It’ll be impossible to ignore the hubbub when the 49th Bassmaster Classic comes to Knoxville March 15-17. The Classic is the world championship of the sport – dubbed “The Super Bowl of Bass Fishing” – and brings with it more than 100,000 fans as well as a massive fishing expo to be held at the downtown Knoxville Convention Center and the World’s Fair Exhibition Hall.
The field features 52 of the world’s best bass anglers who qualified through the 2018 B.A.S.S tournament season. For the one fisherman who wins The Classic, it is a truly life-changing event. The top prize is a $300,000 payout, and the star power generated from Classic victories has turned past winners into millionaires.
Competitors will launch out of Volunteer Landing downtown each morning of the event in high-tech bass boats capable of running more than 70 mph. Tournament waters are sprawling and include Fort Loudoun and Tellico lakes as well as the Tennessee River upstream of the Fort Loudoun Dam and short stretches of the Holston and French Broad rivers.
With the mid-March timing, bass should be pushing into the shallow backwaters to feed and spawn, so the fishing should be good as anglers try to catch the heaviest five-fish limit each day of the three-day tournament. The cumulative weight determines the winners.
Caught bass are kept healthy in aerated livewells and will be transported at the end of each fishing day, with the anglers and their boats, to the University of Tennessee’s Thompson-Boling Arena. After weigh-ins, the fish are released back into the river.