BAY CITY, Mich. – After Kevin VanDam worked his way through the long line of fans seeking autographs and reporters seeking quotes about his Knockout Round performance, one person lingered.
VanDam turned to his left to find fellow Bass Pro Tour angler Dakota Ebare. Like many of the fans who had staked out the longtime Mercury Pro Team member at Golson Boat Ramp next to the Saginaw River on Saturday afternoon, Ebare – who will enter Sunday’s Championship Round in second place, trailing only VanDam – asked him to pose for a photo. Ebare held up two fingers and told VanDam to hold up one.
During the final day of Minn Kota Stage Seven Presented by Suzuki, Ebare will look to claim the Bass Pro Tour victory that has narrowly eluded him during the past two seasons. Doing so would earn him $100,000 and complete a rare feat: winning events on the Toyota Series, Tackle Warehouse Invitationals and BPT in the same year. VanDam represents the biggest obstacle to him doing so.
And yet, shortly before he approached VanDam, Ebare made a confession.
“I’d love to see him win,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie to you.”
Sunday will mark the final day of the final Bass Pro Tour event of VanDam’s legendary tournament career. While he plans to fish REDCREST and General Tire Heavy Hitters in 2024, VanDam announced prior to this season that his 34th year as a full-time pro would be his last.
No matter where he finished, this week was always going to serve as a celebration of the greatest tournament angler of all time, especially given the proximity of Saginaw Bay to his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan. But in typical VanDam fashion, he wasn’t interested in simply being saluted. He’s too competitive for that. If he’s showing up to a derby, his only goal is to win it.
And now, entering his final day on a national tour, he’s turned what started the event as a feel-good fantasy, a “wouldn’t it be fun?” hypothetical, into a strong possibility. After sacking up 21 pounds, 8 ounces of smallmouth during the Knockout Round, VanDam leads Ebare by nearly 3 pounds.
“I wouldn’t expect any less from Kevin,” said Bryan Thrift, another angler who will compete against VanDam in the Championship Round. “It’s his last event; I would expect him to win it. I mean, I really expect him to win every tournament I fish against him. That’s just the type of competitor and how good he is.”
“I couldn’t really ever even dream that I would have this opportunity,” VanDam said. “I couldn’t script it any better, to be in this position.”
When Randy VanDam left Kalamazoo for Bay City early Saturday morning, the plan was for the rest of his family to follow a few hours behind him. Randy, Kevin’s brother, owns and operates D&R Sports Center, an outdoor goods store. He had to hit the road early to haul the Nitro boat that was going to be displayed in front of the store’s tent at the MLF fan experience at Wenonah Park.
Randy and the other members of the VanDam clan wanted to make sure they were on hand to witness Kevin’s final day on the Bass Pro Tour. That’s one of the tricky things about tournament fishing. Even when an angler knows he’s fishing the last event of his season or, in the rare case of a premeditated retirement, his career, the end can sneak up on him. Wind up on the wrong side of the Toro Cut Line, and suddenly it’s over.
Randy didn’t even realize Kevin’s fishing day had begun when he got a phone call from his daughter. Looks like the family won’t be making the three-hour drive on Saturday after all, she said.
Randy was confused and concerned – until his daughter explained that Kevin had already put more than 15 pounds on SCORETRACKER® (with just four fish) in less than 20 minutes. At that point, even Kevin acknowledged that retirement would have to wait another day. He doesn’t mind going to work one more time.
“It’s my last week, so I wanted to fish every single day, and I’m going to get to do that,” he said. “I can’t put into words how much it means.”
Now that they know Sunday really will mark Kevin’s final BPT round, the VanDams are planning to gather en masse at Wenonah Park. They’ll be watching the live stream on the big screen with the rest of the fans there.
While, of course, he would love for the family to cheer his brother to a win, in Randy’s mind, the week is already a success. The fact that Kevin was able to give the family a full day to soak in the finality of the moment, knowing it will be the end, is all he hoped for. No matter how Sunday unfolds, Kevin will get to celebrate in person with family and fans at the watch party, where the Top 10 anglers will all make an appearance.
“It’s just finally setting in,” Randy said as a few tears escaped his eyes. “I know for him, I can see the emotion, and I started to get the same way.”
At some point Sunday, Kevin VanDam knows, the finality is going to hit him. So far during his week on and around Saginaw Bay, he’s stayed focused on his fishing. But now that he knows for certain that the Championship Round will be his last on the Bass Pro Tour, it’s just a matter of time until the emotions catch up to him, too. They’ve already crept in. As he recapped his Knockout Round for the MLFNOW! live stream Saturday, his voice caught.
That’s not to say VanDam has ignored the fact that this tournament will be his last as a touring pro. Throughout his first three days of competition, he’s talked openly to the ever-present camera in the back of his Nitro about his impending retirement.
The fact that he’s able to do so without so much as hesitating between casts with his Strike King Thunder Cricket illustrates the attribute that, more than any other, has allowed VanDam to rack up 26 tour-level wins and put him in position for one more: his focus.
Fellow Bass Pro Tour angler Jonathon VanDam, Kevin’s nephew and one of his traveling partners, said he hasn’t seen anything out of the ordinary from his uncle this week, despite all the hoopla. As usual, he’s practiced as hard and prepared as diligently as anyone.
“When it comes to tournament time, he’s laser-focused,” Jonathon said. “He does a good job of that and is able to kind of separate everything that he’s got going on this week, with it being his last tournament — and he’s got a lot of stuff going on here with his foundation, tons of different sponsors and videos and stuff. But he’s one of the best ever, if not the best ever, at being able to get all that accomplished and still able to focus on the tournament.”
When the 40-angler field gathered at the boat ramp prior to the Knockout Round, several of VanDam’s competitors asked him for a photo or handshake. He greeted each with a smile, openly acknowledging the possibility that it could mark the last day of his last event, never insisting he needed some space to concentrate.
By the time competition started 90 minutes later, VanDam’s flat demeanor and machine-like efficiency made it clear that he wasn’t focused on anything other than putting the next cast in the perfect spot.
“When I get going, I’m so focused,” VanDam said. “Today, same thing. I just was in kill mode to begin with. Then I kind of sat back and reflected a little bit and really just enjoyed the day.”
VanDam has no plans to start Sunday’s Championship Round any different than he has the hundreds of tournament days he’s fished during the past 34 years. He’s sticking to his well-worn routine. When it’s time to make his first cast, he’ll be back in “kill mode.”
“I’ve been doing it a long time, and I’ve got a pretty good system that works for me,” VanDam said. “I’ll get prepared tonight, redo a bunch of my equipment, get ready to go and be focused.”
Among the rest of the Top 10, though, there’s already a sense of appreciation for the moment. Even as they fight for prize money or points in the impossibly close Bally Bet Angler of the Year race, several anglers said they’re excited to be on the water alongside VanDam for his final Championship Round. Like Ebare, a few said they’ll even be rooting for him.
“I’m asking for updates from my officials just to see how he’s doing,” Thrift said, “because I want to see him win, too.”
“The perfect end to this season would be for me to finish second and win Angler of the Year and Kevin VanDam to win the tournament,” said Ott DeFoe. “That’s the perfect finish. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
What would it mean for VanDam to ride off into the sunset with a win? In one sense, it’s not like he has anything left to prove. Regardless of whether he extends his record number of first-place finishes to 30 or how much he adds to his $7 million-plus in career earnings, he’ll retire as the consensus greatest tournament angler in bass fishing history. That he made the Top 10 and put himself in position to win his last event is a testament to the fact that he’s walking away because he wants to, not because he can no longer compete.
Then again, if he can pull it off, it would make for the perfect final chapter in the legend of KVD: the athlete who transformed his sport more than any other bolstering his GOAT status and captivating fans one final time on his way out the door.
“I couldn’t script it any better,” VanDam said, “other than just closing it out tomorrow.”