Caleb Sumrall did a fine job responding to the pressure and figuring out how to put good-sized bass in the boat this past week at Wheeler Lake in Alabama.

Sumrall, who’s making a determined bid to get back to the Bassmaster Classic, got to Semifinal Saturday of the 2024 Whataburger Bassmaster Elite tournament June 15 and finished 26th in the star-studded 99-angler field that fished the Tennessee River impoundment June 13-16.

The New Iberia bass pro, an all-around outdoorsman, weighed in 14 pounds, 1 ounce, on Day 1, checked in with an even better bag Day 2 at 15-13, and closed out on Day 3 by putting another limit weighing 10-4 on the digital scales at the big stage at Ingalls Harbor in Decatur, Alabama.

Sumrall’s effort, which included rising as high as fifth during the heat of first-day action, catapulted him from 62nd in the Angler of the Year standings to 47th with 314 points going into the seventh of nine regular-season Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments for 2024. Texan Brad Whatley is in 46th while Canadian Jeff Gustafson holds down 48th.

The goal is to get inside the projected cut line for the 2025 Bassmaster Classic scheduled to be held March 21-23 at Lake Ray Roberts near Fort Worth. That cut line is 40th, a spot currently held by Greg Hackney of Gonzales with 351 points. Hackney helped his cause considerably with a 13th-place finish (30-4) at Wheeler Lake.

Sumrall and the other 98 Elites return to Alabama next week for the 2024 TNT Fireworks Bassmaster Elite tournament June 27-30 at Lewis Smith Lake near Cullman. The season’s seventh stop takes them to the 21,000-acre reservoir in the northern part of the state.

In January, Sumrall talked about that tournament five months down the road and said Lewis Smith Lake could pose a challenge to the whole field because of the summer heat.

“It might be pretty tough but it’s full of fish,” he said then about the lake in northern Alabama along the Black Warrior River.

He’ll get a first-hand look as soon as he arrives in the Cullman area to make an even better bid for the Bassmaster Classic.

After Lewis Smith Lake, the Elites have a little more than a month off before going on their annual swing to the Northeast. First up is the 2024 tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain on Aug. 8-11 near Plattsburgh, New York, followed by the regular-season finale Aug. 15-18 on the St. Lawrence River near Addington, New York.

Sumrall has said upstate New York is his favorite place to fish because those lakes are loaded with big, fat smallmouth bass. Some of his best Elite tournaments have been at Lake Champlain, where he was ninth in July 2021 (followed the next week by a 14th on the St. Lawrence River) and 19th in August 2023.

Again, we’re pulling for the local bass angler to nail down a Classic berth as he continues his stretch run starting June 27. Six down, three to go. Geaux Caleb Sumrall Fishing.

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If you want to see more “Tiger bass” fingerlings stocked next year in the Atchafalaya Basin and Lake Verret area, make plans now to attend the Every Fish Matters Conservation Banquet set for July 25 at the Assumption Parish Community Center.

Cliff Crochet has put his heart and soul into this project for the past 2 ½ years. The Pierre Part outdoorsman, known as “The Cajun Baby” after his successes on the Bassmaster Elite Series and then the Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour, got the fundraising idea two summers ago and went with it.

The inaugural fundraising event, held in July 2022, took in $84,000. That paid for Tiger bass fingerlings from the American Sport Fish Hatchery in Montgomery, Alabama, to be stocked twice in Spring 2023 in and around the Spillway.

Crochet’s second fundraiser was held in July ’23. It raised $79,000 with an estimated 400 outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen attending the supper, which was moved to the large Assumption Parish Community Center.

This year’s banquet starts at 5 p.m. with a live auction at 8 p.m. The admission fee is $50 (free admission for LEO and EMS).

If Acadiana residents want to see some of those Florida bass and/or “Tiger bass” fingerlings stocked in the western half of the Spillway, it behooves them to support the cause and show up that Thursday.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.