After up/down ‘18, Sumrall looks ahead to next Elites
W
hat can a 31-year-old New Iberia outdoorsman do for an encore in his second year as a pro bass angler?
With two weeks left in 2018, Caleb Sumrall is working on that, chomping at the bit for the 2019 season as a Bassmaster Elite. After next season, he wants to be known. He wants to cash a check for more than $7,500 each time out and he wants to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic.
The angler who fished in and around the Atchafalaya Basin when he first got interested in competitive bass fishing will be in a new bass boat and exuding a higher confidence level than his first year when he cashed in nearly $53,000 (Bassmaster Elites and Bassmaster Central Opens combined), with three narrow misses at the cut in Bassmaster Elite stops at Kentucky Lake, Sabine River and the St. Lawrence River.
And after a major upheaval in the world of pro bass fishing in October, when dozens of Bassmaster Elite veterans crossed over to join the new Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour, Sumrall is in a position to shine in his “sophomore” season.
“I’m thinking it leaves the door open for guys like myself to come up and make a name for themselves,” he said Thursday afternoon on a welcome day at home with his and his wife, Jacie’s, young children, daughter, Clélie, and son, Axel.
Sumrall will be one of 75 anglers, including many newcomers, in the pared down field for the Bassmasters Elites. Hopefully, he said, he will stand out based on lessons learned this year on the highest level of competitive bass fishing.
Sure, he thought aloud recently, the circuit he dreamed about reaching and did reach has changed drastically. That means friends — some of them in the Who’s Who in professional bass fishing — he made his rookie season will be fishing the new Major League Fishing tour that opens Feb. 12-17 at Lake Conroe in Montgomery County, Texas. Just the same, he reasoned, it’s still the Bassmaster Elite series, there’s still a Bassmaster Classic and he’s still “one of the guys,” one of the Elites.
“I think it’s great for the sport overall. It gives more anglers a chance to come up in the ranks. I think it’ll turn into a better deal for the anglers,” he said.
Sumrall said he will focus exclusively on the nine Bassmaster Elite tournaments in 2019, forgoing the Bassmaster Central Opens.
“I’m going to pass on the Opens (Bassmaster Central Opens). I think last year I fished 16 events. That’s a little too much,” he said.
By his own estimate he traveled 40,000 to 50,000 miles in his black Toyota pickup truck pulling the B.A.S.S. Nation’s Best Phoenix boat as far west as Lake Oahe in South Dakota and as far north as the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York. It was time away from the family and he’s been trying hard to make up for lost time.
Two of his highlights since the Bassmaster Elites and Bassmaster Central Opens ended were with family the last few weeks of November. He went on a deer hunting trip with Clélie and took the family to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Clélie, who turns 7 on Dec. 30, shot her first deer during Thanksgiving week. (See related story on this page.)
Otherwise, he said, “I’ve been hanging in there. It’s been good. I’m ready to get next year started.”
Next year starts when the Bassmaster Elite series opens Feb. 7-10 with a tournament on the St. Johns River at Palatka, Florida.
“I’m looking forward to the very first one, St. Johns. It’s got big one,” he said.
Sumrall will be in a new boat, a Bass Cat Cougar powered by a new Mercury Marine Pro Fourstroke 250-h.p. It’s been ordered and should be ready in January.
It’ll have everything he wants, including Lowrance Electronics and Power-Poles.
His days in the specially wrapped B.A.S.S. Nation’s Best Phoenix bass boat given to him for the year after winning the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship in October 2017 ended with this year’s B.A.S.S. Nation ChampIonship from Nov. 8-10 at Pickwick Lake near Florence, Alabama. He had to get another boat following that outing and he chose the Bass Cat Cougar.
“I had committed to Bass Cat before last year. I only felt right to go with them first,” he said while he was busy being Mr. Mom.
Sumrall plans to reveal his title sponsor when he unveils that wrapped boat, along with his wrapped Toyota pickup truck, in January. Without revealing too much, he said the title sponsor is a Louisiana company with a nationwide presence.
“It won’t be easy. It’s a working partnership. I’m excited big time,” he said.
He has other sponsors, including long-time sponsors Missile Baits, Kistler Rods, Cal Coast Fishing and Lowrance Electronics.
Those sponsors have hooked up with a rising star, someone whose goal is to make a name for himself in the sport, starting this year. His main objectives next year are twofold: qualify for the 2020 Bassmaster Classic and finish in the Top 40 in each and every Bassmaster Elite tournament in 2019.
“I want to be the guy who finishes in the Top 40 in every event,” Sumrall told hosts Mark Jeffreys and Matt Pangrac during a Dec. 4 radio interview on Bass Talk Live’s “The Bass Zone.”
“I know I can do it,” he said.
The 2018 Bassmaster Elite series was a learning curve for him and he believes he learned his lesson(s) well.
So does his wife.
“Caleb’s first year as a pro has been a rollercoaster. But a fun year. We both agree that if we made it through the first year, then we can make it through the rest. I’m proud of Caleb’s ambition to want to continue this. He’s proved to me that if you can put your mind to it, you can do it,” Jacie said.
Sumrall finished 65th in the Bassmaster Elite standings and, after a heckuva run at first place in the Bassmaster Opens Championship on Table Rock Lake in Missouri, sixth overall in the Bassmaster Opens. His consistency in the latter showed in 10th, 20th, 27th and 52nd-place finishes.
With no Bassmaster Opens on the table in 2019, Sumrall wants to transfer that success to whatever was missing this year in the Bassmaster Elites. He put his finger on it during that recent radio show.
During the Bassmaster Opens, he said, he was able to leave a fishin’ hole and go to a spot he never prefished, put the trolling motor down and feel good about it. However, if he did the same thing in a Bassmaster Elite tournament — leave an area he had caught bass — he’d get to the new location, feel the pressure after 5-10 minutes without a bite, pull up and return to his comfort zone.
What he was saying is that he never calmed down, never settled down, and the combination worked against him while fishing the Bassmaster Elites. His plan next year is to fish with confidence in his ability and his decisions.
“I can’t wait to apply that next year and have a confident gut,” he said on the radio show.
There was a prime example last year on Kentucky Lake, one of his near-misses. It’s where his dreaded Day 2 curse (unable to get a fifth keeper bass to fill a daily limit) was magnified despite a great start in the morning.
He had two 4-pound class bass and two 2-pound class bass in the livewell. The bass were eating a Zara Spook. The morning bite was going strong. He cast the topwater out to walk-the-dog and a 2-pounder and 7-pounder fought over it. The 2-pounder won but got unbuttoned at the boat. He cast back out and the bigger bass missed it twice.
Sumrall had a 6-pound class bass located on a bed 25 miles away. After missing the “hawg,” he picked up, ran there and hooked up with the big bass, only to have it spit the hook, a heart-breaking turn of events he didn’t recover from on his way to a 61st-place showing.
There were other key misses, such as the lunker bass he called a veritable “Mississippi River donkey” that got away. It would have put him in the Top 12 at the Bassmaster Elite stop on the Mississippi River near LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where he finished 49th and won $10,000.
Now he’s got his sights set on 2019. And he has the confidence of a veteran.