At midmorning Thursday, New Iberian Caleb Sumrall was an hour away from Palatka, Florida, and one week away from a regular-season opener he wants to shine in on the nearby St. Johns River.

Sumrall left his home after 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. He drove his newly wrapped Toyota Tundra pickup truck towing his recently wrapped Xpress X21 Pro aluminum bass boat with a 250-h.p. Yamaha Sho east through the night to get to Palatka in time for a Carhartt photo shoot at 2 p.m.

As Sumrall drove, he talked about starting his fourth season on the Bassmaster Elite Series tour Feb. 11-14 with a tournament on the St. Johns River.

“I’m fired up and ready to go. I feel like I’m more fired up than the first one (2018 Elite opener his rookie year). It’s not getting old. I’m very excited,” he said.

The 33-year-old all-around outdoorsman’s first order of business is to find and catch bass in enough areas to help him get over the bugaboo that has plagued him in openers the past two years on the St. Johns River. He’ll begin prefishing today and also scout Monday and Tuesday before the off day for registration Wednesday.

Sumrall missed the cut there last year with a total of 18 pounds for a 48th-place finish. He finished 72nd in 2019 with 11 pounds, 8 ounces, from the St. Johns.

“It seems I have a tough time getting off to a good start. I don’t want to be chasing my tail all year. I want to get ahead of the game” with a solid showing this week, he said.

With that in mind, he’s going to tweak his prefishing a little.

“I plan to try to look at a little more of the river than I have. I’ve just got to find some areas with fish. They should be ready to get up and spawn,” he said. “The weather next week is going to be all messed up — rain and clouds. It’s going to be interested.”

He’ll throw “a lot” of moving baits to start out and try to locate bass. After he gets bit on those, he’ll come back with artificial lures designed for a slower presentation, such as his favorite Missile Baits D Bomb, to narrow down the pattern and see exactly where the bass are positioned, to fine-tune the pattern.

He ought to have plenty of stamina for many hours of prefishing and enough stamina for, hopefully, four days of competing at the highest level of bass fishing against 100 other Elites. His goal last year was to run 1,000 miles and on New Year’s Eve he logged his 1,243rd mile.

Sumrall’s next goal is to qualify for the 2022 Bassmaster Classic, which will require a much higher finish than the one he logged in 2020 when he finished 60th with 465 points in the Angler of the Year standings.

“Oh, yeah, I feel good, ready to go. That’s part of the reason I ran so much and worked out so much. I’ve got to get ready for the season,” he said.

His ardent cheering section is led by his wife, Jacie, daughter, Clelie, and son, Axel.

Sumrall’s Tundra was wrapped earlier Wednesday by Tommy Lipari and his crew at Lipari Specialties along the U.S. 90 frontage road between South Lewis Street and Weeks Island Road. Lipari wrapped his new boat earlier this month.

‘I can’t thank Tommy enough for getting the boat and truck wrapped as quick as he did. He got me out. It came out good,” Sumrall said.

His sponsors include Xpress, The Bridge Cemetery (Vic Segura), Yamaha, Bruin Outdoors, Missile Baits, Lowrance, Spro, Gamakatsu, Kistler Rods and Power-Pole.

Sumrall is one of nine Louisiana bass anglers in the 2021 Bassmaster Elite Series field compared to seven in 2020. Two widely known bass pros joined the Elite ranks by qualifying last year through the Bassmaster Opens — Greg Hackney of Gonzales, who returns to the Elite field after two years on the Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour, and Toledo Bend fishing guide Darold Gleason of Many.

Other Louisiana Elites are Quentin Cappo of Prairieville; Tyler Carriere of Youngsville; Derek Hudnall of Baton Rouge; Robbie Latuso of Gonzales; Brett Preuett of Monroe, and Tyler Rivet of Raceland.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.