Alabama’s Kyle Welcher goes wire-to-wire to win the St. Croix Bassmaster Elite at Pasquotank River/Albemarle Sound in Elizabeth City, N.C., with a weight of 118-12.

Photo by Seigo Saito/B.A.S.S.

April 13, 2025

Welcher puts finishing touches on dominating victory at Pasquotank River/Albemarle Sound

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. —   Kyle Welcher loves fishing rivers. After the St. Croix Bassmaster Elite at Pasquotank River/Albemarle Sound, it is easy to see why.

With a stunning four-day total of 118 pounds, 12 ounces, Welcher claimed the first title of his Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series career, earning a coveted blue trophy and the $100,000 first-place prize. The 2023 Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year opened the tournament with a bang, landing 30-11 to take the Day 1 lead, which he never relinquished. 

He backed it up with 30-3 on Day 2 and 34-0 on Day 3, the Rapala CrushCity Monster Bag of the Tournament, and capped off the week with a 23-14 limit, anchored by a 7-3 largemouth. 

“I didn’t think I would get a Century Belt, for sure,” Welcher said. “When I heard we were coming here, I was excited. I feel comfortable in rivers and was really excited to go to one without a lot of history. But when I saw the forecast about 10 days away from practice, that kind of took the wind out of my sails. (I didn’t think) it was going to set up for the way I like to fish. 

“It ended up falling right into my wheelhouse in a way I’m super comfortable fishing.”

It was a beatdown of historic proportion. Welcher’s winning margin of 45-7 over second-place Brandon Lester is the largest in Elite Series history, shattering the previous mark of 29-10 set by Patrick Walters at Lake Fork in 2020. 

His winning weight is also the 13^th-largest four-day winning total in Elite Series history while the Pasquotank River becomes the 11th venue in Elite Series history to produce a Century Belt.

“I’m super thankful really. I kind of felt it building like that early on Day 2,” the 32-year-old said. “I’ve been fishing for a long time, and when stuff starts going your way, you have to get out of your own way and let it happen. There were a lot of signs pointing me to fish how I fished.”

Elite Series competitors were dealt a difficult hand this week in eastern North Carolina. A cold front pushed through the area during practice, sending temperatures from the high 70s down to the high 50s and low 60s. Strong winds made for choppy conditions in the Albemarle Sound throughout the week. 

While many of his fellow competitors made lengthy one-way runs to the Roanoke, North and Chowan Rivers (to name a few) through those rough waters, Welcher stayed within a couple of miles of takeoff and maximized a mile-long stretch of the Pasquotank River. 

After a terrible practice, he felt like it was his best option to salvage points. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. 

“For you to catch them like this, you have to have fish coming to you every single day,” Welcher said. “That window is super small. I didn’t find these bass until Day 1 of the tournament. They were fresh and there were more coming. It made all of the difference.”

That stretch was the only area that featured stumps and cypress trees, the types of cover Welcher believes they use to stage and spawn. He opened the tournament catching prespawn females, but as the tournament progressed, those females locked onto their beds to spawn. 

Using his forward-facing sonar, Welcher was able to pick out stumps and cypress knees under the surface that the largemouth were using to spawn. Using a 7-foot-6 heavy Khaotic Kustom Rod paired with an 8:1:1 gear ratio reel spooled with 22-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon, he would pitch a black and blue Rapala CrushCity Bronco Bug to the piece of cover. 

He rigged the Bronco Bug on a 4/0 Gamakatsu G-Power hook and a ¼-ounce tungsten weight, which he pegged with a bobber stop.

“I pegged my weight,” Welcher explained. “I was around a lot of stumps. When your bait is on top of the stump, a lot of times the weight can get away from the bait. I want my bait and weight to be together so that if I need to pitch into something, my bait is down there with the weight.”

Entering the day with a 33-14 lead on the field, Welcher was able to enjoy Championship Sunday.

“I did really enjoy it today,” Welcher said. “I went a little slower and thought a little more today. I wasn’t quite as intense. But I still moved around pretty good and fished hard.”

Within the first hour of fishing on Championship Sunday, Welcher eclipsed the 100-pound mark, landing a 4-pounder and a 7-pounder. He filled out his limit just after 10 a.m., but it was an overall slower day, as he only culled once in the afternoon hours. As the day wore down, Welcher realized his fourth-straight 30-pound day was becoming unlikely.

“I was disappointed about that about 2 o’clock,” Welcher said. “And then I remembered I had 23 pounds. I was like, ‘I need to chill out.’”

Fayetteville, Tenn., pro Brandon Lester finished in second with a four-day total of 72-1. Lester steadily made his way up the leaderboard with bags of 17-7, 18-14 and 24-11 before catching 10-8 on the final day.

“This has been one of the funnest events I’ve fished in a long time,” Lester said. “I’ve been doing this for 12 years and it’s not very often that we get to go to a new place that nobody really knows anything about. It is a clean slate.”

Lester used a two-pronged approach to notch his best finish of 2025. The nine-time Classic qualifier fished a LiveTarget Straight Tail Worm on a ⅛-ounce shaky head on a hard spot next to a bridge outside of takeoff before fishing docks and shallow cover with a Live Target Finesse Worm on a 3/16-ounce drop-shot rig in a creek towards the mouth of the Pasquotank. 

Looking at the weather, Lester knew early on that making a long run to any other river would not be in the cards for him.

“Making a run was going to be really risky,” he said. “You are going to tear your boat up and your body up. If I could find something close and maximize my time, maybe it would work out. And it did. It was a blessed week. If someone is going to blow it out, it should be somebody like (Welcher).”

Carbondale, Ill., pro Trey McKinney finished third with a four-day total of 72-1. The 20-year-old opened the tournament in second place with 23-7 and followed that up with bags weighing 15-7, 21-7 and 11-1.

The 2024 Dakota Lithium Elite Series Rookie of the Year spent his tournament in the North River fishing shallow wood. A prototype jig with a twin-tail grub generated the most bites on Day 1, but as the tournament progressed, McKinney switched to a Neko rig with either a 6th Sense Bamboosa worm or a 6th Sense Divine Shaky Head Worm. 

“Thank goodness I got a couple bites in that creek the last day of practice,” he said. “I found them as I went. Every day I found find a spot where I could get two or three good bites.”

Not only did Welcher win the $100,000 first-place prize, but he also earned several bonuses as well. He earned $2,000 for catching the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Tournament with the 10-8 he landed on Day 3. That bass earned him another $1,000 for Big Bass of the Day on Day 3. Welcher also landed the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Day on Championship Sunday with a 7-3, which was worth another $1,000.

Keith Combs and Greg Hackney earned $1,000 each for landing the Big Bass of the Day on Thursday and Friday respectively.

Fittingly, Welcher also claimed the $2,000 prize for Rapala CrushCity Monster Bag of the Tournament with his 34-0 Day 3 limit. 

Welcher also took home an additional $3,000 for being the highest-placing entrant in the Toyota Bonus Bucks program, while Easton Fothergill earned $2,000 for being the second-highest placing entrant.

As part of the Yamaha Power Pay program, Fothergill earned an additional $2,500 while Combs claimed an additional $1,500 for being the second-highest placing entrant.

Sylacauga, Ala., pro Will Davis Jr leads the 2025 Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year race through three events with 270 points. Union City, Tenn., sophomore John Garrett is second, also with 270 points, followed by Wisconsin’s Jay Przekurat in third with 268 points, North Carolina’s Jake Whitaker in fourth with 262 points and Texas’s Lee Livesay in fifth with 258 points. Logan Parks, Shane LeHew, David Gaston, Chris Johnston and Bill Lowen round out the Top 10.

Alabama’s Tucker Smith leads the Dakota Lithium Elite Series Rookie of the Year race with 191 points followed by Georgia’s Paul Marks in second with 180 points and Arkansas’s Beau Browning in third with 163 points. 

2025 St. Croix Bassmaster Elite at Pasquotank River 4/10-4/13
Pasquotank River/Albemarle Sound , Elizabeth City  NC.
(PROFESSIONAL) Standings Day 4

   Angler                   Hometown              No./lbs-oz  Pts   Total $$$

1.  Kyle Welcher           Valley, AL              20 118-12  104 $106,000.00
  Day 1: 5   30-11     Day 2: 5   30-03     Day 3: 5   34-00     Day 4: 5   23-14   
2.  Brandon Lester         Fayetteville, TN        20  73-05  103  $20,000.00
  Day 1: 5   17-07     Day 2: 5   18-14     Day 3: 5   24-11     Day 4: 5   12-05   
3.  Trey McKinney          Carbondale, IL          20  72-01  102  $15,000.00
  Day 1: 5   23-07     Day 2: 5   15-07     Day 3: 5   21-07     Day 4: 5   11-12   
4.  Easton Fothergill      Grand Rapids , MN       19  68-06  101  $12,500.00
  Day 1: 5   23-13     Day 2: 4   10-12     Day 3: 5   19-10     Day 4: 5   14-03   
5.  Keith Combs            Huntington, TX          19  67-05  100  $12,750.00
  Day 1: 5   15-12     Day 2: 5   15-06     Day 3: 5   18-15     Day 4: 4   17-04   
6.  Justin Hamner          Northport, AL           20  67-02   99  $11,000.00
  Day 1: 5   16-06     Day 2: 5   12-14     Day 3: 5   20-10     Day 4: 5   17-04   
7.  Tyler Williams         Belgrade, ME            19  66-02   98  $10,500.00
  Day 1: 5   17-14     Day 2: 5   19-11     Day 3: 5   22-09     Day 4: 4   06-00   
8.  Seth Feider            Elko New Market, MN     20  65-06   97  $10,300.00
  Day 1: 5   15-06     Day 2: 5   17-03     Day 3: 5   21-02     Day 4: 5   11-11   
9.  Shane LeHew            Catawba, NC             20  64-14   96  $10,200.00
  Day 1: 5   16-01     Day 2: 5   17-02     Day 3: 5   17-13     Day 4: 5   13-14   
10. Kyle Patrick           Cooperstown, NY         20  62-04   95  $10,000.00
  Day 1: 5   16-11     Day 2: 5   19-09     Day 3: 5   14-11     Day 4: 5   11-05   
———————————————————————–

PHOENIX BOATS BIG BASS 
Day
 1   Keith Combs              Huntington, TX      08-02      $1,000.00
 2   Greg Hackney             Gonzales, LA        08-04      $1,000.00
 3   Kyle Welcher             Valley, AL          10-08      $1,000.00
 4   Kyle Welcher             Valley, AL          07-03      $1,000.00

———————————————————————–
PHOENIX BOATS BIG BASS
     Kyle Welcher             Valley, AL          10-08      $2,000.00
RAPALA CRUSHCITY MONSTER BAG

     Kyle Welcher             Valley, AL          34-00      $2,000.00

———————————————————————–
Totals
Day   #Limits    #Fish      Weight
 1        71       437      1150-07
 2        84       469      1285-00
 3        39       223       676-02
 4         8        48       139-08
———————————-
         202      1177      3251-01