Caleb Sumrall put Florida in the rear view mirror of his pickup truck this past weekend much earlier than he wanted after missing the cut in the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament at Lake Okeechobee.

Sumrall towed his new and newly wrapped Xpress X21Pro bass boat back to New Iberia following the second stop on the circuit, a tournament that just might be renamed the Brandon Palianuk Invitational.

A week earlier in the season opener at St. Johns River 219 miles north of Lake Okeechobee, Sumrall fished into Semifinal Saturday, wound up 44th and got a check for $5,500 on the St. Johns River. He didn’t come close Feb. 27-28.

Brandon Palianuk put on a show on Day 3 for the folks watching live via bassmaster.com. The veteran from Rathdrum, Idaho, wowed the crowd with a five-bass limit weighing 34 pounds, 10 ounces, the heaviest bag weighed in a Bassmaster Elite at Lake Okeechobee.

It included two 9-plus pound bass, a 7 1/2, a 4-0 and one nearly 3 1/2. Palianuk coasted into Championship Sunday on a 23-pound, 7-ounce bag Semifinal Saturday and held on to win the tournament with 95 pounds, 4 ounces, finishing ahead of runner-up John Garrett of Union City, Tennessee, who had 79 pounds, 7 ounces.

Kyoya Fujita of Lake Forest, California, formerly of Yamananshi, Japan, was third with 77.05.

Sumrall finished 84th at Lake Okeechobee with 18 pounds, 11 ounces, less than 5 pounds away from the Top 50 cutoff weight of 23 pounds, 6 ounces, accumulated by Buddy Gross of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Sumrall struggled to find larger keeper bass on Day 1 when he checked in with five keepers at 8 pounds, 10 ounces, but improved a little the next day with a limit weighing 10 pounds, 1 ounce.

The New Iberia outdoorsman and Bassmaster Elite Series weigh-in emcee David Mercer traded light-hearted banter Feb. 27 when Sumrall got on the big stage at S. Scott Driver Park in Okeechobee. Mercer had noticed the hair on the 37-year-old angler’s head.

“He grew a beaver pelt during the offseason. If you look at his hair … pretty contained right now but it is really very thick and it’s a beaver pelt … that’s all,” Mercer said, chuckling.

Sumrall, smiling broadly, raised his black/red Creole Steel cap and ran his hand front to back over the hair before settling it back on his head.

“That’s nice,” the emcee said with a laugh.

The mood turned serious after he called out the weight of 8 pounds, 10 ounces, which both men knew signalled an uphill battle to stay in Florida.

“Man, this is Florida, dude. You know what lives out there. We all do. I just gotta go in there and put them in the boat,” Sumrall said as he looked ahead to Day 2. “I had some opportunities today that I’d really like to have back, um, touched them with my fingertips. That’s how close they got. That’s what makes it hurt, you know, bust them all the way, you know, get them to the boat, and then touch them and you lose them. It’s fishing.”

The 102-angler field’s assault on the mostly shallow 730-square mile lake, average depth 9 feet, was delayed by fog early Friday. Sumrall got out on the second day and returned with a 2-pound average.

His fate was sealed.

Back onstage, Sumrall and Mercer figured his days on the water were over at the time. The emcee called out the weight and two-day total and said, “That puts you in 78th-place and qualifies you to enjoy the land-dwelling adventures that you can enjoy here in Okeechobee, Florida … just not on the lake.”

Sumrall agreed and said, “Yeah, yeah. I know it. I mean, it sucks, man. I went out there and grinded my butt off and my 10 fish didn’t equal nowhere near probably 10 of the 15 bags that weighed in today.

“Ummmmm, that’s fishing, man, you know? I was really looking forward to this one. It fits my style. I just missed them. I don’t know how else to say it. Um, I had some opportunities yesterday that I missed. I didn’t even get a bite today – or the right bite – so I mean, I’m leaving here clueless. Next year I may need to come down and live in Florida for a month before we start fishing because Florida, first tournament(s), has kicked my butt every year on the Elite Series. So I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

He touted the advantages of his 2025 Xpress X21Pro. The way it handled the shallow water and the rough water during two weeks scouting and tournament fishing on St. Johns River and Lake Okeechobee, then turned his attention to getting back to “my family at home … Axel, Clelie, Jacie. That’s how it goes. Thank you all for supporting me and, uh, we’ll get them the next one.”

The next one is the big one, his fourth Bassmaster Classic. The 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour is scheduled to be held March 21-23 at Lake Ray Roberts in Texas near Fort Worth.

Sumrall has appeared in the Classic in 2018, 2020 and 2022, when he finished 16th with 43 pounds, 6 ounces, at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina. That was his highest Classic finish.

Lake Okeechobee proved to be a very tough venue for other Elites with ties to Louisiana. Tyler Rivet of Raceland, who won at Lake Okeechobee in 2023, made the cut, fished Semifinal Saturday but failed to advance with a three-day total of 40 pounds, 12 ounces.

Rivet was the only Louisianan to make the Top 50. Greg Hackney of Gonzales was 66th with 21 pounds, 3 ounces, while Logan Latuso, also of Gonzales, was 99th with 14 pounds, 15 ounces. Dakota Ebare of Brookeland, Texas, who was born and raised in Watson in Livingston Parish, rallied on the second day but his limit weighing 13 pounds, 14 ounces, was too little too late as he finished with a two-day total of 22 pounds, 12 ounces, for 54th, mere ounces away from his first-ever Semifinal Saturday.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.