FORT WORTH, Texas — Prior to competing in the 2025 Strike King Bassmaster College Classic at Eagle Mountain Lake, Anderson Jones would have been plenty happy just bringing one bass into Dickies Arena and across the Bassmaster Classic stage.
What happened during the tournament was better than anything he could have imagined.
The Lander University angler landed a massive 35-pound, 9-ounce limit during the one-day exhibition tournament, the heaviest bag of bass to cross the Classic stage in Fort Worth. He anchored his bag with an 8-pounder.
“You can imagine the nerves running through me on the water,” Jones said. “Even if I had only a 1-pounder, I would have enjoyed every second. It’s been a dream of mine forever to step foot on that stage and be surrounded by all those people. It was pretty special.”
Peyton Harris and Dalton Head from the University of Montevallo finished second with 25-3 followed by the Adrian College duo of Elliot Wielgopolski and Aaron Jagdfeld in third with 16-12.
While the big herring lakes around his home in South Carolina didn’t help Jones dissect Eagle Mountain, a relatively unknown lake in his home state with gizzard shad did.
Practice produced several big bites, including a 9-pounder, but the patterns he discovered did not pan out come tournament morning.
“There’s no other size fish I want to catch than 5-plus-pounders,” Jones said. “I had heard there were big bass in this place, and that is up my alley. This place is known for dropping big weights.”
After starting shallow, with no success, Jones began targeting deep banks with docks. He found the bass suspended under the docks around 18 feet of water. To get them to bite, he would cast a 9-inch glidebait to the docks to draw the bass out. Once he did, Jones would quickly get the glide back to the boat and toss a jerkbait out.
Most of the time, the bass would commit to the jerkbait.
It was nearly a disastrous start, however, when Jones hooked into a 7-pounder. As he attempted to net the fish, the hooks of his jerkbait got stuck in the net as the lunker made another dive below the surface.
“One of the hooks was still in it, and I pulled it up and it actually came unhooked then because it was thrashing,” he explained. “I had this natural reflex. I dropped everything and grabbed her perfectly in the mouth and brought her in the boat.”
From there, he landed an 8-pounder and several 6-pounders to fill out his limit.
“These fish were off the bank. They were suspended,” Jones said. “I had four different stretches near the dam. I looped around the lake three or four times. If one area got slow, I’d leave and come back later.”