Major League Fishing: Wheeler Not Hiding from High Expectations at The Champions

No matter the location, if Jacob Wheeler is in the field for a bass fishing tournament, he’s at least on the short list of favorites. For good reason – Wheeler’s accomplishments since the inception of the Bass Pro Tour in 2019 are not only head and shoulders ahead of any other pro during that time, he’s in the midst of one of the most dominant stretches in history.

In eight seasons (67 events) on the BPT, Wheeler has logged 12 wins and 44 Top 10s. He’s won the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year title four times in the past six years and hasn’t finished worse than second during that span. He also added his first REDCREST championship to his résumé earlier this year. He’s held the No. 1 spot in BassFan.com’s World Rankings for more than seven consecutive years.

So, if there’s any angler with pressure to deliver when the top anglers from the Bass Pro Tour meet the best from BASS at World Bass Enterprises’ The Champions event this fall on Old Hickory Lake, it’s Wheeler. He’s well aware that fans expect him to rise to the occasion with a record $1.25 million payout on the line.

The challenge for Wheeler will be not letting that pressure alter the way he plans to approach The Champions – with the same mindset he carried into REDCREST on Table Rock Lake: win or bust.

“Of course I want to compete,” Wheeler said. “I want to win every event. Obviously, we haven’t fished against a lot of these guys, so I think putting your best foot forward would be awesome. But it’s a fine line of wanting to represent and make sure you have a good tournament and fishing to win.”

Approaching Old Hickory with an open mind

Wheeler cemented his spot in the field by winning on O.H. Ivie and Lake Brownwood. Photo by Tyler Brinks

Wheeler was one of the first anglers World Bass Enterprises CEO Brian Bird approached with his idea for The Champions. Wheeler’s initial reaction was the same as many anglers when they got word about the event – it sounded too good to be true.

“I talked to Brian early on, and he said he had this idea to make this event, and I was like, ‘Really?’” Wheeler said. “I was excited, but I was like, ‘You’re really going to do that?’ And he was like, ‘I’m serious, buddy.’”

While the historic money up for grabs at the event has generated most of the headlines, Wheeler is more excited about the chance to compete against the best anglers from both of the top national tours.

“I was excited from a standpoint of having an opportunity to have all the best anglers meet under one tournament this fall,” he said. “I think that’s really cool. A lot of these guys, we have not fished against each other. … Obviously, it’s the biggest payday; but even if it wasn’t the biggest payday, for me, the pride in representing your own side I think is an important part of it. And that’s something we haven’t had.”

Wheeler locked up his spot in the event by winning Stage 4 on O.H. Ivie and Lake Brownwood – one of his two BPT wins on the year. Since then, he’s spent plenty of time thinking about Old Hickory and how to attack it, but he’s also been intentional about not gathering too much information.

Wheeler has never fished a tournament on Old Hickory. Aside from a few days of scouting last month, he’d never even launched a boat on the lake. But he doesn’t view that as a disadvantage. Given how drastically fisheries tend to change throughout the fall, Wheeler wants to arrive at Old Hickory on the week of the event with an open mind and figure out what the bass are doing in real time – one of the skills that has separated him from his peers on the Bass Pro Tour.

Even though Old Hickory is only about three hours from his home, Wheeler is undecided about whether to make one more trip to the lake before it goes off-limits later this month. If he does, it won’t be to catch fish as much as to “walk the course” – further familiarizing himself with how the 97-mile lake lays out so that, once he does figure out how to target fish during the event, he knows where he can find the right ingredients.

“I go back and forth on it, because I feel like there’s so much going to change, and I don’t normally like to dial anything in,” he said. “I think it could go either way. I think you could go and spend a ton of time and mess yourself up, and I think you could also go and spend a ton of time and end up finding some stuff that actually helps you. But I feel like the majority of the time, if you really think you’re going to catch them on that stuff (you find during pre-practice), it just doesn’t pan out.”

Using format, fall timing to his advantage

No one has been better at using tournament format to his advantage than Wheeler. Photo by Tyler Brinks

Aside from the fact that he’s a virtual lock to make the Top 10 every time he launches his boat, there are a couple more reasons to like Wheeler’s chances to contend at The Champions. For one, even though he doesn’t get to compete in many of them, he feels fall events suit his run-and-gun style.

“I love fall tournaments,” Wheeler said. “They’re actually my favorite, because I think they just change so much day to day. You can’t catch them on the same stuff twice a lot of times. So, I think that’s what challenges people. Like, any other time of year, you can go and you can fish the same little corner or this and that. In fall, you have to really run around. I think it fits my style pretty well, just because I really like to move around a lot and cover a lot of water and not lock into one thing on any given day.”

The other thing that has Wheeler licking his chops is the unique format of The Champions. Anglers will weigh their five biggest bass each day, and weights will be cumulative across the first two days. The Top 15 pros will qualify for Day 3, when weights will zero. Add in the fact that anglers will only be able to utilize forward-facing sonar for one of the first two days (each angler gets to pick which day) and half of Day 3, and there will be a lot of strategic decisions for anglers to make.

That’s a positive for Wheeler. No one has been better at using the Bass Pro Tour event format – which also features zeroing of weights and limitations on forward-facing sonar – to their advantage.

“The more variables there is in a tournament, the better I like it,” he said. “Because it confuses a lot of people. I feel like it helps me.”

Wheeler’s goal is simply to put himself in the Top 15. If he can do that, he’ll fish Day 3 not worried about where he might finish, taking whatever risks he deems necessary to give himself a shot at the $1.25 million top prize and the title of undisputed champion.

“I’d love to make that thing happen,” he said. “I’d love to win it.”

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