Kings of Bass S4E1 | Two Big Changes - Kevin VanDam

[Music] two major changes this year is the format for the Bass Pro Tour has switched up to a five fish limit so we're only scoring the five biggest fish each day and the other thing is it's 2023 will be my last season on tour [Music] this was a really hard decision it's all I've ever known it's all that my family's ever known my boys grew up with me being on tour Sherry and I were dating before I was a full-time professional this is our whole lifestyle competitive fishing it's like an addiction for most of us that do it it's hard to stop and there's no doubt that you know when next season rolls around I'll be thinking about it but I'm just really at a good place in my life and my career to move forward and again to to move on to that next phase so I'm excited nervous scared and happy all at the same time it's just a lot of different emotions yet so it's the first day of my last season here on the Bass Pro Tour you know it's a little I'm a little emotional [Applause] gonna get 25 time Bassmaster winner recently in million years of competitive fishing from Kalamazoo Michigan KVD Kevin Van Damme the goat the greatest of all time a seven-time Bassmaster angler of the Year four-time classic champion and multi-time Major League Fishing Cup champion well let's give it up for Kevin foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] so many times I've done this and fortunately for once this time I mean it's cold we've got snow on the ground but gosh I'm usually trying to fight a storm or trying to get ahead of a storm for that first term of the year and uh you've got decent weather so maybe that's a sign of good things to come [Music] first tournament of the year just getting on the road you know beginning of a new year and definitely going to be a different one this is going to be my last season on tour and it's man that's weird I mean it's weird to me this morning it's bittersweet definitely going to be an emotional year for me but man it's it's time I've been doing this 32 years this is my 33rd season that I'm about to kick off and you know hopefully it's going to be a real good one so I'm super excited but uh you know I'm anxious as well so it's going to be fun we're going to follow the whole season all year long Kings of bass let's roll if you've watched it with a lot of different athletes you know there's going to be an end to everybody's career and I'm not retiring but you know 32 years on tour I've accomplished a lot won a lot of championships a lot of titles won a lot of tournaments and I've just come to that place in my life that I'm ready for a change I'm ready for the next phase and I'm a workaholic I'm busy I like to do a lot of things and and that's really what I want to focus on is being a great Ambassador for fishing for conservation for the next generation and you know have a little more flexibility with that schedule as well foreign [Applause] [Music] Big Year 33rd season excited to be kicking off here at Lake Tahoe in the Kissimmee chain a lot of history here a lot of big news this year so it's going to be exciting man so fired up to be down here you know over my career starting the season in Florida was always her tradition you know I mean it's the one place you can come to where it's not going to be snowy and icy and really this is the first trip that I've made leaving home in quite a few years where I haven't been dodging a snowstorm an ice storm something like that so we had smooth sailing all the way down here we got 80 degree temps when you show up in Florida I got shorts on flip-flops it's February this isn't normal so I'm excited to be back kind of doing what we used to do a long time ago people [Applause] so this year is a little different you know I had plenty of time at home in the shop I got like I got 36 rods in the box right here ready to go rigged for practice you know for the long ride down here I wrap them up in towels so it's pretty kind of pretty cool this is a towel that my boys have had since they when they were little so this is Nicholas and Jackson so I carry these with me I've carried these for years and years on the road use them for boat towels and things like that but again just kind of keeping when you got that many rods and reels in there together keeps them from kind of banging against each other and you know it might be a little sentimental about some stuff life on tour is definitely no easy lifestyle you know it's a lot of motels time on the road traveling to all the events where the schedule is set for you you know I mean when the season is announced and those dates are in the calendar you can't miss one so that means a lot of sacrifices for your family and over the years you know my wife my boys my family they have definitely sacrificed a lot for me and for my career so they've given up a lot and I thank them you know from the bottom of my heart it's I love what I do I have a passion for it but it's definitely not an easy lifestyle [Music] hahaha [Music] [Music] it's day one here at the Kissimmee chain for the Bass Pro Tour event first event of the Season 30 minutes right before Sunrise that's when we're allowed to get out so we're going to get out there try to try to break this Lake now and see how it's changed I've got a ton of History here been here so many times over the years early in the year like this in January and February it's all about the grass here it changes a lot from year to year so we're going to go out there and start breaking it down got two days to do it foreign [Music] into this season really no different than any other you know I'm putting the work in I want to win I want to contend for championships you know you want to qualify for the next red Crest all of those things are are still on the table but along the way I want to enjoy it too I'm going to kind of sit back and appreciate those sunrises and sunsets and and just really take it all in you know I want to have fun this year and I'm going to do that you know today I'm I'm just really focused on trying to figure out what stages the fish are in and find a good area you know in Florida it's all about areas you know there's hydrilla there's Lily Pad Fields like this the fish are you know spawning they're going to be in all three stages so I really want to cover a lot of area I'm going to check several different lakes several of the Lakes today and just cover a lot of water and try to find an area that you can settle down and just grind it out just trying to find areas that just look Lively and that have the potential because in Florida it's all about being in the right area and you can cover a lot of dead water to find that zone that the fish are really using at that time especially you know as much offshore grass as there is here it's like finding a needle in a hay field the Kissimmee chain is you know it's a storied place I was in the event where Dean Rojas set the all-time five fish record I fished that tournament I've seen it at its best and at its worst and you know a couple years ago we were here for Heavy Hitters and it just really showed me how many big fish are in this system these guys are the best of the best and always somebody's going to figure it out foreign [Music] has got a lot of offshore grass lots and lots you know it's it's different than Kissimmee that Kissimmee has mostly you know grass around the shore and not a lot of hydrilla Toho has a lot more hydrilla and eelgrass and pepper grass and you know this massive flat right here there's definitely some fish here there's always they're always here I won an elite event here back in the day in this same area out here you know but it changes every year the fish move around and but you know you got to find it and this is a pretty good looking little area that I'm in right here it's got a little bit better grass and that's what you got to do is just find the section that they're in there's four or five other boats out here as well where it's it's a known area kind of bigging but a nice one just So Random out here that's why you got to fish the stuff that you can cover a ton of grass and a ton of water with this scattered hydrilla like this is perfect for a red eye you know if it gets real windy or something like that it just gets hard to fish slow and flip that do things like that so out here I can throw a thunder cricket and a red eye Shad a square Bill spinner bait still be efficient good one that's a kind right there that's all three three plus a lot of grass out here and the water's you know nice and good and clear there's another one look at that grass jerk bait's always been one of my favorites you know you just it makes them react to it you can a lot of people throw Thunder crickets and they swim worms and stuff because it's easy to fish through all this grass and you can catch them and all that and the Thunder Cricket catches big ones but I've caught great big ones jerking out here too they just they can't handle it that last Heavy Hitters I caught a biggest fish of the tournament I caught a eight pounder on that I caught on a jerk bait I saw him on my mega 360 and fired over there and boy when he bit and jumped out of the water it shocked me [Music] you know this year with the change in the format going back to five fish just scoring five it hits a whole different mentality now you know we're you know really focused on trying to Target biggest ones you know you only you only need a handful of bites so in reality it's it's a lot easier you know it's going to change your tactics your techniques your locations not that big ones always haven't mattered because they have but now it doesn't matter if you catch 43 Pounders you know if you can if you can catch five five Pounders you're you're going to be way ahead you're going to see a lot of swim baits and glide baits and things show up this year that we didn't see on the Bass Pro Tour and that's my whole thinking down here too is you know it's just you've got to put yourself in the areas that have big fish potential and it's all about finding those small little sections where those fish have moved into [Music] but wait there he's up there spawning mail gotta find those females covered Three Lakes now or I'm in the third Lake and just trying to find an area that just I feel good about I've seen some stuff that has a lot of potential for sure and there's a lot of vast areas of grass so it's just like hunting a needle in a hay field you know you got to get enough bites in an area that I know that I can hunker down and grind out a good bag and that's that's what I'm looking for that's what you got to find in a place like this that has so much cover the one-legged rage crawl that ain't no good [Music] [Applause] saw a little one [Music] female two two pounder foreign [Music] Staple in Florida what I love about a cutter worm is you can swim it you can flip it you you know you can just do about everything with it so good bait there's one [Music] there's definitely a group of fish here spawning look how fat that one is right there you know when you start seeing these isolated Reeds like this and it's not a big one but conditions are right I mean they're going to get in here and get in this kind of stuff I've had three bites and they'll last a little bit right here on this stretch so you get in an area that you're getting a lot of males and you're definitely going to get some females I mean there's some great mats and stuff to flip around here but these conditions they should be biting just anyways good one it's a nice one females oop no that's a male look at here nice one we haven't caught any big ones but you know we've caught a handful of nice ones and there's definitely a bunch of fish in this area and it sets up nice because it's got a lot of scattered cover so just need to keep expanding on these patterns well day one of practice is a wrap man I covered a lot of water it was pretty slow overall you know I found a couple areas that got a few fish didn't catch any great big ones caught some nice ones though so got something to build on though you know it's it's the same things that I've seen in the past and the one thing I know about Florida is you have to fish in the right area that's got fish and hopefully I can find you know one or two more good areas that will get better later in the week so not the best day not the worst foreign [Music] so today is actually the first day of the tournament the best Pro Tour event down here at Toho you know the first group is fishing and boy I'm sure glad that tomorrow is my first day so I'm in group b and I mean yesterday the wind blew sustained 35 with gusts to 50 and it really shredded the water I mean it's cool this morning you know it was 50 degrees first thing this morning Sun's shining now and the wind has laid down a good bit but it's definitely going to change things you know the practice that I had really yesterday was a wash because it was so windy you physically couldn't hardly fish at all and it turned the water up so much that it messed up a lot of areas so it's really going to change things a lot foreign very nervous I'm scared happy excited and worried all at the same time so definitely a stressful day you know I'm going to go through and get all my all my tackle rigged I got again I'm still fishing tournaments and fishing this all this season and got a lot of history here so I'm just really got all these things going through my mind at once so no doubt it's a distraction but I really want to do well in the tournament [Music] you know after practice you know I found a few areas where I got some bites I've got you know some offshore fish that I'm going to throw some crank baits and things for it seems like the hybrid Hunter is going to be the the beta choice for me for that I mean it's such a unique bait I've got some Square bills tied on I've got multiple of these of the hybrid Hunters as well and that's normal here you know you need something you can fish through the grass I've got you know this blue crawl colored one and the shallow version I mean the grass is so tall and thick the way this bait runs in those areas where it's real tall like that I can run that hybrid Hunter over the top of it where a square bill just kind of digs in or even a thunder Cricket is hard to fish in it the grass is so thick where this thing just kind of comes right across the top of it and makes a lot of noise it's got a good rattle to it and I got quite a few bites on it yesterday and all that wind the only thing I caught in any bass on was a hybrid Hunter so so I've got that pattern I also got a couple of areas where the fish are on some scattered pads and thules and things and you know I'm going to mix it up there I'm going to throw a thunder cricket and a swim jig and do some flipping just basically adapt to the conditions that we have out there on the water so you know we're in between a moon a lot of different things going on but we do have improving conditions from this point forward for the rest of the week so it's going to be about making the right adjustments on the Fly and covering water so once you get in an area where you start getting bit man that's where you need to hunker down and grind it out [Music] when I started my career I never got into it thinking that I was going to win a lot of titles and championships but I just didn't know any better I got into it because I loved it I loved the competition and I just started rolling and you just never really thought about it and that's not why I compete is for the money or for the titles or the accolades I do it just because I just I love the competition and over the years you know I've been really fortunate to have a ton of success and win a lot but it's never like hey I I've got to do this or set a goal to say hey I need to win another tournament or another championship you know every year you go out there thinking hey I want to be in contention for angler of the year I want to win the classic I want to win red Crest I want to win a Bass Pro Tour event whatever it is it's you always want to focus on what's right in front of you and that's just what I've always done and you know 32 years later you look back and you know it's been pretty special yet so it's the first day of my last season here on the Bass Pro Tour you know it's a little I'm a little emotional so I knew it'd be it'd be hard but man this is what I love to do and I'm just excited to get out there you know this is a place I've got a lot of history all season long you know I'm sure it's going to be emotional I'm gonna I'm gonna work as hard as I've ever done this season and hopefully have a you know have a great year but you know today I'm really focused on trying to figure out what these fish have changed from practice I mean we had that big wind and to me the best part about Tournament Fishing or why I love it so much is it's figuring out the puzzle and this one Mother Nature has definitely thrown us a big curveball and so we're gonna go have some fun and see what we can't put together we got a camera guy with us today too as well and redocumenting that so hopefully we can get off to a good start recently announced this will be his last year of competitive fishing the goat the greatest of all time a seven time Bassmaster angler of the Year four-time classic champion and multi-time Major League Fishing Cup champion well let's give it up for Kevin [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] so that is not how I wanted my first day of the last year of my season to go for sure I mean wow just uh really tough you know start you know I went to my first area and I saw the water temperature it really dropped and you know I still got a few bites but just some of those smaller males caught some non-scorables and there were so many fish in there it really I thought they would they would come back and just so much changed with all that wind in practice and really muddied a lot of the water I kept kept moving kept searching and it just never really was able to get anything going real good you know I caught two back to back in the third period and thought I could really make that work and then you could never get another score ball out of that out of that area so the wind just laid down and just one of those deals also you know the water is real dirty in a lot of places from all that wind and I just didn't have the right areas and I didn't make the right adjustment so over my career I've had a handful of days like that and the most important thing when you have a real bad day like that is just to forget about it you know I'm going to use what I learned today from a next round for sure but I'm not going to you know dwell on it you know you got to keep a positive attitude you got to keep focused the great thing about this fishery is there's a lot of big ones here you know I can make a comeback and that's really you know what I've got to focus on is to go out and have the best day that I can you know when you have a bad you know start like that you just got to work hard to come out with the best finish that you possibly can so that's what I'm thinking of for the end game for the whole season we'll regroup get refocused tomorrow and you know the condition should be getting a little bit better as the week goes on and things may turn right around so you got to keep that positive attitude foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so it's my second day here at Lake Kissimmee and the first day was just atrocious you know not the way you want to start the first event of the year and especially the first event of my last season on tour so it's just one of those days where man I could not get anything to work right I know I dug myself a deep hole but this is a place that has the potential to catch big ones so I'm going to change my rotation up a little bit I've got a great attitude spent a lot of time yesterday kind of regrouping after you have a bad day like that it's important just to use it to your advantage but forget about it so today's a new day I've got a great attitude I'm going out there and knowing I got to catch a big bag today to do it you know every Point matters in the angler of the Year race so going out there and turning this around and having a good day is going to be really important I'm pretty upset I'm mad after the first day and you know I wanted a little bit of Revenge you know today should be a whole lot better I like the conditions things have you know really gotten a lot more stable and I'm going to go out there and give it everything I got our next angler out is from Kalamazoo Michigan he finished fifth in angler of the Year points he's a multi-time Cup champion let's give it up for one of the greatest in the sport king BD Kevin bandham [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah yeah [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so my second day on the water ended up being quite a bit better and just came up a little bit short you know I knew I had a big mountain to climb to make The Knockout round but you know in this place anything can happen and you know when I finally figured it out got into an area and I hooked about a three pounder and he came off at the boat and I'm like gosh dang and just shortly there after that caught a seven and a half pounder and I'm like oh here we go and I knew then that I was on the right pattern and doing the right thing and you know caught some more caught another six pounder caught a bunch of fish there and just really came close I mean I just should have made that adjustment just a little quicker you know it's easy to say after the fact that that's the way that it goes but anyways I was able to gain some some good points back and at least Salvage a decent finish out of out of the deal anyways I ended up basically just using a Greg Hackney Signature Series flipping stick his 7-Eleven with the super duty lose reel 65 pound braid three quarter ounce hack attack jig with a rage craw on it and just old school flipping you know I'm just flipping Cattails and Reeds and lily pads just you know unfortunately in that real heavy cover you're going to lose a few so I had the opportunities to to do it and and I think the quality is there to to be it you know to have a chance to have won this thing but it's just one of those things that had such a bad first day I just couldn't overcome it but I appreciate all the fan support you know when I made the announcement I got a ton of calls texts a lot of well wishes things like that and you know I'm going to have a lot of fun this year this is one that gosh I sure wish I had to do over but I can say that a lot of times in my career and but you know all in all it's nice to be sitting here in Florida with sunshine and shorts now I'm headed back North got to stop in Nashville on the way go to the National Wild Turkey Federation convention and then get ready for red Crest so on to the next one [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Kings of Bass TV

Views: 105,909

Keywords: KVD, Kings of Bass, Bass Fishing, Kevin Van Dam, Kissimmee Chain, Super Duty, Signature Series Rods, Lews, Lew's, Strike King, Mossy Oak, Hybrid Hunter, Rage Craw, KVD Elite Jerkbait

Id: ZTCqgf9viug

Length: 31min 9sec (1869 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023