Lester Settling In During Sophomore Season

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

During the weigh-in on the final day of BASSFest at Kentucky Lake, Kevin VanDam stepped off his Nitro bass boat and onto the stage with a 26 1/2-pound sack of fish that threw a scare into the rest of the finalists and put the seven-time B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year into the lead for the time being.

During VanDam’s time on stage, he spoke about the five anglers still to weigh in and how each one of them was plenty capable of bringing in a similar catch and knocking him out of the leader’s hot seat. Among those five was Brandon Lester, whom VanDam said “has been catching them everywhere we go.”

Standing backstage, Lester heard it all and was flattered by VanDam’s praise as it reinforced his belief that here, halfway through his second season with the Elite Series, he’s finally starting to catch the eye and, more importantly, gain the respect of his peers.

“Respect in this sport is not given to you, you have to earn it,” Lester said. “I’m not a boastful kind of guy so it definitely means a lot to me when those guys are looking at me and say, ‘That guy can catch ‘em.’ KVD is the greatest to pick up a rod and reel, so that meant a lot to me.”

Through five events, Lester is 10th in Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year (AOY) points with two Top-10 finishes to his credit, including a 9th at BASSFest. It was a good bounce-back effort following two missed cuts on the West Coast.

“I got back on track at BASSFest,” he added. “I don’t feel like I could’ve done anything better. On the last day, the two schools I was on all week never fired for me and I didn’t make it happen.”

Finding His Place

In 2014, Lester was part of one of the more unique “rookie” classes the Elite Series has seen since its inception. While he was new to the top level of competition, some of his fellow rookies (Jacob Powroznik, Justin Lucas, Randall Tharp, Brett Hite, etc.) were making the transition from the FLW Tour with several years of experience and success under their belts.

Lester held up quite well and finished 5th in the rookie points race, but was 1st among those without previous tour-level experience. He took a measure of pride in holding his own, but noted it was a constant learning process (and still is) as he looks to establish himself as a consistent angler regardless of season or type of fishery.

“I definitely felt like at the end of last year I had things on track,” he said. “It’s a learning experience and getting comfortable was a big part of that.”

He said going from practicing for 5 days or more for an Open to the pre-determined 2 1/2 days for an Elite Series event certainly changed his mindset on how to prepare and practice for events.

“It’s takes time to get adjusted,” he added. “I always try to learn from everything. Take BASSFest (this year) for example. I know a lot of fish were caught on a hair jig. Since I’ve been home, I’m trying to wrack my brain and round up some hair jigs and in a few days I’m going to take them to Guntersville and see if I can figure it out.

“At every tournament, if there’s something I’m not comfortable with, I want to learn it. I want every tool that I can have because I want to be as versatile as I possibly can be.”

Another Step Forward

Lester parlayed his strong rookie campaign into a Classic berth and he’s on pace to punch a ticket to next year’s Classic at Grand Lake in March.

He started the season with a 4th-place finish at the Sabine River, an impressive performance considering he’d never seen it before and its reputation as being a tough place to catch tournament-quality bass.

“You just have to go in knowing it’ll be a tough tournament and that you have to capitalize on every single bite,” he said. “I seem to excel at those types of events where you have to try to stay mentally strong and not get all crazy.

“I knew that if I could find a place and hunker down and have potential to catch a limit every day, that’d be huge in a tournament like that. When I pulled that place up on Google Earth, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ We try to look for tucked away places where you could blow it away, but it’s such a vast body of water. You could go 100 miles in every direction it seemed like. I wound up fishing an area in Taylor Bayou. I knew Todd (Faircloth) had won it (in 2013) in there and I just found a canal with a lot of fish in it.”

He backed that up with a 27th at Lake Guntersville before logging a 57th and an 87th out West to negate the momentum from his first two derbies.

“I have some regrets from the West Coast,” he said. “At the Delta, I missed a check by 4 ounces and I had a dead fish on day 2, which cost me those 4 ounces. When stuff like that happens, it’s outside of your control. I caught that fish first thing in the morning and it was hooked deep. I didn’t want to throw her back without five in the well. That’s one of those decisions you make.”

At Lake Havasu, several lost fish while throwing a dropshot resulted in a dismal 87th-place finish.

“Havasu taught me a lot,” he added “It was my first experience on a place like that where all of the habitat is manmade. It was definitely a different experience.”

From there, it was back to the Tennessee River for BASSFest, where got back on the positive side of the ledger.

“Overall, I’m very happy with the way the year is going,” he said. “I’m a lot more comfortable this year. Everything, whether you’re taking a step from the Opens to the Elites or from college to the Opens, it takes a while to find your place and get comfortable.

“I feel more comfortable this year and I feel like I belong and have earned the respect of some of the guys.”