Jacob Wheeler had already won REDCREST 2026 by the time his behind-the-scenes practice vlog dropped this week. That is the only reason it plays as comedy rather than catastrophe. Across roughly two days at Table Rock he ran out of trolling-motor power, ran out of gas, hit a stump, prop-shotted a swimbait, caught a bass on a bare hook cover with no lure attached, and admitted on camera he could probably make the top ten just hunkering down but did not feel he had enough to win. He then went on to win.
The Major League Fishing pro framed the day-two opener as the kind of practice that scares you. "I got a lot of bites yesterday, but just a ton of fish. Didn't get like - my goal yesterday was to go cover a lot of water, and I achieved that goal, but it didn't give me like, oh, this zone's hot. It just gave me some film like there's bass everywhere, which is the worst thing when you cover a lot of water," Wheeler said. "I'm very spread out, which is not great to be honest with you."
A salt-and-eel-roll Texas-rigged on a quarter-ounce BMC tungsten jighead and a thin-wire hook produced a constant grind of small fish. "Caught a ton of fish this morning already, but no scoreables," Wheeler said. "That's the thing - there's a lot of fish in this lake. But the guy who figures out how to catch the better than the average ones - the two-and-a-half, three pounders - is going to be the guy who typically does really well." He confessed plainly: "I don't like these smallmouth at all. I like the idea of them. I don't like them personally."
The day kept getting worse. The boat's electrical breaker had tripped overnight after Wheeler went to bed early, leaving the trolling motor batteries on a quarter charge and the Garmin LiveScope dark. "No graphs," he said. "We're just going old school right here. Just running around. Literally no graphs in practice."
Then came the moment that even the camera operator could not let pass. With a hook-point cover still fitted to a swimbait, Wheeler hauled in a fish that had committed to a bare piece of rubber. "Caught that sucker with a hook guard," he said, half-laughing. The boat agreed: "You can't make this stuff up." Wheeler's reply was the line of the day. "Thatd been a seven-pounder that got off with a regular hook on. That's how it is. Just that's always how it is."
He ran out of fuel on the way back. "Well, we're not trolling because we want to right now," Wheeler said. "So we ran out of gas, which I've never done. I don't think I've ever done that practice for a tournament. Well, I did run out of gas one time in a tournament, but that was like by design. So this was not by design. We just ran around a lot today." The agent was called to grab co-driver Nick and a tow truck.
The vlog then cut to the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Wheeler's Bass Pro Tour Angler of the Year acceptance speech - the third part of why this video matters. The speech, which Wheeler delivered as a story about Andy Morgan in 2014, has already become essential viewing in pro bass circles.
The set-up: as a 23-year-old who had just won the BFL All-American, the Forrest Wood Cup, and Bassfest, Wheeler thought he had "made it". Then he watched Andy Morgan refuse a dinner invitation after day two of an FLW Tour event at Pickwick, drive straight to Kentucky Lake, and put his boat in the water at sunrise to ride lakes and take notes - what Wheeler now calls unseen reps. "As a 23-year-old kid, I saw the bulldog in Andy Morgan," Wheeler said. "I remember that moment vividly because it fundamentally changed my perspective on the sport."
The lesson he extracted has guided his career since. "The irony is that once you make it as a professional bass angler, your real work has just begun. It's not time to let off the gas. It's time to step on it. In this sport, as with all great competition, complacency is killer."
For 2025, Wheeler used a day off at a Heavy Hitter on Smith Mountain Lake to drive three hours to the Potomac River and ride the lake. "That move helped me seal the 2025 BPT Angler of the Year. My Andy Morgan moment had finally come full circle. I had found my beast mode."
And a defence of a generation: "Young anglers entering the pro fishing space today have more work ethic than any era before them. They know that you are only as good as your last tournament, not a championship you won six months ago. The word complacency is not in their vocabulary. Dylan Knott just won the Bassmaster Classic. He didn't take a year off to rest on his laurels. Two days later, he was practicing for the Tackle Warehouse Invitational with his foot still on the gas."
The definition Wheeler ended on did not need a fishing rod attached. "Do the work today to be better than you were yesterday. Better at your job, better as a spouse, better as a dad, better as a friend, and better as a person." Days later he won REDCREST.