Bill Kronander drove almost 14 hours to make it from his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Columbus. He had never visited Mississippi before, but the drive was worth it, he said, to “come down and play in muddy water,” chasing the adrenaline rush of catching a good fish during the 2025 Bassmaster Open on the Tombigbee River this week.
“When you catch good fish in a tournament, it’s really exciting,” Kronander said. “It’s like skydiving, but without the sky.”
Kronander is one of more than 160 anglers who have come to the city for the tournament that starts at 6:15 a.m. today at the Columbus Marina, with weigh-ins each afternoon. The tournament will continue through Friday, with two-days of full-field fishing and a final day for the top 10 anglers to compete and crown the champion.
The tournament is being held by the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, and it is the second of eight 2025 Bassmaster Open tournaments the organization will hold this year, determining which anglers will go on to compete in the Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers.
The field is full of some of the sport’s best anglers, as the open only includes professionals, without an amateur or co-angler division.
Like Kronander, many of those professionals have traveled across the country for the chance to compete.
Collin Smith has been fishing for most of his life, though he started fishing competitively at the collegiate level and then worked his way up. He won the Bassmaster Team Championship and Classic Fish Off in 2022 and fished the Bassmaster Classic in 2023.
Smith also drove six hours from upstate South Carolina to make it to town by Friday, just in time to hit the river for the practice day Saturday. He said he does it for the love of the sport.
“I’m a super competitive person, and it’s hard for me now to even go fun fishing,” Smith said. “I always want to be in a tournament. It’s the competitive side of me.”
Friendly rivalry
Preparing for the tournament often involves more work than actually fishing during the event, Smith said, as between the competitions, he is often working with sponsors and planning for the next challenge between working at his full-time job. Still, to fish in tournaments all across the country takes a variety of skill sets, he said.
“Knowing what you do back home on our lakes and stuff … some of that’s out the window when you go out of state to a place like this,” Smith said. “This is a total different animal, wildcard of an event with so many different variables to it.”
Fellow South Carolina angler Hunter Eubanks said he has been fishing all his life, but he decided to get into tournaments about 15 years ago. Since then, he and Smith have become friends, since both of them chase the competition across the country.
“It’s almost more about dedication to it and getting success out of it instead of just fishing,” Eubanks said. “We all do it because we love it, but there’s something to the sport … when you get success out of all the hard work you put yourself through and all the training you go through.”
Eubanks said tournament fishing has allowed him to travel across the country, to places like Texas, Wisconsin and Florida. Smith said the longest he has ever driven for a tournament was 23 hours for a collegiate championship in Minnesota.
Anastasia Patterson is also from South Carolina, and she said she learned to fish “before she could breathe.” She enjoys “breaking down” the challenges of open water, making friends, and traveling for the sport. The thing she likes the most is that fishing always changes.
“I like that it’s different every day, and you have to adapt,” Patterson said. “Like baseball, you can hit a home run. But some days, you definitely strike out in fishing, for sure.”
‘Chasing the win’
Leading up to a Bassmaster Open, the society sets a period of time when the water is off-limits to any anglers who intend to compete in the tournament. The Columbus tournament’s off-limits period started March 15 and lasted 28 days, meaning most anglers could only hit the water on Saturday.
But Jaden Parrish from East Texas, who has been competing nationally for five years now, said he came into town more than a month ago to spend four days on the water before the off-limits period began. His favorite part of the competition, he said, is “chasing the win.”
“I can’t play football or baseball anymore, and I just enjoy competition and to win,” Parrish said. “Fighting bass is fun. Catching bass. Figuring out how to catch them, especially here.”
Kronander said that even more than competing with others, he loves fighting the fish.
“It’s about you and the fish,” Kronander said. “It’s about trying to figure out what’s going to work that day, trying to break it down. It’s really not about the other guys, even though you do get envious of other guys when they’re catching more fish than you. But it’s about you and the fish.”
Friday’s winner will receive a cash prize of about $42,000 and will punch his ticket to the 2026 Bassmaster Classic to be held March 13-15 on the Tennessee River in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau Tourism Director Frances Glenn said she was excited to see the anglers coming into town, eating at restaurants, staying in hotels, and driving their boats on trailers through the city. The tournament attracted anglers from 26 states and three foreign countries, she said, including Australia, Japan and Canada.
“It just thrilled me to go out to the landing … and there just wasn’t a parking space available,” she said. “I don’t know how we attracted them, but they’re here.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
