provided by John Phillips
Twenty-nine-year-old Jordan Lee, from Cullman, Alabama, has been fishing professionally for only 6 years and has had quite a remarkable career so far. In addition to his career earnings of roughly $1.5 million, during this first tournament since COVID-19, Jordan Lee won over $200,000 on the Kissimmee chain of lakes from Major League Fishing, the week of June 10th, 2020. Jordan Lee also won two Bassmaster Classics, back to back (2017-2018), the MLF Tour in 2019 and is ranked No. 2 world-wide on BassFan.com.
In our sport, if I find a place to catch fish, then most of the times another competitor won’t come in and start fishing the places I’ve identified. If they do, we’ll probably have words. If a competitor is not on the spot you’re fishing the first day, they better not be there the second day. Most of us have a mutual respect for each other, and we won’t do to someone else what we don’t want done to us. No one else even knew that those brush piles I fished were out in the middle of the lake.
We’ve never had a June tournament on these Kissimmee lakes. Everybody else was focusing on and fishing the grass. Some boats were fishing underwater grass beds, but the other anglers were fishing the grass beds they could see. Usually, Kissimmee’s grass holds a lot of good bass, but I don’t like to fish around other competitors. So, I let them have the grass, and I continued to fish the brush piles I’d found.
On the third day, the field was cut to 40, and this day started off very slowly for me. The water was slick and calm, the weather was hot, and my best spot didn’t really pay off for me. But once I started my milk run, different places started to be productive. On this day, I caught a bass that weighed 8 pounds, 14 ounces. I found that one brush top with good, solid 3-pounders and 4-pounders. I may even have caught a 5-pounder that day. I was still in third place at this point. The good thing about the third day of competition was MLF zeroed out each competitor, and at the end of this day, I was still in third place with 43 pounds of bass.
Whoever found the biggest bass on the third day was to receive a check for $50,000 and I was leading in the big-bass category with my bass that weighed 8 pounds, 14 ounces. However, with only 20 minutes left, another angler caught a bass that weighed 8 pounds, 15 ounces. I lost $50,000 by 1-ounce. That almost broke my heart. That day was a tough day to swallow, but I wasn’t too disappointed. By being in third place, the last cut was the top 8 anglers out of the 40, and I knew I had made the top 8 and would get to fish on the final day.
