Caleb Sumrall of New Iberia is one of 52 qualifiers for the Bassmaster Classic.

As Caleb Sumrall towed his bass boat Tuesday morning from Mississippi to South Carolina, he talked candidly about fishing, about competing, in the Bassmaster Classic.

Yes. Fishing, competing, in the Super Bowl of bass fishing that starts Friday at Lake Hartwell near Greenville, South Carolina.

That has a great ring to it, doesn’t it? A New Iberia bass angler has a chance to win the Bassmaster Classic.

“It’s still hard to believe, hard to believe I’m going to be fishing the Classic,” Sumrall said as he approached Atlanta.

The 30-year-old outdoorsman is the first Bassmaster Classic qualifier from New Iberia. He is hopeful of becoming the first B.A.S.S. Nation Championship winner to win the world championship of bass fishing since the late Bryan Kerchal, a Connecticut bass angler who won the Bassmaster Classic in July 1994. 

The only B.A.S.S. Nation qualifier to win the prestigious, life-changing event died in a plane crash on Dec. 13, 1994.

Jon Stewart, B.A.S.S. Nation director, said in a video specially made for a meet and greet event for Sumrall on Feb. 18 in downtown New Iberia that he hoped Sumrall, like Kerchal, would win the Bassmaster Classic. He pointed out that Sumrall is one of 31 bass anglers to win the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship.

When Sumrall hoisted the Bryan Kerchal Memorial Trophy on Oct. 20 in Greenville, was the 23rd to do so in recognition of Kerchal.

Sumrall will be out to give the legends in the sport of professional bass fishing a run for the money and the glory. His boat number, drawn a few months ago, is No. 13.

He is going into the tournament on the same lake that was the site of the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship on a high note after cashing in in the Bassmaster Central Open at Ross Barnett Reservoir in Mississippi. He rode a strong first-day catch to Championship Saturday and finished 10th in the Top 12 to collect $3,500. There were more than 170 bassers in the field.

“Yeah, it was good momentum to get a good finish out of Ross Barnett, leave there with a little momentum, a little confidence, just a good showing,” Sumrall said as the black Toyota Tundra he was driving rolled along the highway with the B.A.S.S. Nation Phoenix bass boat with a Mercury outboard motor behind him in Georgia.

Sumrall admitted during that drive that he is nervous but not intimidated.

“It’s a big week. The nerves are starting now. I think they’ll really start Thursday morning or Friday morning,” he said.

Later in the week, his wife, Jacie Chauvin Sumrall, agreed with the momentum-building part of his conversation.

“Oh, he was 10th out of 175. That’s awesome,” she said Thursday night.

She believes that returning to Lake Hartwell, site of the victory that gave him a berth into the Bassmaster Classic and paid entry fees for the Bassmaster Elite Series and Bassmaster Opens, is a plus for Sumrall. 

“Win this thing? Oh, yeah. I think he can. I think being he’s already fished this lake he has good advantage,” she said.

Sumrall and the rest of the 52-angler Bassmaster Classic field got on the water for the first official day of practice on Friday. The third and final day of prefishing ends today before a week of activities leading up to Friday.

After arriving in South Carolina, Sumrall fished a neighboring lake Wednesday and  “did pretty good,” his wife reported. On Thursday, he relaxed, tended to his fishing tackle and rubbed shoulders with fellow Bassmaster Classic qualifiers John Crews and Mike Iaconelli, she said. Crews, of Salem, Virginia, has appeared in 10 Classics. Iaconelli, of Pittsgrove, New Jerssey, won the 2003 Classic, one of 18 he has been in.

Sumrall said he was focused on practice, starting Friday on Lake Hartwell, a 56,000-acre impoundment that was 8 feet low when he fished it in October. It’s up about 5 feet from then, he said.

“It could play out to be big time spawning or prespawn tournament. It’ll probably be either or,” he said.

He planned to ride around, he said, “see what the lake is doing, what the water temperatures are like. Then I’ll see what I’m doing from there.

“I’ll try to fish shallow, of course, and see if I can find deeper fish, too. I’m going to go in with an open mind and see how it lays out,” he said. “Really shallow. That’s what I like to do.”

That there are only 51 other bass boats to contend with is a welcome change from the recent tournament at Ross Barnett Reservoir, where there were 175.

“It’s nice. It’ll fish big. It’ll be hard to run into other people,” he said.