Leading into his 13th Bassmaster Classic, Brandon Palaniuk has fished more than 150 professional tournaments with B.A.S.S., and he has won exactly six times.
In baseball, that sort of batting average gets you sent back to the minors. For a football coach, it would be a one way ticket to the unemployment line.
In fishing, it’s potentially the basis for a Hall of Fame career.
Those six victories – the first two of which came over a decade ago, and the most recent of which was in 2021 – have come on six different bodies of water across five different states. The 35 year-old sometimes referred to as “The Prodigy” has also earned two Angler of the Year titles. To him, the drive to win is the thing that keeps him going.
“The older I get, the more I understand that drive, that emotion, that feeling,” he said. “It’s the ultimate high. Whether it’s an Open, an Elite or AOY, they’re all unique scenarios. It’s similar to setting the hook. It never gets old – you just want one more…and then another one and another one. That feeling is more of a driving force than the title itself.”
Anglers with longer and otherwise admirable careers have yet to experience what he’s felt six times at this level. Even though he’ll never have that “first” again, Palaniuk said it’s a different experience each time it happens.
“It varies deeply depending on where you are in your career, where you are in your personal life,” he said. “There are a lot of different factors that formulate that feeling.” The Angler of the Year titles, he said, represent more of a relief than the single event trophies, which build and release over a shorter period of time. “You’ve had your foot on the gas the entire year for AOY. In a week it’s harder to get burnt out. For both AOY’s I’ve won, it has come down to the final day. I couldn’t coast into the last event or even the last day. I had to catch them, and that often doesn’t happen until late in the day.”
An All Around Competitor
A lot of Palaniuk’s drive and perspective comes from his participation in other sports. He started snowboarding at six, and wrestled competitively. He knows that each event, and each season, has inflection points and opportunities to make a move. Alternatively, there are points where it just makes sense to survive and hang on.
“One of the biggest wrestling titles I won, I won it with a takedown with only seconds left in the third period,” he recalled. “I was down the whole match but I’d spent many hours working for those few seconds. When he slipped up, I took advantage of it. Fishing is the same thing. If you fish as many final days as possible, when that opportunity comes, you strike.”
As with wrestling, fishing comes down to building up muscle memory and confidence. At times during his professional career when Palaniuk has stumbled it’s been when he’s doubted the process, when he’s second guessed his decisions, his aptitude and his instincts. When he can push those to the side, that’s when he tends to be at his best, like in his AOY seasons of 2017 and 2022, or in a 10-month period spanning 2020 and 2021 when he claimed three wins.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t remain realistic at all times. He’ll start off practice for a given event looking to win, and then if there doesn’t seem to be a likelihood, he’ll adjust based on what gives him the best chance to come close.
“But sometimes my best ones are the ones when I don’t think I have a shot,” he said.
The Bassmaster Classic Beckons
The one meaningful title that has eluded the Idaho pro is the Bassmaster Classic trophy. He’s made legit runs at it, both in his inaugural appearance in 2011, and then again two years later. He finished 4th and 2nd in those championships, respectively. Notably, the 2nd place finish, his best to date, took place at Grand Lake in 2013. He finished 12th there three years later. That’s where this year’s “Super Bowl” will once again be waged.
His Classic ledger is also dotted with a handful of what are near last-place finishes. Those aren’t necessarily failures, though. The Classic is an event in which nothing really matters except the win.
“You get so hyper-focused compared to all other events because it’s a standalone tournament,” he said. “It’s also a three-day tournament, which changes it as well. You can’t just kind of coast into the first day. You can’t afford to have a bad day at all.”
While Palaniuk recalls the wins in detail and celebrates them in the moment, he’s also fiercely aware that “this is the most losing sport in all of sports.” Even the greats learn that while there are not necessarily Pyrrhic or moral victories, nothing is guaranteed. To that point, Palaniuk has finished in the money an exceptional 74 percent of the time, and those six victories are matched by an equal number of runner-up finishes. That’s a difference maker in the wallet, in the psyche, and potentially in terms of an angler’s legacy. The most recent two of them both came in Alabama in 2023, first in an Elite event on Lay Lake, and then in an Open on Wheeler.
At Lay, Palaniuk led each of the first three days, and as a proven closer many fans and followers figured he’d finish it off on Championship day. Ultimately, however, he fell short of local rookie Will Davis Jr. by a mere two ounces.
“After practice, I felt like I could have a great Day One and then hang on by the seat of my pants trying to make the cut,” he said. “But after Day Two and Day, when you realize that you have a legitimate shot to win, the perspective changes. Early in my career I may have taken wins for granted. I won in my second year on tour and then again in my third year. Now I understand how hard it is to win one.”
He relayed that it was “a different emotion” watching Davis take the crown. “I’d never before had the weight to do it and not had it happen,” Palaniuk said. Nevertheless, took some solace in the fact that Davis has come up through the B.A.S.S. Nation ranks, as he did a dozen or so years earlier. He knew that the win had been earned. That doesn’t necessarily completely eliminate the sting but it does fuel the fire – and he knows that he has not only the ability but enough tread on his tires to plan on that winning elation more times before he hangs it up.
“For whatever reason – maybe it’s mental – when I get in those moments where it’s make or break, I’ve been able to find another gear, even when I think I’m tapped out.”
