Chickamauga in early June , an event in which Kevin VanDam opened up a massive lead in the third period of the Championship Round only to witness Wheeler stack nearly 14 pounds of largemouth on SCORETRACKER ® in just 11 minutes to throw a mighty scare into the sport ’ s all-time leading money winner .
“ Oh yeah , it gave me a little anxiety ,” VanDam said with a chuckle . “ You know what ( Chickamauga ) is capable of producing , and you know that Wheeler spends more time on that fishery than probably anybody , and what he ’ s capable of .”
Firing on all cylinders ( times two )
Wheeler entered the final lap of the season at Stage Five on Lake Champlain trailing Ott DeFoe by 25 points and Brent Ehrler by seven in the AOY race . DeFoe was midway through an outstanding season of his own , coming off wins at Sam Rayburn and the Harris Chain ; Ehrler had been the model of consistency throughout the season , and could lean on the experience of five Top 3 AOY finishes in his career .
None of that made a difference as Wheeler ran away with the final round on Lake Champlain by 29 pounds . He then became the first back-to-back winner in Bass Pro Tour history two weeks later when he outpaced the rest of the championship-day field by 25 pounds on the St . Lawrence River . In doing so , Wheeler became the first angler to win three events in a single season and the only person in the league ’ s three-year history to own five of its red-and-silver championship trophies .
“ I ’ ve seen a lot of people get on incredible rolls over the years — guys like David Fritts and Denny Brauer back in the day , or even Edwin ( Evers ), Jordan ( Lee ) and Aaron ( Martens ),” VanDam said . “ Guys will have out-ofthis-world seasons ; that ’ s not unusual . But what ’ s really impressive about what Jacob did this year is , not only did he win three times , but he was in contention to win every single tournament except the Harris Chain . Even in that event , he had one bad day where he lost a lot of fish or I bet he would ’ ve been in contention there , too .
“ You really have to have the moon and stars line up to win one event , so to win three is pretty special . Unless you ’ re one of the 80 guys competing , you truly can ’ t appreciate what you go through day to day during a tournament dealing with all of the things that Mother Nature throws at you .”
Willing to suffer for success
Wheeler ’ s St . Lawrence win was a testament to his willingness to endure difficult — and downright uncomfortable — conditions in pursuit of the most obvious ( to him ) path to victory . While multiple anglers in the 80-man field made bone-jarring 60-mile runs upriver from the tournament takeoff site in Massena , New York to “ the juice ” near the mouth of Lake Ontario , Wheeler ran even further to locate fish that he knew would be unpressured .
He spent the entire tournament bobbing and jarring in a stretch of river near Wolfe Island that was completely unprotected from the wind , hunched on his knees over the gunwale with a flogger in one hand and rod in the other , waves crashing over the bow as he plinked away at bedding smallmouth .
“ I couldn ’ t always get the bait down , and it was hard just holding the flogger ( while you ’ re fishing ),” Wheeler admitted . “ It was definitely a physical and mental challenge . But at a certain point , you either deal with that and have a chance to win , or you don ’ t .”
Wheeler ’ s tenacity on the St . Lawrence harkened back to one of his milestone early wins — 2014 BASSfest
It took three hard competition days on the St . Lawrence River , but Wheeler fished unpressured smallmouth to claim his second trophy .
PHOTO BY JOSH GASSMANN
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2021 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM 41