I run out, I run out, but I'm
going to try to try to, you know, catch as many the biggest
bag that I possibly can because I may not need it on day four.
And I don't want to take the chance on coming back here on
day four and this these fish being gone or running out of
fish, which is essentially what happened on day 4.

(59:47):
Did he ever get because that wasnot a secret spot.
I mean, a lot of the locals are like, yeah, yeah, we fish that
all the time. You know, they told me about
tournaments that have been won there.
Did it which is makes it even more amazing that it is a local
honey hole and that he ended up.Getting it to himself as far as
competitors go, did he ever havelocals fishing in around him or

(01:00:11):
was it? Just no dude, the locals.
Amazing. That was that was hey.
Kudos to them. Kudos to the all the locals for
showing up to the event all the,all the the way that the local
Chamber of Commerce and the community set the whole place up
and blocked traffic. So we had place.

(01:00:32):
Everything was phenomenal, even to the point to where I think
the biggest Galley gallery crowdthat that Kyle had attracted was
on day four. And I think there was 13 to 15
boats at one time that were following him.
They all turned their front facing sonars off.
They were. They kept their distance.
Nobody. Was like I saw when you saw the

(01:00:55):
aerial shot, it was like the most distinct wall of like
nobody's passing this wall. Those are the.
Bleachers happening in there. These are the protectors of, of
Kyle Welcher and they, they all wanted to see him do well every
time he caught a big one, you know, those, those people in
those thirteen boats were cheering and, and it was just a
phenomenal environment to be a part of and to, to witness.

(01:01:19):
And Kyle, Kyle Handel, you know,he's humble, he's quiet, he's
stoic. And I've never seen him get
really excited. You, you can, you can feel the
intensity when you're, when you're in the boat with him, but
he never gets excited or, or rattled or any of that stuff.
But this time, when he caught that 10 pounder, I thought his

(01:01:40):
head was going to blow. Well, I mean, not only did you
catch it, but he had it on threedifferent times, twice, two
different times. So it it was like a build like
that was a special moment. Yeah, that was a cherry on top.
He when he hooked it. So he hooked it once and it
popped off, right. He kept fishing for it.

(01:02:04):
And the, the, the amazing thing was the fish came out, he had it
on, it came unbuttoned. So you think, well, you stung
that fish. It's going to be, you know,
you're not going to, you're not,you're probably not going to
catch that fish again. Like you said, that fish had
probably just moved up onto thatbed.
She was as aggressive as she wasever going to be in a spawning

(01:02:25):
phase. So he go, he he, he backs up, he
reties. There's a lot of barnacles and
wood and lots of things that fray your line in there.
And I guess I should mention this, instead of using braid, he
was using 15 to 17 LB. Flora.
Fluorocarbon. So he was constantly.

(01:02:46):
I mean, you can't with the barnacles, dude, The barnacles
of that. It had to, I mean, I'll ask him,
but it had to be the reason why,because I mean, if it's anything
like a zebra mussel braid, you can get braid that is 3 times
stronger, but it doesn't, it gets sliced by the barnacles and
and that's the same with barnacles, I'm sure.
Yeah, and and Brian Schmidt, he and I talked about that on day

(01:03:09):
one. He he snapped off so many times
because he was fishing an area that there was more brackish
than probably where Kyle was, I guess because he was up by the
mouth of the river and he set the hook several times and just
literally it was like he was shark.
Fishing a razor blade. Yeah, like, yeah, exactly.

(01:03:30):
And so, you know, Kyle, Kyle waswas really tuned in to that,
that fish. He knew it was a big one.
He kept saying it was, I think he said, you know, this is a,
this is a big one. And when he hooked it the second
time, which was about 10 minuteslater, he hooked it on a big
hook set and the fish swam out right away from the stump.

(01:03:55):
And it reminded me so much. Like the first thing that came
into my mind was when Brandon Cobb caught that 11/1 at Lake
Fork, it was the same exact scenario.
The line was singing, not like Braid does in the wind, but his
even I could hear his, his line stretching and and singing while

(01:04:16):
the fish took off. And I and I said, at that point,
I go, dude, that might be a 10 pounder.
We never saw the fish, but then it came unbuttoned and he was
like, well, how do you know that?
I go? I don't, I'm just guessing
because it reminded me of Brandon Cobb's fish.
Just just the way that it ran and the weight of it and how you
had to, you know, stand your ground with that fish, all those

(01:04:38):
things. Excuse me.
So he keeps flipping. He he backs up, he reties again.
He he scans back towards the logto see if that fish was around
it, swimming back, whatever. And again, he had this fish on.
This fish was trying to get awayat this point like a harpooned

(01:05:01):
tuna, and it when it when it showed back up, he goes, dude,
she's back on that same exact spot.
And they came. She came back so quick though
too. Like every time.
Like that's a sure sign of that.This girl wants to party.
That's my home. That's right.
That's my seat right there. And so, you know, he kept
flipping back in there. And finally he hooked her.

(01:05:24):
And when he grabbed her, it was like, it was like the whole
crowd blew up. I blew up, he blew up, the fish
blew up. And it was like this was meant
to be. And, and those when those kinds
of things happen, I always go back to, you know, something
politics says a lot. And everyone that wins a
tournament, be it the classic orjust an elite event or even an

(01:05:47):
Open, when it's your day, it's your day.
It's like you can't do anything wrong.
And that's how it felt. That's how it felt with with
Welcher, the whole tournament, it was just like he couldn't do
anything wrong. Avco not only makes incredible
outdoor clothing, but they care about anglers.
With their 10% pledge, Avco and the Shed family donate at least

(01:06:08):
10% of the companies profits to conservation and making fishing
better. Now back to the show.
Yeah, it did. And that fish specifically, I
mean, you knew that fish was going to eat.
Like you knew he's either just going to keep breaking it off or
losing it, or it's it's good he's going to get out.
I mean, we were on live when that was happening.
And at one time we were supposedto go to commercial break.

(01:06:29):
And I'm like, we're not going tobreak.
Like I called it live. I'm like, we need to stay on
this fish. Producer Tyler Tyler, I
apologize, but I totally did. And then when we made us go to
break, I'm like, it's not me. It is not me.
Just so you know, viewers, it isthe producer that is making me
do this because you knew like itjust was building.

(01:06:51):
I think Polnik was on Live with me at the time.
And even Polnik, like we were just amazed.
You could see it was a giant fish on the graph.
You could just, I mean, it was just that incredible moment.
That's what I wish I could have seen.
I, I the only time I could see his graph was when I glanced
down at it and I didn't zoom into it very often on this trip

(01:07:13):
because we have picture in picture now.
We got you, you know, typically we'll have one of the graphs,
particularly, you know, if they're using it quite a bit,
then we'll have that hooked up to a different live unit and it
comes in on a different channel.So I can't see it.
And I'm not focused on his screen like I, I would be before

(01:07:35):
we started doing that. So I didn't really know what was
going on. But every now and then when he
would say there's a big one, I would, I would ease over and
look down or zoom in with my camera to a screen just to see
what he was looking at. And sure enough, you know, you
see these stumps that are just showing up that, you know, hell,
they might be fish for all anyone else would know because

(01:07:58):
there's so many of them and they're stacked vertically.
And then you see this glowing football, you know, they're
elliptical shape when they're facing you or they're turned
away from you, they look like elliptical footballs.
And then when they, when they, when they turn, you can see them
turn and their tails. So, and one of the interesting
things which I'm saw, I'm sure you guys saw was when he flipped

(01:08:22):
his bait in there and he was moving on every single big fish
that he caught. All right, I don't even know
again how many. I'm pretty sure he said he
caught 13 / 7 lbs and which is just mind boggling.
And so when the fish would go finally, you know, come out of
the stump, they would always be in this protected environment of

(01:08:45):
these, of these Cypress knees. And when they finally come out,
they would nose down and he could see his tail almost at the
surface of the water. That's when he knew he was
getting ready to set the hook. And of course, my cue from the
back of the boat is when they, when they come off the trolling
motor and they put their, they, they lean back and they put

(01:09:05):
their foot back, That's when I know to hit record and that, and
that's what I did. So it's just it's just a really
interesting perspective, especially in a tournament like
that with what Drew Cook did at Santee Cooper.
What what Lee Livesey does it itall the tournaments they're
they're won is a camera guy. And this I think I can speak for

(01:09:27):
all of us, all ten of us that work these events.
When you're in the back of the boat, when it's going down, it's
like one of the most unique and bonding and learning experiences
that we get because we're the only other person in the boat.

(01:09:47):
And it's so interesting to see what's going on as it happens.
The character and the personality come out in these
guys and it's it has nothing to do with the the camera has
everything to do in the world todo with the emotional output
that that explodes when they have a tournament like that

(01:10:08):
because they work so hard and it's so hard to win any of these
tournaments on any given day. It all comes out when they win
and it is a really special experience to be with these
guys. So, you know, I was just, I was
just happy and lucky to be there.
It was a really, really cool experience and having catch so
many big fish it was, it was surreal.

(01:10:31):
Yeah. And, and to be with him for
three out of the four days, I mean, I mean, a lot of times
it's two, it's 1, you know, I mean, usually it's a couple, I
would say. But to be with him for all three
days, for him to keep the camerain his boat, for you guys to go
through that together, it's it'sit's it's very cool.

(01:10:51):
It's one of the things that I miss about not being on the
water doing coverage like I usedto do, because you do like you
get a bit of a bond, like, hey, we went through this together.
The the. I mean, you don't get paid any
of the money or nothing, no. No, there's no extra.
There's no extra there. The extra is the is the

(01:11:11):
experience and the memories, youknow, and when you think about
when you're done, you look, you'll you'll I know I'll look
back on it and cherish every month, even even the non wins.
I mean, some of the experiences,like I remember when I think we
were on Eufaula when Chris Aldane caught A5 pounder on the

(01:11:33):
other side of a dock. And literally that was that was,
that was covered in, in river trash, right?
And he flipped in there and caught A5 pounder and lifted it
up to get it over the dock. And the, the, the tip of his rod
broke and he caught a high sticklike a hockey, like a hockey

(01:11:53):
high stick. And even those little moments, I
still have that rod. I asked him if I could have it
since it was broke. And he gave it to me.
And even, you know, 20 years from now, when I look back on
all these experiences, I remember all of them.
And, and when you remember things like that, that reminds
you of how special and bonding these experiences are because no

(01:12:15):
one can ever. I would.
I don't want to, but I would do it.
Probably do it for free. Because of your mouth.
I'm I'm shooting myself in the foot here, aren't I?
You're going to get beat up in the camera trailer.
But it, it's, it's that level oflife that you get to be a part
of and has nothing to do with us.

(01:12:37):
It just it, it's just, you know,something that you get to be
there for. And I knew on day 2, I felt
like, OK, you know, when they have a big day, a 30 LB bag on
day one, The big question is, does he have enough fish?
Are they going to be there tomorrow when he returns to that
spot and what's going to happen?And so that was what was going

(01:12:59):
through my mind. I'm like, man, I really hope he
catches, you know, 25 lbs on day2 to to so I can capture this on
camera so people get to experience at least somewhat
what he had on day one because he didn't have a camera guy.
When he catches 30, I think he had, he had what, 303031 and 34?

(01:13:21):
Is that right? Yeah, yeah, it.
Yeah. 30 in change, 31 in changeand then 34 in change.
Yeah, yeah, right. That's right.
And then and then it was 2024. Yeah, 20. 2014 it was.
Come on man. So I knew after day 2 that this
was probably going to last because you could tell these

(01:13:44):
were new fish that were moving in.
He told me, I said, why did you like, what made you have a gut
feeling about this spot and why did you come back to that?
He said, well, you know, it was 90° the week before we got
before they started practice, itwas 90° up there.
And so he knew that the fish were going to be moving up to
spawn. And when he looked at a map,

(01:14:07):
really that's one of the as big as that place is, most of it is
has steep, steep bank lines. And this was one of the few
areas that he wanted to focus onbecause it was a long drawn out
flat full of stumps and and spawning habitat ground.
And so, you know, that's why he really focused on that area.

(01:14:30):
And when as you moved out to deeper water or when he was
trying to expand his area that afternoon, once he got to 30 lbs
on day 2, I think he probably would have caught had he seen
another 7 or 8 pounder, he wouldhave cast it to it.
But he but his big objective wasto learn more about that area so

(01:14:50):
he could expand it in case he needed it on day three.
And so again, what he saw when he moved out away from the
Cypress dumps, there were literally what he was said where
there's, if you move out here and you were going back and
forth out in this open, more open water, it's still fairly
shallow. But if you would go out here and
scan like he did, you would see that there were literally

(01:15:13):
hundreds of bass out there in the open.
They were waiting to move in to the spawning grounds.
And so you know that, that I, I just knew when, when I saw when
he told me that, I knew that this was going to be a sustained
spot that could very well reloadevery single day.

(01:15:33):
And if it did, there's no telling what was going to
happen. Well, it definitely reloaded,
you know, A10 pounder on day three.
You know, it's it was it was it.It's one of the most pure, like
locked into a spot victories. It's one of the coolest things.
I think that I think that's whena tournament angler is their

(01:15:56):
most lethal, like what you get. And and I think we saw some of
that like you talked to different people who had covered
that same area. There was anglers who fished
that area in day one and caught them there and pre fish.
But the fact that he had a toughpre fish, I mean he fished slow,
like a substantially slower thanwhat I saw from a lot of other

(01:16:18):
anglers. And I think again, I'll ask him,
but I think that that had to do with the fact that he had a bad
pre fish. I mean, you got a bunch of guys
that said they were blast them on frogs and stuff.
So it if you've done that three days before, when you show up,
you're like, hey, I'm still going to fire frogs through here
and still move quick. But when you're, you know,
struggling like he was allegedlydid he fish as slow as it looked

(01:16:44):
like, like from for me doing coverage, it looked like he was
way slower than anybody we were covering.
Oh yeah, and, and I think you know what I said this one time
in the boat that what he was doing with front facing sonar in
that shallow water is what Greg Hackney does with a chatter bait

(01:17:05):
or swim or a swim bait. I'm sorry, or a swim jig or a
spinner bait. He literally goes through
fishes, the entire system that he has has put boundaries around
and he'll literally cast or flipin every between every knee and

(01:17:28):
every corner and literally comb the area.
And I think that's what Kyle wasdoing.
And I'm going to say this hopefully not opening a new can
of worms, but as as the forward facing sonar technology
continues to play a part within the boundaries of these events,

(01:17:51):
they're going to continue to integrate this this technology
in the system into traditional techniques.
And all they're doing every like, it's almost like every
single tournament when someone wins doing something different,
all it is is a refined, A refined technique of old school

(01:18:11):
and new school mashed together. And, and that's what, you know,
obviously that's what Kyle was doing.
I, I thought it was fascinating.And he had to fish slow because
these fish weren't swimming around once you got into the
spawning area, you know, he couldn't just haul asked through
there, you know, on 10 power on his trolling motor to get to his

(01:18:32):
his spots. Plus he actually broke his
trolling motor shaft on in practice.
I believe it was in practice on the last day.
He actually thinks he he stress fractured it hitting stumps on
day and then he broke it off. He actually broke it off on the
last day of practice, had to have it replaced.
And so he knew he had to be careful that he didn't do that

(01:18:55):
again during the tournament. So, you know, it was just
everything, everything that he was doing and had to do was
dictated by a slow moving progressive learning experience
and expanding on his little microcosms that he had to catch
those big fish. And like I said, I think it

(01:19:15):
ended up being as big as that area was in relative to each
spot that he caught his fish on it.
It ended up being like 5 or 6 different specific waypoints
where he caught almost all of his fish, at least all the big
fish. The Speaking of trolling motor
shafts have special shout out tothe service yard.

(01:19:37):
The guys who the service teams that travel around, they worked
incredibly hard. It was ridiculous because I
mean, there was a lot of trolling motor shafts and things
broke because like you said, thecolor of the water it I mean,
it's dark, you can't see and you've you've seen boats up on
stumps. I mean, no matter how hard you
tried it, funny story on day oneand I I got to tell it, Emil

(01:20:01):
Wagner, great dude, winner of the pro am at the classic.
He told me. So you imagine if you're in the
service yard, I mean, you're trolling, trolling motor shafts,
props for motors. Like there's a lot of damages
done in a big water like this and especially with it.
So they're working overtime. And then Emil Wagner on day one

(01:20:26):
when those guys were there to gosh knows what time at night
Emil Wagner goes to load his boat, forgets to pull his
troller motor. Out.
Oh no. Breaks the shaft loading his
boat. Oh.
No, I. Don't know what he did, but when
I talked to Joby from the Mid Kona service team, he's like any
other time he said I would have laughed at it, but he said I'm

(01:20:48):
like trying to keep up with actual damage and then somebody
does something dumb. But we've all done it, Emil.
We've all done that. But not that I haven't done
that, No. But we've all done dumb things.
Correct. Yeah, they, I mean as much, I
mean people just, you know, trash their rigs and and the

(01:21:10):
they were making those big runs.I I didn't get to go out on that
big water, thank goodness. But from everything that I had
retained from the camera guys that were coming back each
afternoon, they were, they were,it was, it was as it was as bad
as it is as it gets or it has ever gotten for us as camera

(01:21:31):
guys, it was really rough out there.
So kudos to the camera crew too for hanging in there and and
being the being the tough warriors that you guys are.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was the most popular thing said on stage
day one. I got to go to the service
shack. It was funny though, because
people would be like my such andthe such ran real smooth.
Everything ran perfectly and then 30 seconds that has been

(01:21:54):
like I got to go to the service yard though and get it all
bolted back together. The most amazing thing you said
that stands out to me, that kindof shows how next level Kyle
Welcher is, is to pick up on thefact that most of the fish that
I'm catching are stumps that areout of the water.

(01:22:14):
And I believe it's because thoseare heating up that to me, like
you realize, I could fish that area for a month and catch them
for a month before I would put together that the actual, I'd
just be like, well, maybe I'm fish the ones that are out of
the water. I'm fishing better because I
know they're there and I'm I would never put that together.

(01:22:36):
So that is amazing to me. Remarkable variable to be tuned
into. And you know, I'm not going to
say who, but there were other very good shallow water anglers
that you knew like you don't want to see them in front of you
fishing in an area like that because you're thinking that

(01:22:58):
they're going to pick that placeapart and they didn't.
And two in particular, they werekind of fish in that area on
various on the various days would come through and then as
they passed each other, you know, Kyle would say what you
got or whatever, they always askeach other how it's going.
And both of them only had one fish at that point.

(01:23:19):
And, and Kyle already had 30 lbsin as well at that point.
Fish in the same exact area. What I noticed about them, the
other guys were they were fishing it too fast and it may
very well have been because theyweren't tuned into that.
Well, this is what I, this is what I'm looking for.
You know, I mean, almost every event when the winner reveals

(01:23:42):
his, his thoughts or techniques or acuteness of what you know,
he was focusing in on, it's almost always this common
denominator. Even, you know, if it's just a
twig or a, a, a small patch of cattails growing isolated away
from everything else or whatever, or one rock here, one

(01:24:04):
rock there or a blow down that looks like this instead of this,
you know, they, they always lockinto some specific thing and you
know, for or again, for Kyle to have done that.
I remember 1 specifically that was in this little Cove and it
just, it reminded me, I was, I was filming for KVD one time

(01:24:26):
down in Florida on a private, ona private mission.
And I remember we, we came into this Cove and there was all
these Cypress dumps back there. And I'll never forget I was
rolling, I was rolling the camera and he said, man, this
has got big fish written all over it.
And he throws, he throws in there one time and this huge

(01:24:47):
weight comes out of nowhere and comes in and just eats his bait
and we get the whole thing on film.
And that's a lot like it reminded me a lot like of where
Kyle was fishing in this tournament.
But to notice that and and he kept going back to this one
stump and I think this one stump.
And if you go back, you know, ifyou were to go back in, in the

(01:25:09):
playback of the whole tournamentand you went back to the last 30
minutes of Day 4, he went back to that stump one more time just
to check it because I think he caught like either 3 or 47
pounders off of that one stump. And and who's to say that it
wasn't the same male that was there tending those the the four

(01:25:32):
different females. He was locked in on that stump
and he was there every single time.
So it was like a new queen wouldcome up and and I don't know
what was going on with that fit that male fish, but he was a
very lucky guy for a while untilKyle showed up.

(01:25:54):
Was there anything else that stood out to you?
Because I I mean literally when he was standing in the states,
the only thing that kept going through my mind is why did you
win this tournament? I get it, if it's your time,
it's your time. I get it, you're good at this,
but why? Like it blows me away to CA
tournament that is that dominant.
Like not the weight that he weighed in, but for nobody to be

(01:26:16):
within 45 freaking pounds of him.
Like literally we could have sent the rest of the field out.
We could have said the other nine in the top ten and they
don't catch him in two days. If you go by the weights from
from Championship Sunday, I meannot even close.
I mean you, you're going to haveto have £2223 a day to catch

(01:26:39):
him. And we had nobody that was
weighed like it. To me, for him to do what he did
doesn't compute. Like for it to be good for a few
people is one thing, but for it to just be that dominant is is
wild. I mean, with the numbers that
you just said, 22 and 23 lbs. He was 45 lbs.

(01:27:01):
Oh, plus some change that was his gap, his winning margin
between his weight and, and 2nd place, right.
And so he, he not only lapped the field once, he lapped them
twice because it would have taken by, on average, it would
have taken them two days to catch up to his final weight.
So it, it was remarkable. And I, I covered Caleb Kufall at

(01:27:25):
Guntersville when he won by 17 lbs.
And that was AI didn't get to cover Patrick when he, when he
set that £29 record. But being in the boat with Kyle
or Caleb Kufaul, he couldn't do anything wrong.
And everything he caught was 3/4or 5 lbs.
And it just kept adding up. And then someone would catch up

(01:27:47):
a little bit, but it was like, you know, one of those football
games where you think a team's coming back and all of a sudden
the team that's winning by a large margin steps up the gas
and scores a touchdown in a field goal ahead of everything
that the the other team can do. Well, the the the winning
dominant team would do two things to to spread that gap

(01:28:09):
out. And that's what Kyle was doing.
It was, it was truly when I looked down at one point at bass
track on on day four and he was 51 lbs ahead.
Kyle said he didn't obviously didn't know all that, 'cause it
that's it's off limits. But don't remember him saying to
me he's like, Can you imagine ifsomeone caught 45 lbs and

(01:28:32):
everyone else caught 30 lbs today?
And, and you know, all I could think of him in my head was,
dude, don't even worry about that because you're so far ahead
right now. Like we could literally go get
pizza and a beer and it wouldn'teven matter.
But to his to his specific goals, every tournament like

(01:28:53):
that, which is rare, there are multiple goals that that set
themselves up and tee themselvesup to accomplish one at a time.
So he pretty much knew he was going to win without even
catching one. On day four, especially when he
called, he called A4 Pounder andthat kind of set his mind at
ease. They're going to have to catch
29 lbs or whatever, 29 lbs to toto catch me.

(01:29:18):
Then when he caught the then he was his next goal was to get a
century belt because he was 4 ozaway from a century belt up on
the Saint Lawrence River two years ago when, when so many
people were, you know, were set up to win the century belt and
we gave so many way. He was 4 oz off.
So that was another goal of his.And then once he caught the

(01:29:38):
seven pounder to make it 11 lbs and 2 fish, he, he, I remember
him saying, well, now I've got my belt.
He's holding the fish up now. Now I've got a belt.
And so then he started thinking,well, I'm just going to keep
catching him to see, you know, we talked a little bit about the
all time weight. I remember texting you at one
point, what is the all time weight?

(01:29:59):
For some reason I thought it wasthat lake Falcon or Falcon Lake
145 lbs. 132 Eight. 132 eight. Yeah.
And you, you clarified that for me and then I started thinking,
well, he's only 16 lbs off and you think, well, that's a lot.
That's 28 pounders, you know, or210 pounders or whatever it is.

(01:30:21):
You think that's a lot of groundto gain.
But then you think about the last three days and you go, this
is actually not out of the question, right?
No, no, he definitely put himself in that.
I think he's in the top 20 winning weights or top 25
winning weights, I mean. 20 or 15 even.

(01:30:43):
To give you an idea of just how dominant what he was doing is,
and I got to give him credit, itwas either Ronnie or Suits that
brought the set up on the live show.
But yeah, after the first three days of competition, if you took
the next three biggest weights and all the other anglers like
not from 1 angler, but if you took the next three biggest

(01:31:03):
weights, he was still destroyingthat person.
Like if you could take those three biggest weights and put
them together, it it. So outside of him just being
better at it, why do you think he want like was there anything
else that stood out to you as I mean?
Yeah, I mean, there's there's somany little variables.

(01:31:23):
You know, I mean, when Jason Christie won the Hartwell
Classic, you know, that had a lot to do with the way he set up
and pulled down on the front ends of those docks when he was
catching the three pounders thathe needed to upgrade or to even
get his five fish limit during the day.
It was all because he was tuned into the fact that the fish had

(01:31:45):
moved from the back of the dock to the front and then the angle
that at which he approached eachone so he could access the
corners of the boardwalk and theactual boat dock itself.
That was the specific that really capital Jason capitalized
to win the classic. And on this occasion, I think

(01:32:05):
with the so on day one and day 2, the wind was coming from a
completely different direction. He was he actually had pretty
smooth water to fish. Kyle did in this area.
And then all of a sudden, you know, day three and four, it
blew from a completely differentdirection in towards the shore

(01:32:26):
and it was blowing colder water in there.
So, you know, it changed the dynamics of his location.
Plus, as heavy as the wind was, he had to pull, he had to hit,
hit boat control became a problem because when you've got
these Cypress stumps, right, Hold on one SEC.
I got it. I'm going to get that prop.
Hold on. Oh wow, we're getting props.

(01:32:48):
For those of you listening to the streaming platforms, you
might want to check it out YouTube because you'll miss an
opportunity to see Jake awkwardly run across his room to
get a oh wow, we've got a Cypress.
This is an actual Cypress stump.I've had this my entire life.
Of course you do. It came from Tennessee.
My uncle Harold cut this off. Of course he did.

(01:33:10):
And varnished it, skinned it andvarnished it.
And so this is my Cypress stump.So thanks Uncle Harold.
RIP. But with the fish sitting on
both sides or in the middle of the Cypress dumps, for him to be
able to come in and angle his boat so that he could actually

(01:33:31):
see the fish on his Graf had to be really specific.
Because a, if he set up on this side of it, if he's over here
and the stumps here and the fishis over here, he couldn't see
the fish nor could the fish see his bait.
And what was so important about that fishing in that stained

(01:33:52):
water was him being able to see that fish tip down, nose down,
see that, that the tail splashing at the surface to
understand that that fish was about to get the bait.
So it was imperative, 100% imperative that he could see
what he was doing on his graft. It's almost like, you know,

(01:34:14):
microscopic surgery where there's a doctor in there fixing
a tendon in a, in a, in a, in a knee or whatever it is.
He's got his magnifying glass onso he can see exactly what he's
doing because it's so minute andmicroscopic that the precision
of everything that he was doing had to be just right.
His bait had to be in front of the fish.

(01:34:37):
And then, you know, when he tapped his rod, everything had
to be right. When he was he, he didn't do it
and he didn't do it. He did nothing blindly.
Everything was calculated. And I think that, you know, to
answer your question in a long roundabout way, that's why he
won that tournament because he was tuned into the micro details

(01:34:57):
of that type of fishing that it took.
And to me it was it. It's old school.
Like I said before, it's old school mixed with new school,
but that makes it new because I've never seen anyone do that
before. I've run a Yamaha outboard for
over 30 years. It has got me home safe each and
every time. If you enjoy this podcast,

(01:35:18):
remember Yamaha supports it and they care enough about you to
make this ad read very short. Now back to the show.
Yeah, yeah. The other thing about this
tournament that I mean, I guess it depends on what way you want
to look at it. There's a bunch of people
saying, oh, he's bed fishing with forward face and sonar and
this number one. I mean, we get to the point

(01:35:40):
where we're just going to use Velcro hooks.
Like I mean, we are bass fishing, we're fishing like
remember, we're fishing. You're shaming a sharp object in
a fish's face. Like we are fishing.
You're legally allowed to fish. I mean, it's no different.
And if you're totally against bad fishing, you get a pass on

(01:36:01):
this because that's what you're against.
But it but I also feel like we're all bed fishing whether we
know it. If you fish in the spring,
you're fishing for batters, you're fishing for fry garters.
Just because you don't know it doesn't make it any different.
I mean, the tool just allows it to him to be more precise with

(01:36:21):
it. But what really also stands out
to me is the people that are saying, well, this, you know,
the fish don't stand a chance. You saw how dialed he was and
how hard and how much commitmenthe had to make to catch those
fish. Of the 102 anglers in the field,
101 of them have forward facing sonar. 180 of them were trying

(01:36:47):
to do exactly what Kyle Welcher was trying to do 70 of them, I
don't know what the number is. And they didn't do it to the
level that he was doing it. I mean, it's nothing is a give
me. I mean, just because you can see
it doesn't mean sometimes. That makes it harder because you
can see. It in fishing, though, like I

(01:37:07):
mean, I in that that situation, I mean, you're that's why he was
able to lock down. But I mean, it's just, I'm just
saying it's not a Gimme. That's true.
And and you know, I'll, I'm going to say this too.
The more I hear this isn't fishing and the more experiences
that I see that are integrating old school with new school, the

(01:37:30):
more I disagree with the people that say this isn't fishing.
And here's why. Because like you said, it's
still fishing. They're still casting to a fish.
Yes. They're casting to a fish that
they know is there. They do but and and that that
offers them the opportunity to sustain their patience to

(01:37:51):
continue fishing for that fish, to catch that fish.
But a lot of times, and I wouldn't hesitate to say most of
the time it doesn't, it doesn't always work out bed fishing.
It's different because whether you're sight fishing or you're
using front facing sonar like Kyle was or, or Drew Cook did at
Santee Cooper, you're still seeing the fish you're looking

(01:38:14):
for, for behavioral patterns andlocation specific locations that
allow you to be patient on thosefish.
And eventually, you know, if youpiss that fish off enough, she's
going to bite. She's just going to pick the
thing up and move it just to getit out of her way, right?
That's what that's what pregnantwomen do.
They clean house, right? I said it, I said it and I've

(01:38:38):
got 3 kids and so you know, but again, what he did, you can say
all you want, that's not fishing.
That made it easy. Those fish didn't have a chance.
But I'm telling you as the only other person in that boat for
three days that watched him do that.
And and this, this bleeds back into all the other anglers that

(01:39:02):
I've covered fishing with front facing sonar.
Even when they discovered those pelagic fish on Champlain, that
blew my mind. That totally really blew my mind
what they found out there and then watching Kyle do what he
did blew my mind. Because it takes intelligence.
It takes even even, you know, the same intelligence it took

(01:39:27):
Rick Klun to figure out everything that he did way back
when. It took the same intelligence
that it took Kevin Van Damme to separate himself from the other
anglers in his, in his era, at that time, Kyle Welcher.
And and there's several guys, a lot of them that have this super
acute intelligence level that allows them to see or do

(01:39:51):
different things and try different things.
That has nothing to do with front facing sonar other than
you know what that fish, where that fish is and kind of how he
or she is acting. But you still have to discover a
way to catch that fish and, and develop a, a creative technique

(01:40:12):
to be able to accomplish what hedid.
And, and I see it. I mean, and, and you, you do as
well. And a lot of people do have to
have the, you know, the, the crowd does and the other half
doesn't. They don't, they don't want to
understand that. And I get it.
You don't have to love that, butI'm telling you it takes more
than just seeing the fish on Ford facing sonar to be able to

(01:40:35):
catch him and to catch him consistently to catch 7
pounders. 20 is that. We'll have to look that up and
you'll have to ask Kyle when youinterview him.
I believe he said he caught 13 fish over 7 lbs.
It it would that mathematically be.
Correct you asking me? I don't know, it's just, it's

(01:40:57):
just mind boggling that he did that the way that he did and for
people to try to discredit that to me, it's just, you know,
we're on that ridiculous soap. Well, he's well on there because
7 * 10 is 70. I mean he weighed in 117 lbs.
So yes, your your math is probably correct, but hey,
listen, people will discredit itall they want.

(01:41:19):
I mean, that's the world discredits everything nowadays.
That's how it is. And listen, this isn't something
new. I mean, there's part of me that
I've been pushing and will push that I'd like to see part of
turn a limit to forward faces sonar just because I I want to
see the angler tested in in different ways.
I don't want it just to be that,but it Ford faces sonar has

(01:41:44):
allowed him access to something that he didn't have access to
before, no different than braided lime allowed people
access to something they didn't have access to before.
If you had frog fishing before braided lime was invented, guess
what? You didn't land near as many
fish if you went before flippingguys didn't get access to those

(01:42:06):
fish. I mean, and the belief of that's
not fishing, that's not new either.
That's totally, I mean, I remember before even more 1520
years ago going up to 3 river and fishing for Arctic char in
on the tree River, which is where all the world record

(01:42:27):
Arctic char have come from. But I went there on fly fishing
week. I, I didn't think it was a big
deal, but I found out from some fly anglers that it, it was a
big deal because it was super windy and they were trying to do
their thing and wind is the enemy of fly fishing and it made
it very difficult. And I was wailing 50 LB braid

(01:42:48):
with a spoon and hammer them. Those guys said that wasn't
fishing. It's not fishing that they're
used to. It's not traditional the way
that they are. But if you don't respect what
he's doing, I mean, that's again, your prerogative and your
choice. I think it's amazing for him to.
And if it was so easy, how come 101 other anglers didn't do what

(01:43:12):
he's doing? I mean, how come he was that far
ahead? But yeah, no, I think it's
amazing. I think he's an amazing angler.
Super intelligent, super intelligent guy.
Like, like, you know, there's a different level of thought
process and, you know, people like that.

(01:43:32):
And that's why he does so well. And it's amazing that that was
his first blue trophy. He's been close so many times.
He had a second place at the classic.
You know, he's always been on that cusp of winning and, and
doing great things. And I remember him telling me
on, you know, after day three aswe were idling back to the boot
ramp, I remember him saying, this never happens to me.

(01:43:55):
Like this has just been I, I don't want it to end.
That was, you know, and, and when you hear an angler like
that say something like that, which he's a fairly non
emotional individual, fairly stoic when he says to you, you
know, I don't want this to end at that point.
Yes, the money's great. Yes, the trophy's great and all

(01:44:17):
that stuff, all the all the things that come with the with
winning a tournament are wonderful.
And that's why they do it, you know, as as a as a job.
But when they do, when they say something like that, you know
that the experience mean something to them because they
don't even do that when they go out fishing for fun or when they
were younger, before they were tournament pros at that level,

(01:44:40):
you don't, you don't do that forfour days and, and, and, and
forget about it. Those are once in a lifetime
experiences. Even if you win 10 more
tournaments, I'm sure KVD could tell you the micro details about
every, all 25 Bassmaster events that he won and, and all the
highlights or the things that made him, you know, capable of

(01:45:02):
winning 4 classics and, and all those things.
You remember those things. And to me that's what makes it
it special because you don't getthose, those, those events and
those memories that often. And when you do, they're etched
into your into your head forever.
It was an awesome week, a historic week, and it's still

(01:45:25):
your birthday. What are you doing tonight?
Got big plans? Cake.
My kids forgot my birthday this morning no one wished me happy
birthday you were you and my sister and a few other people
were the only my. My Facebook is blowing up.
I will say that 'cause they my kids forgot.
But here's here's my plan. I so.
So they still don't know, like they're in school right now and

(01:45:49):
they they still have. Their minds are on their
birthdays. My youngest daughter, her
birthday was April 7th. My son Walker, his birthday is
April the 20th and my oldest daughter's birthday is May 24th.
So they all have birthdays, you know, jammed up into this, this
spring here. And so they're focused on their
birthdays. And I thought it was funny

(01:46:10):
because, you know, I, I got up and cooked them breakfast this
morning and they always say thank you.
My kids are very polite and, and, and generous.
They said thank you for breakfast, dad.
And as I was doing their dishes,I'm thinking, it's really funny.
Not one of them remembered that today is my birthday.
And I'm going to keep it that way because tonight when I pick

(01:46:33):
them all up from their sports activities after after school,
I'm going to, we're going to, I'm just going to go to a
restaurant and I'm going to pickthe one that I want to go to
instead of asking them which onethey want to go to.
And I know Walker, he's going tosay, why do we have to go to the
one you want to go to? And I'm going to look at him and
say, because it's my birthday, I've already got this all

(01:46:57):
planned out, buddy. Wow, wow.
Well, I look forward to seeing how that works out.
I mean, it actually makes me feel good about a dad because I
hear all these things that your kids are doing.
I mean, they run triathlons before they go to school,

(01:47:17):
Everything that they're accomplishing.
It's good to know that even yourkids screw up sometimes.
We're all we all have this selfish us and we right, we're
there, we're all, we all think about ourselves at times and
they're children. And I know, I know that's kind
of a dirty trick I'm playing on them.

(01:47:37):
But at the same time it's you know, there's everything you do
for your children, right? You're a.
Lesson they'll never forget. Everything's a lesson and every
time you react to something thatthat they do.
If you're a parent, you care care about your children.
You tee it up for a lesson and that's what I'm going to do.

(01:47:59):
A lesson. Evil lesson, but hey, it's.
Kyle Welcher gave everyone a fishing lesson this.
Weekend. He freaking did.
He did. I was going to say this too.
You always hate it when someone dominates like that because it,
there's no competitiveness in it.
Yeah. At the same time, you love it
when someone does something likethat, which is rare at that

(01:48:21):
historical level. But when the Caleb Kufa or when
someone just dominates a tournament like that, you know,
there's something about it. I remember going out leaving the
dock on day four thinking to myself he hardly has to catch
any fish to win this. And while that might might be
boring for some people, others are going to tune in because

(01:48:42):
this is a Kyle. Walters history.
It's it mean you're making history it and I get it as the
guy who does the weigh in. I mean, I like it to be close.
I mean the Bill Lowen win at thebeginning of the year was
awesome. Awesome.
But how weird is it that we, like last year when Corey won on
the Saint Johns River was the first time in the 15 plus years

(01:49:04):
that I've been doing this that we did not load the hot seat.
You know, he didn't need to fishon Sunday.
Then Paul and Neck and Okeechobee does it this year and
now we've had two in a row wheresomebody didn't load the hot
seat. So incredible finishes an
incredible week, an incredible event, and it's going to be an

(01:49:26):
incredible birthday for you. I promise.
Please folks, fill them up in the comments for kids.
Didn't remember it was his birthday but I would.
My kids didn't even remember. Hey, I want to.
I want to say one other thing. Speaking of kids watching Kyle

(01:49:47):
and Hunter, his wife and their son, What's their son's name?
Why do you ask me that? I don't know.
I don't know. I forget.
I mean, we could have been fine.You could have just said what?
Watching Hunter and Kyle and their child, We could have been
fine. There's some put me in the spot
and made us both look like idiots.
Someone made a comment on I don't remember what post it was

(01:50:11):
yesterday because there were so many populating about Kyle's
win, but someone made mention of, you know, his his family and
how he reacts to his family and having, you know, known Kyle
what now for five years. This is his fifth year on the
elites. When you see, I want to say this

(01:50:35):
is about Hunter, OK, And this isto me this is important because
this is a whole another variablein the success of Anglers is
having a marriage and a relationship that supportive of
what you're doing. Baby Link.
What link? Yeah, link.
Oh link? OK, Lincoln link.

(01:50:56):
Link. Link.
Yeah, link. There it is.
That's his son's name. Yeah.
So watching him interact with his son at the boat dock before
takeoff is one thing. His son's is as cute as he can
be. He and he looks just like Kyle.
And. But more importantly, in my

(01:51:17):
opinion, not that trying to distinguish or disconnect the
relationships there, but the thing that I saw about Hunter,
and I've always noticed this about her, the way she
approaches his boat in the morning and in the afternoons
when he comes back to the ramp is remarkable.
She's always there. Her eyes are glowing.

(01:51:41):
She can't take her eyes off of Kyle.
She's so invested in what he's doing as a wife, a supportive
wife. I just wanted to throw that out
there and give kudos to Hunter because that's something that a
lot of people don't notice or understand about how important
that is to these anglers, especially when they're not

(01:52:02):
doing well is, is how important that is to them, their psyche,
how they leave the dock every morning, what they're going to
do the rest of the year, If, if they're sucking and, and how
they explain it to their, you know, their spouses when they
get home or whatever it is. Hunter is doing it the right
way. And I wanted to point that out
because it's something that I notice every time I'm around

(01:52:25):
them. Yeah, they're an awesome couple.
Truly a team and congratulationsto Stone Cold, Kyle Welcher, and
yes, that was awesome. Is that your first W of the year
on the Elites? On the elites, yes, Yeah.
Hey, you had one in the opens, right?

(01:52:45):
On Kentucky Lake, yeah. And then this was my first win
in the in the elites, so it didn't felt good.
It's always, you know, it's always the experience is just is
unbelievable. I don't know how many wins I
filmed, but every one of them are special.
And this was especially special because of the number of big

(01:53:05):
fish that Kyle caught and how hedid it.
So thanks, Wes and whoever else.Wes Miller makes the
assignments. And I had no say in that.
I just got my assignment after on Thursday night after weigh
insurance. And I was happy to be with
Wiltshire again and obviously really, really happy, grateful

(01:53:25):
and thankful that I got to be a part of that this weekend
because it was remarkable. Well, thanks, Wes, on behalf of
me too, because you make this podcast cooler when Jake Jake's
with winners. Than having to make shit up.
We would never make stuff up. So what are we going to talk

(01:53:47):
about today, Mercer? Hey, let's talk about the win.
Well, it was a special week for Kyle Welcher.
You make this show special. I appreciate everything you do.
Happy birthday dude, and we'll see you soon.
Thanks buddy, Appreciate it. Bye everybody.
Pay your taxes. Tax advice.

(01:54:11):
That's why they TuneIn. So that's it, That's all we got.
The tournament winner, the record setter and his camera guy
that was with him for three days.
I, I don't know how I can do anybetter than that, but I think it
was a pretty stinking good show and hopefully you agree.

(01:54:33):
If you do, make sure you leave thumbs up, leave a comment.
And also, that's for my YouTube listeners, but also those of you
that listen in the streaming services, We need to start
blowing that up with ratings. If you can, please leave a
rating, please leave a review. All of these things, you know
what they do, they help stroke the algorithm.

(01:54:57):
And when an algorithm is happy, well, this show is happy.
And when this show is happy, hopefully you watch.
Until next time, enjoy being. And as always, hey Bob Cobb,
take it away. Thanks for watching.

(01:55:17):
Please like, comment and subscribe because Bob Cobb of
the Bass Masters told you to youhere.