EUFAULA, Okla. — Martin County native Matt Messer made fishing the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens at Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma look easy Thursday-Saturday. He landed a three-day total of 47 pounds, 2 ounces for a third-place finish, earning him $17,310.
Starting with 13-8 on Day 1, Messer caught 22-10 on Day 2, a bag anchored by an 8-01 largemouth that earned him $750 for Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Tournament. He added 11-0 on the final day for the third-place cash payday of $16,560.
“Today was tough. I knew if it was dead slick, it would be hard for me to get bit, and when I pulled up, it was dead slick,” Messer said Saturday. “I didn’t get a bite for two hours and then the wind picked up a little bit. I caught three fast, and one of them was a 3-pounder. I thought it was going to be on. But honestly, I think I just caught them all.”
At the end of Day 1 Thursday, Messer found two spots that produced big bass. He entered Day 2 in 37th place with 13-08, and with 20 minutes to go before check-in, he stopped on one of those spots and it paid off big. He landed the prize behemoth largemouth on his last cast.
“That is two days in a row. Yesterday I caught a 5 1/2 on my last cast on the same spot,” Messer said Friday. “I had 15-10 on my scale, with the five I had with a 1-12 as my small one. I was running back and decided to make two casts on this spot and caught it on the first one. I caught it on a 10-pound test on a spinning rod. It was skin hooked too.”
Messer had been fishing isolated cover in around 20 feet of water, whether that cover was a brush pile, stump or a rockpile. Often, the standout from the Kentucky Christian University bass team had not been able to see the bass on his forward-facing sonar but had been able to find the cover holding the bass with his graph.
“These aren’t places I’m going to catch a (ton),” he said Friday. “Today, I ran to a spot and would catch one and then run back to another and catch one. I went back and forth all day.”
Messer, of Warfield, is in his first year fishing in the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens tour, a series of tournaments that tier up to the Bassmaster Classic and the Bassmaster Elite Series. Opens fields are made up of pros and co-anglers, and fishing tournaments are held all over the U.S.
Messer has fished five tournaments in 2023, with the third-place finish being his best yet. He has placed in the money twice and is currently 78th out of 173 with 514 points in the Bassmaster standings.