Lipari Specialties owner and staffers turned in an all-nighter last week working on a special marine wrap for the sixth time.

Tommy Lipari, the business’ owner, was as proud of the job as was Caleb Sumrall of New Iberia. Sumrall dropped off his 2025 Xpress X21Pro on Tuesday, Feb. 11, and picked up the wrapped boat powered by a Yamaha 250-h.p. Sho (sic) the next day at 10 a.m.

“He needed it back (quickly). It went really smooth. We worked on it all day and all night,” Lipari said after the Bassmaster Elite Series angler pulled the boat out of the shop, then towed it home for last-minute preparations before leaving town for the season opener this week at the St. Johns River.

Lipari and his team wrapped Sumrall’s first five Xpresses before each season on the Elite Series. The most recent wrap was completed in that short turnaround by Lipari, art department head Leng Chanhkongsingh, Jordan Sigue and Wayne Jeanminette.

Lipari said he enjoys helping a bass fishing pro from here.

“I’m proud of him. He’s a local guy. We like to sponsor him,” he said. “I hope he does good, catches fish on the tournament trail. I hope he returns next year for the same thing … We’re here.”

They used much the same design as last year, he said, but “just toned it down.”

The newest boat wrap also required a bigger design than in the past because the Xpress has angled the back of the boat rather than a straight back, he explained.

“I guess they did that to make the boat run a little better,” he said.

Sumrall, a 37-year-old all-around outdoorsman and charter boat captain on and around Vermilion Bay, appreciated the above and beyond effort by Lipari Specialties as he enters his eighth season on the Bassmaster Elite Series. He got his hands on the 2025 Xpress X21Pro the first week of February, then had the marine electronics rigged soon after test running it on its “maiden voyage,” as he put it.

“I’m super excited about this year’s boat. She’s going to be a rocket,” he said.

The 2025 season starts Thursday on the St. Johns River. Earlier this year while talking to a local outdoors writer, he said that body of water is the tougher of the first two tournament sites in the Sunshine State (the second one is the following week at Lake Okeechobee).

Sumrall has experienced up and down results on the St. Johns River with his best result a 15th in 2022 and his worst result an 83rd-place in 2021. Last year he finished 26th there with 42 pounds, 11 ounces.

“It’s been a long offseason but I’m fired up and ready to get started,” Sumrall wrote in a text early Tuesday morning before heading out to scout. “The competition is stronger this year than it’s ever been and I’m going to work hard to excel.”

The 200-plus Elites will launch at the Palatka City Dock and Boat Ramp at 6 a.m. with weigh-ins there at 2 p.m. Their success hinges on the weather and a four-letter word: cold.

“The big thing that is going to positively influence this event is the cold weather we had leading up to the recent warming trend. Any time we get cold weather in Florida, and it warms up, it makes these lakes explode,” Drew Benton, a Bassmaster Elite Series pro from Florida, said Feb. 13.

“The power of weather on these Florida fisheries is incredible. When we have a good, cold winter and the fish just can’t trickle spawn and do their thing whenever they want to, it makes them flood the bank all at the same time. They don’t all spawn at once, but they get up there where you can catch them all at once.”

The Panama City, Florida, bass pro acknowledged Mother Nature’s  fickleness in late winter. Nevertheless, he’s looking forward to two strong events in his home state.

The Palatka weather forecast for today, Feb. 19, lists a high of 68 degrees with an 80 percent rain chance and a low of 46. On Thursday, the first day of the four-day event, it’s supposed to be mostly sunny and 60 degrees with an overnight low of 34.

Benton anticipates a winning weight of 88 pounds at the end of Championship Sunday. He also predicts it’ll take 19 pounds a day to make the Top 10.

Will Sumrall angle his way into Semifinal Saturday and beyond at St. Johns River, then Lake Okeechobee? Those are his goals.

Before he began prefishing earlier this week in his newly wrapped Xpress, he said, “I’ll try to get revenge on them this year. Okeechobee’s got a lot of big ones.”

He is hopeful of qualifying again this season for the Bassmaster Classic, recently announced to be held out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Sumrall missed the last two Classics before righting the ship with a strong stretch run in the last two Elite derbies of 2024.

This year’s Classic is scheduled March  21-23 in Texas at Lake Ray Roberts with Fort Worth as host city for the Super Bowl of Bass Fishing.

“It will be my fourth Classic. It’s got some good ones but it’s tough fishing. I don’t think it will be a slugfest,” he said recently.

Bassmaster LIVE will stream the St. Johns River on Bassmaster.com all four days, with coverage also available on FS1 on Saturday and Sunday.