Jeff Freeman finished 9th at the 2010 Classic
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Photos of Jeff on stage….
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Important week for looms for Classic angler Freeman
By: Mark Taylor
During practice for the upcoming Bassmaster Classic, Jeff Freeman boated a bodacious 7-pound bass.He’s looking forward to getting his hands on another 7-pounder soon.
Freeman and his wife, Katrina, are expecting their third child any day.
“If she doesn’t go into labor by Wednesday, the doctor is going to induce her,” said Freeman, a 38-year-old from Max Meadows who is competing in his second Classic.
While other Classic competitors will be making final preparations for the tournament, to be held Friday through Sunday on Lay Lake in Alabama, Freeman will be making a mad dash back to Virginia. He plans to hit the road this evening for the eight-hour drive home.
If all goes as planned, he’ll welcome the arrival of his new daughter, then turn back toward Alabama to arrive by Thursday.
“Last week on the ultrasound the baby was already almost 7 pounds,” Freeman said. “The doctor said they can put on a quarter of a pound to a half pound per week at this point.”
The Freemans already have two boys, ages 9 and 6. The trip home means Freeman will miss the final official practice on Wednesday.
“I really would like to practice,” he said. “But is it going to make or break me?
“I don’t think so.”
Freeman would love nothing more than to celebrate the arrival of his daughter with a big performance in the Classic, the most prestigious tournament in professional bass fishing. The winner will pocket a potentially life-changing $500,000.
For Freeman, who is a part owner of the Old Fort Western Store in Wytheville, it would also almost certainly lead to a jump into a full-time slot on the BASS Elite Series.
Freeman said he is more at ease this time than he was when he fished in the 2008 Classic at South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell.
“I’m a little more settled in,” said Freeman, who was 28th at that tournament. “I’m fishing my game now.”
Both times Freeman earned his spot by advancing through a series of qualification tournaments for amateur members of BASS’s Federation Nation.Only one amateur qualifier has ever won the tournament, with Bryan Kerchal taking the title in 1994.
All competitors will fish the tournament’s first two days. The top 25 will advance to the third day.
ESPN will carry coverage of the tournament on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com, including live video of each day’s weigh-in. The schedule and additional information are available at www.bassmaster.com.
For Freeman, the 7-pound bass was the highlight of a solid practice that has given him some needed confidence heading into the big tourney. And confidence will be a key considering the difficult conditions at the lake, which is high, cold and muddy.
“Cold and muddy water is the worst recipe for fishing,” Freeman said.
Freeman had taken two trips to Lay Lake before it went off limits but said the lake is fishing totally differently now.
“Everything I learned I had to throw out the window,” he said.
But bass fishing is about adjustments and Freeman was able to locate some fish during practice.
Getting some to bite was tough, however. Cold weather has killed many of the lake’s shad, he said, so the bass have plenty to eat.
Still, he was able to get on some productive patterns that were producing bites. Like many tournament anglers, Freeman was reluctant to actually set the hook on those biting fish in the hopes those fish might still be around and in a biting mood come tournament time.
But eventually he figured he better swing on one to make sure he wasn’t just fooling with a bunch of dinks. He wasn’t. That fish was the 7-pounder.
Freeman said he would like to think that the patterns he found hold up through the weekend. But he realizes that probably won’t happen and expects to do some more adjusting.
Will it be enough to help him knock off bass fishing’s best?
“If I don’t think I should win it,” he said, “I shouldn’t be here.”
Freeman’s baby
For Federation Nation angler Jeff Freeman, from Max Meadows, Va., these three days of Classic pre-practice are crucial. His wife is home right now, due to have the couple’s third child any day now.
Wednesday happens to be the final time anglers will see Lay Lake until the tournament begins Friday. Fortunately for Freeman, he had a pretty good day Saturday, getting seven bites and boating four, one of which was a 7-pounder.
That gives Freeman some confidence that even if he misses the last day of practice, he will have something solid to go on. There is some risk involved driving 8 hours each way to get home, especially considering the trouble he had leaving to get to Alabama.
“I had to bust a snow drift with my tractor to get out of my driveway,” Freeman said. “I live at the top of a hill and the wind blows the snow into huge 5-foot drifts. I have not seen the grass in my yard since December 16 and they haven’t had school in the county I live in for three weeks.”
The upside to so much snow and no school is that his two boys, ages 6 and 9, will hopefully be able to come to Birmingham with Freeman’s parents to see their dad fishing in his second Bassmaster Classic.
Amateur Freeman returns to Classic
By Mark Taylor
There’s a temptation when an amateur angler qualifies for the Bassmaster Classic to call the rare accomplishment a once-in-a-lifetime event.
But when Jeff Freeman of Max Meadows made it to the big tournament in 2008, he never used that term.
He had every intention of making it back.
And he has.
“I’m going back,” said Freeman, who earned the trip as the Mid-Atlantic region’s top qualifier at the Bass Federation Nation Championship tournament in Florida.
Freeman was seventh overall in the tournament, milking the Harris Chain of Lakes for a three-day catch of 24 pounds, 5 ounces.
The 38th annual Classic will be held Feb. 19-21 on Alabama’s Lay Lake.
Freeman finished 28th in his first Classic on South Carolina’s Hartwell Lake, saying afterward that he was proud of his effort against a field of pro bass fishing’s best.
But Freeman, who was sick at Hartwell — though he didn’t use that as an excuse — would like to do better this time around.
“I honestly think I can win every tournament I go to,” said Freeman, a 37-year-old who is a regular on the Virginia bass tournament scene. “That’s my mindset.
“Nobody remembers who finished second.”
Freeman earned his first Classic trip by winning the 2007 Federation Nation Championship outright.
That win also garnered him an automatic bid into last year’s championship, allowing him to skip several precarious qualifying steps.
“I figured last year was my best chance to get back to the Classic,” said Freeman, a former Wythe County sheriff’s deputy who is now a co-owner of the Old Fort Western Store in Wytheville. “At this level if you stumble, you fall on your face.”
Freeman struggled in last year’s championship, which was held in terrible weather conditions in Kansas, so he had to start all over this year.
And it’s a long road.
First, he had to do well enough in local BASS-affiliated tournaments to earn a spot in one of the three state qualifiers.
Freeman punched that ticket and went to his first qualifier, which offered two spots for the Mid-Atlantic regional.
Freeman finished third.
“So I had to go to another one,” he said.
That tournament had six qualification spots, and Freeman nabbed one with a fifth-place finish.
In September, Freeman won the Mid-Atlantic tournament on the Ohio River out of Wheeling, W. Va., earning Virginia’s one slot in the national championship.
The Ohio River tournament featured the kind of break that it often takes for an angler to advance.
With a long line of boats ahead of him waiting to take out after a practice day, Freeman had some time to kill. But this isn’t a guy who can just sit on his boat and do nothing.
“I grabbed my rod and started fishing,” said Freeman, who also started catching some bass. “Fortunately nobody saw me catch those fish.”
Also fortunate for Freeman, the pattern held once the tournament started.
In Florida last week, Freeman also felt like he was on a good pattern. He found some big bass hanging around docks, and figured the fish were staging before the spawn.
“I caught a couple 8- and 9-pounders,” he said.
But he couldn’t catch them when the tourney started, his first-day, four-bass catch of a meager 4 pounds, 8 ounces putting him way back in 29th place.
That changed quickly when Freeman managed a catch of 14 pounds, 3 ounces to move into the top 10 after two days of fishing. The catch included a 5-pound, 11-ounce bass that was the best of the day.
Freeman was pretty confident that he could catch a heavy enough limit to win the division on the third and final day. But he didn’t want to just win the division.
“I tried to win the whole thing,” Freeman said.
But after a half-day of finding no big fish Freeman went after his limit. He got it, and it was enough to top the division runner-up by just over a pound.
Freeman said he hopes to spend about a week fishing Lay Lake later this fall before the water goes off limits to Classic competitors.
He said he expects February to bring a pre-spawn bite, with techniques such as flipping jigs having potential to settle the tournament.
That will be in sharp contrast to the fishing at Lake Hartwell, where fish were deep and not very active.
Freeman isn’t the only proof that amateurs can sometimes earn repeat trips the Classic.
Brent Long, a North Carolinian who won the Southern division, fished in the 2007 Classic, which was also on Lay Lake.
Texan Bryan Schmidt, who qualified for the Classic last year, is going back. He earned a bye into the Bass Federation Nation championship by winning it last year. This year he was the top finisher in the Central division.
Bryan Kerchal is the only amateur to ever win the Classic.
Forest Service opens another road
The U.S. Forest Service will temporarily open a section of Mill Creek Road during hunting season.
The road in Craig County has been closed since March because of damage caused by illegal off-road vehicle use.
In a statement, Eastern Divide District Ranger Cindy Schiffer said the Forest Service was able to complete enough work to allow access through Jan. 4, after which time the road will be closed again until repairs can be completed.
