When Tyler Chmelar and Kase Kramer checked in on the final day of the 2025 Strike King Bassmaster College Series at Lake Eufaula presented by Bass Pro Shops, they were convinced they hadn’t caught enough to maintain their Day 1 lead.

As it turned out, they caught just enough to leave Oklahoma with a trophy.

The Tarleton State sophomores weathered literal storms to win at Lake Eufaula with a two-day total weighing 37 pounds, 2 ounces. Opening the tournament in the lead with 19-4, Kramer and Chmelar landed 17-14 on the final day to edge out the Missouri State duo of Blair Cox and Grant Simmons by an ounce.

“This trophy means so much to me. I’ve been wanting to do this since high school,” Kramer said. “I’m probably going to be sleeping with the trophy for a while.

“I was convinced we didn’t have enough to win,” he added. “I thought we needed 2 or 3 more pounds. I thought we were going to lose by about 2 pounds.”

Storms and wind made life difficult on the 175 college teams this week. A squall line generated severe storms the morning of Day 1, which resulted in a fourhour delay. A similar scenario played out on Day 2, as tournament officials pushed the start of the final day back two hours due to inclement weather.

Even still, storms and heavy winds were present for a good chunk of Day 2, making navigation and boat positioning difficult. Teams generally experienced a better day of fishing on Thursday. After 30 limits were caught on Day 1, 50 teams brought limits to the scales the final day.

On Day 1, Chmelar and Kramer followed prespawn bass from the mid-depth range into shallower water. After all of the weather, the duo expected the water temperature to drop, but they found it had stayed relatively the same overnight.

Instead of fishing their deeper rockpiles, they decided to stay shallow and focus on pea gravel areas where bass were staging for the spawn in less than 6 feet of water.

“It was all gravel today. The water temperature didn’t drop like I thought it was going to,” Kramer said. “Another thing too, I think the lightning had it to where the bass didn’t want to move. They were just stuck on the bottom.”

Their best bait was a 6-inch Roboworm in Aaron’s morning dawn rigged on a ¼-ounce drop shot. Chmelar and Kramer found that the bass would only eat if they dropped the bait right on their heads. If they pitched it past where the bass was sitting and dragged it to the fish, it would not commit to the bait.

“We pitched to them using LiveScope and we would just hold it there,” Chmelar said. “They’d either eat it on the fall or not even look at it.”

“I honestly think it was a reaction bite, and the drop shot wasn’t too intimidating for them,” Kramer added.

Once they were allowed to leave the ramp, Chmelar and Kramer found boats already fishing two of their most productive areas. They moved on to a stretch of bank that looked similar to what they fished on the first day and caught a quick keeper, giving them confidence to stick with the program.

“It fell together. We caught five keepers right away and we culled around 10 times during the day,” Kramer said.

Once storms blew through, the wind picked up and forced the duo to move to a more protected stretch of the lake they found in practice. That stretch produced several critical bites.

Cox and Simmons, meanwhile, were one of the most consistent teams of the tournament. The Missouri State duo opened the tournament in fourth place with 18-4 before moving into second with a limit weighing 18-9.

This is Cox’s last regular- season College Series event, and while he would have liked to have won it, he said he was pleased to secure a spot in the upcoming National Championship.

“It really does sting losing a tournament of this caliber by an ounce,” he said. “Overall, it is a great feeling to finish second in my last one.”

Although practice wasn’t particularly productive, Cox and Simmons homed in a pattern early on Day 1. They tossed a Neko-rigged X Zone Deception Worm and a jig at boulders the largemouth were using as staging points. Their first two bites of the tournament were a 4and 5-pounder.

“Grant caught one pretty quickly on a jig and it had a bluegill down its throat,” Cox said. “So, we put the pieces together and realized they were up shallow feeding on bluegill before they went to spawn.”

The duo focused on deeper banks with chunk rock with the majority of their bites coming between 2 and 6 feet of water. While the jig played throughout the event, the Deception Worm produced their biggest bites, including a 7 ½-pound largemouth they caught in 2 feet of water.

With bags of 16-4 and 16-14, Levi Thibodaux and William Tew from LSU-Shreveport claimed third with a two-day total weighing 33-2. Thibodaux and Tew focused their efforts on prespawn staging areas leading into spawning pockets. Several different types of cover held bass including rock, docks and brush.

A drop shot rig with a variety of green pumpkin worms caught plenty of bass as well as a Megabass Vision 110 jerkbait.

On the final day, Thibodaux and Tew came across a brushpile using their Live-Scope and saw a giant blob sitting on top of it. After throwing almost every bait they had at the bass in 40 minutes, they finally caught the 6 ½-pounder with a Chad Shad glidebait.

Mason Thompson and Matthew Dettling from the University of Tennessee caught the Big Bass of the Tournament, a 10-0 largemouth that anchored their 20-1 Day 2 limit.

Ben Burns and Grant Pursifull from Stephen F. Austin University claimed Lunker Trail Team of the Year honors with 731 points, punching their ticket to the College Classic Bracket presented by Lew’s in the process. The duo finished fourth at the Harris Chain of Lakes and then finished tied for second at Smith Lake before capping off their impressive regular season with a 16th-place finish at Lake Eufaula.

Lander University’s Anderson Jones finished second with 723 points followed by Max Heaton and John Michael Ortman from Emmanuel University in third with 707 points. East Texas Baptist duo Brett Jolley Jr and Carson Stevens finished fourth with 687 points while Brock Blazier and Colby Joseph from Campbellsville University wrapped up the season in fifth with 656 points.

The City of Eufaula hosted the tournament.