Which Lure Company Has Won the Most Bassmaster Classics?

Tulsa, Okla.— If you’re a bass fishing fan, you know that Rick Clunn and Kevin VanDam have each won four Bassmaster Classics and that Casey Ashley won the most recent Classic. But do you know which lure manufacturer has made the most baits that have won the most Classics?

The 55 anglers in this year’s championship on Grand Lake in Oklahoma will battle to prove who’s the best. The winner will earn a check for $300,000, one of the bigger prizes in sportfishing, but the money falls off precipitously after that. Second place gets just $45,000. That’s not enough to pay Elite Series entry fees for the season. It’s just 15 percent of what the winner takes home … and the winner used to get $500,000.

Back at the Classic Outdoor Expo, dozens of manufacturers are hoping their tools will play a role in the win. Sales are what’s at stake for them, and the playing field is just as uneven as the prize payout for top Classic anglers.

You see, the winning lure will get a great deal of media exposure over the next few days and weeks. It will be spotlighted and talked about. Experts, so-called experts and wannabe experts will tell us how to fish it. Retailers will order it in large numbers and anglers will ask for it in brick and mortar stores and online.

But the lure used by the second-place angler will get very little attention despite the likelihood that the number two bait finished just ounces behind the winner. It’s ridiculous when you think about it, but that’s the way it works. Miss by an inch, but it might as well miss by a mile in the marketplace and in the media.

It’s not fair, of course, but it is what it is, and it’s not going to change anytime soon.

So what company has produced the most Classic winners? Well, before I answer that question, I have to tell you that most Classic champs use more than one bait for their win, and some winners have listed as many as four or five. Since it can be impossible to identify the winning bait, I credit them all on the list.

So here are the companies with the biggest Classic credentials through 2015. The number refers to how many times their baits have been used by the winner to account for at least a part of his catch.

• 7 Wins: Strike King
• 5 Wins: Bagley, Mann’s
• 4 Wins: Berkley, Bomber, Zoom
• 3 Wins: Cordell, Ditto, Fleck, Luck “E” Strike, Norma, Stanley

That’s the top dozen. No other company’s baits were used to win more than two Classics. Of course, we have no way of knowing if the Classic champs were all being completely truthful about what was used, but this is still a pretty interesting list. These days, with cameras in and on virtually every boat in the tournament, it’s pretty difficult for an angler to fudge on questions about gear.

The media and marketing power of first place is considerable. You can’t say the same about second place. It just goes to show you that whether you’re an angler or a company making a bait, there’s no second place at the Bassmaster Classic.