By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
The fact that Easton Fothergill began his tour-level career with a couple of bomb finishes in Florida is entirely irrelevant now that he's won the Bassmaster Classic. In his case, the view from the bottom of the Elite Series Angler of the Year (AOY) standings isn't all that bad.
He'll be in the field for next year's Classic regardless of how he fares during the rest of this campaign. With no worries about points, he can continue to absorb lessons about life on a major circuit while gunning for another win and an additional six-figure paycheck at each stop.
"The whole thing still doesn't feel real," he said late last week.
The 22-year-old from Minnesota admits that he was overcome by nerves at the back-to-back Florida events (the St. Johns River and Lake Okeechobee). His 101st- and 93rd-place showings, respectively, were hardly a smooth transition for a guy who dominated the Bassmaster Opens in 2024.
His performance in the Classic Lake Ray Roberts in Texas dispelled all notions that he might be in over his head as he won the 55th edition of the event by an 8 1/2-pound margin. He just had to get over his fixation on the realization that he's now competing against anglers that he'd previously admired and idolized from afar.
"I was a little bit starstruck that I'd finally made the Elites," said Fothergill, who's still only about 19 months removed from emergency brain surgery to remove an infected abscess. "That really caught up with me (in the Florida tournaments).
"When you're nervous, it's hard to make the correct decisions on the fly, and that was a big part of it. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I didn't make the adjustments. I wasn't in the right headspace, and nerves and maybe a lack of confidence were a part of that."
His victory at Ray Roberts didn't come totally out of the blue – after all, he did win two Bassmaster Opens last year against a field littered not only with fellow young guns, but many anglers who'd made their bones on the highest circuits. But this time he made all the right moves.
"The biggest thing was making adjustments all throughout the event," he said. "The lake was fishing kind of weird and the fish were doing something different every day.
"It's no secret that I was using (forward-facing sonar) and looking at the fish, but one thing I was able to do was leave them when I couldn't get a bite, and that can be hard to do. I had to go find other ones that would bite."
The Elite Series returns to action April 10 at a new venue – the Pasquotank River in North Carolina. He's really looking forward to the next two after that (South Carolina's Lake Hartwell in late April and Texas' Lake Fork in May), as well as the final event of the campaign (late August at the Mississippi River out of La Crosse, Wis.).
"Hartwell is probably my favorite lake in the entire country," he said. "It feels like home in Minnesota – it's super-clear with a lot of structure. I fished quite a few college tournaments there (while attending the University of Montevallo in Alabama) and it took a while to get the hang of the whole blueback herring thing, but I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it."
He doesn't intend to spend his $300,000 prize from the Classic anytime soon.
"I'm definitely going to save it for the time being. I'll probably buy a house in the next few years, but I really don't know where yet. I plan on just hanging out for a while and figuring out a good plan."
