Wesley Strader Earns $300,000 for Third at The Champions

Wesley Strader, a 54-year-old Bass Pro Tour angler from Spring City, Tennessee, earned $300,000 for finishing third at World Bass Enterprises’ The Champions on Old Hickory Lake. According to Major League Fishing, it was the biggest paycheck of his career and capped the most lucrative season he has had as a pro, his 26th. Matt Robertson won the event with a 20-pound limit on the final day.

A big check for third place

Strader said the payout still felt like a win. “It feels like I won,” he said, adding that nothing like it had happened before, with third place paying $300,000. The event was billed as the highest-paying of all time, and he decided to enter as soon as he heard that it would be held on Old Hickory.

The payday came after two strong years. In 2025 he cashed more than $120,000 in eight Bass Pro Tour events, his best season since the tour began in 2019. In 2026 he passed that mark, cashing more than $140,000 before The Champions, and he finished 15th in the Angler of the Year standings.

How he caught them on Old Hickory

Strader expected a tough fall bite, which suits him. He began practice as far up the lake as he could go and found a largemouth on a buzzbait (a topwater lure with a spinning blade) paired with a soft plastic toad. He then used that bait, with the hook removed, to locate other productive stretches. That led him to commit to a run of nearly 70 miles from the launch at Sanders Ferry Park to the upper end of the reservoir.

• Day 1: The buzzbait bite faded by the start of the event. He caught fish from the same stretches on a bladed jig with a small craw-style trailer and weighed 11 pounds, 13 ounces, tied for eighth.
• Day 2: With one keeper at 1:30 p.m., he switched to a Texas-rigged worm with a 1/4-ounce tungsten weight and caught four keepers from one bank. He weighed 10-5 and made the Top 15 by one ounce.
• Day 3: Weights were reset to zero. He returned to the same area, caught four of his five fish on the same worm, and weighed 11-2.

He said he targeted rocks along the main channel rather than focusing on laydowns, which are fallen trees in the water. Weighing in first on the final day, he expected a Top 10 at best. As anglers including Jason Christie and Trey McKinney failed to pass him, he realized he could finish no worse than third.

Rebuilding after a rough 2023

Strader’s 2023 was his worst Bass Pro Tour season. He missed a Knockout Round cut and finished 72nd of 80 anglers in the points. He linked the slump partly to his mother’s illness and death that fall, and partly to getting caught up in tour gossip and things outside his control. He resolved to stop listening to it and to get back to enjoying fishing.

He also spent that winter learning Lowrance ActiveTarget, a forward-facing sonar that shows fish ahead of the boat in real time. He said he fished about five times a week to improve. He finished 21st in the 2024 Angler of the Year standings, then had two Top 10s in 2025, including a runner-up finish at REDCREST on Lake Guntersville. In 2026 he had three Top 10s, one a near miss on Beaver Lake.

What it means for anglers

Strader’s story shows that sonar skill and traditional bank fishing can work together. Forward-facing sonar played a major role in only one of his Top 10s over the past two years. He said the key is knowing when to shut it off and return to what he does best. For everyday anglers, his Day 2 rescue also shows how a simple Texas-rigged worm on rocky main-channel banks can produce when other baits stop working.

What comes next

Strader said he loves the Bass Pro Tour’s every-fish-counts format and that the sonar limitations of the past two years suit his versatile style. MLF suggests there is little reason to expect his run to slow as he heads into his 27th year. The source does not say which events he has planned for next season.

Source: Major League Fishing