provided by John Phillips
Mossy Oak Fishing Pro Brandon Lester, 31 years old from Fayetteville, Tennessee, has fished 87 Bassmaster events and won $603,374. In 2018, he was the points champion and Angler of the Year and has 19 top-10 finishes on Bassmaster. To learn more about Lester, visit https://brandonlesterfishing.com/.
Many fishermen are interested in my equipment. I run a Phoenix boat because they’re built in Tennessee where I live. Numbers of bass anglers want to know how fast my boat goes, how much gas it burns and other questions like that. They also want to know about the rods, the reels, the lines and the depth finders I use and the lures I fish. Most fishermen will ask two or three questions about my electronics, and why I run what I do, because so many new innovations in electronics come to the market place every year. Right now, I run Lowrance electronics. I have two, HDS-12 LIVE Lowrance depth finders with Active Imaging 3-in-1 on my console, and I run an HDS-16 on the front of the boat. I have side-scan, down-scan and forward-scan. So, if a bass swims anywhere around my boat, I'll know where it is.
“What lures are you fishing and why?” are questions I'm often asked. I explain that every professional bass fisherman is a tinkerer. We all tinker with baits and try to modify baits to help us discover that little edge that makes our baits somewhat different from all the other anglers’ baits. Any time a new lure is introduced to the market, a new way to fish an old lure comes to the market, or a new way to take a new lure and change-up the action of the lure or fish it in a different way. That means your tinkering with that bait may help you do well in or win a tournament, especially when whatever you are doing to that lure is introduced to the bass-fishing public. I enjoy talking to people about how we professional anglers tweak baits. I've learned a lot through my bass-fishing career about how pro fishermen modify lures and get them to perform better than that lure does when the angler takes the lure out of the box.
