Caleb Sumrall longs for another Bassmater Elite Series season like he had in 2021.

That campaign three years ago proved to be his breakout season. The New Iberian notched two Top 10 finishes and was seventh in the Angler of the Year standings in ’21.

As Sumrall enters his seventh season as an Elite, he wants to put the past two years in the rear view mirror. He followed up the eye-opening ’21 campaign with a 46th-place showing in 2022.

Then Sumrall finished 73rd with 422 points in the AOY race of 2023. The number of lowlights and highlights were about the same last season.

He started out 98th in the ’23 opener at Lake Okeechobee in Florida and finished the campaign 84th at the St. Lawrence River in New York. Two notable finishes were 16th near home on the Sabine River in Texas and 19th on New York’s Lake Champlain.

His worst showing was at Santee Cooper Lakes in South Carolina, where he was 102nd in the fourth tournament of ’23. He dug himself a hole that was difficult to climb out of but he did make an ill-fated comeback down the stretch with two of his best tournament results of the year.

Family and friends cheered him along as always.

“I hope I can do a lot better than last year. I want to make them (fans) proud, for sure,” he said recently.

Hopefully, Sumrall can get the right bites and make as many or more right decisions as he did in ’21 during the new season that unfolds this week at Toledo Bend.

The 36-year-old Westgate High School graduate’s offseason kept him busy saltwater fishing, hunting big game and alligators and, mostly, spending as much time as possible with his wife, Jacie, daughter, Clelie, 11, and son, Axel, 6.

After getting his new Xpress X21Pro wrapped over a two-day period at the end of January at Lipari Specialties, then waiting as patiently as possible for key parts to arrive in time to get them installed on and in the boat, was gung-ho about the fast-approaching season.

As Sumrall said soon after picking up his boat, “I’m excited, ready to get started. It’s been a long offseason, man. It’s time to get back to work.”

Punching another ticket to the Bassmaster Classic is his driving force going into the season because he has missed out on back-to-back Bassmaster Classics in 2023 and 2024. This year’s world championship of bass fishing is scheduled to be held March 22-24 at Grand Lake O the Cherokees near Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“You always want a good year. That’s my main goal — making that (2025) Classic,” he said.

First and foremost is getting a good start to the Elite season and he gets that chance Feb. 22 in the season opener out of Cypress Bend Resort. He has experience and plenty of hours on the water as he guided for four years on Toledo Bend.

That “home lake” experience could help or hinder the 2017 B.A.S.S. Nation Champion.

“Starting off at Toledo Bend, I know a good bit there. I’m just hoping the ‘hometown curse’ doesn’t get me there,” he said, fully realizing it’s possible knowing too much and too many places could work against him, as it has so many hometown favorites in the past.

Nevertheless, he said, he’s probably looking forward to Toledo Bend the most for any of this year’s tournaments.

“It looks like it’s been fishing pretty good,” Sumrall said in an understatement, noting he watched “a little bit” of the recent Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour Stage One tournament Jan. 30-Feb. 4 at Toledo Bend.

After Toledo Bend, it’s off to Lake Fork in Texas a few days later to hopefully tangle with the “hawgs” there Feb. 29-March 3.

He’s optimistic about going to Lake Fork for a fourth time as an Elite.

“Confident? Yeah. (But) it kind of had my number a couple of times. I had one good tournament out of three,” he said, referring to a 21st-place finish at Lake Fork in 2021. He was 57th in 2022 and 58th in 2020.

It’s the only March regular-season tournament for the Elites because the Bassmaster Classic is set for the next-to-last weekend of the month in Oklahoma.

Then he hitches his new Xpress X21Pro to his pickup truck and heads east and south to fish two tournaments in Florida – April 11-13 the Harris Chain of Lakes at Leesburg and April 18-21 St. Johns River at Palatka.

Sumrall’s excited about the Florida swing. He’s a big fan of hitting the two storied Florida waterbodies later in the spring rather than earlier as in the past, when a s-l-o-w approach usually ruled the day during the prespawn and early spawning period.

He’ll return to the southeastern region of the country May 9-12 to fish Lake Murray in South Carolina and go to Wheeler Lake near Decatur, Alabama, June 13-16.

The Elite’s next stop is at Smith Lake a month later, June 27-30, near Cullman, Alabama. That tournament could be the most challenging to him and others because, he said, it’ll be in the dead of summer.

“It might be pretty tough but it’s full of fish,” he said.

The nine-tournament season winds down with two tournaments in New York State, where he loves to tap the fat, sassy smallmouth bass population at Lake Champlain new Plattsburgh and the St. Lawrence River at Waddington.