Coming into the final tournament of the 2025 Bassmaster Elite Series season, Brandon Palaniuk finds himself just outside the projected points total to qualify for his 14th Bassmaster Classic. Palaniuk has good intentions to end this event on the right side of the Classic cut, but first he’ll have to perform on the water while enduring four days of season-defining pressure.
The mere thought of the stress Palaniuk and many of his peers are feeling this week could cause sweaty palms and mental breakdowns, but Palaniuk is used to competing in a pressure cooker on this fishery. The longtime Yamaha Outboards pro has a provocative relationship with this shallow, rolling stretch of the Mississippi River.
“You know, it seems like it always comes down to a tournament in La Crosse,” Palaniuk said with a chuckle. “Whenever we come here it can never just be a fun, relaxing tournament for me. It’s usually on the schedule at the end of the season and I’ve almost become accustomed to fishing here with what feels like the weight of the world on my shoulders.”
Every time Palaniuk visits La Crosse, Wisconsin there are dramatics. In 2013 Palaniuk needed a victory on the Mississippi River to qualify for the Classic through a “win and you’re in” route. After dominating the tournament the first two days, he was DQed due to culling infraction in Minnesota waters. Things ultimately went his way when he won the very next tournament, but the sting of that debacle stuck with him.
Nearly a decade later in 2022, on the same body of water, Palaniuk needed just a decent finish to lock up his second Angler of the Year title. After struggling on day one, it looked as though the Mighty Mississippi may sabotage “The Prodigy” once again. But Palaniuk came back strong on day two and three, finishing in 20th place and taking the AOY trophy back to Idaho.
The irony of being stressed and not able to truly enjoy fishing the Mississippi River’s vast backwater sloughs, thick with different species of aquatic vegetation, is not lost on Palaniuk. By all accounts, this fishery offers Elite Series anglers one of the more enjoyable playing fields of the season.
“Someday I am going to fish this place when it’s low stress and I can’t freaking wait,” Palaniuk beamed. “There are so many ways to catch them but mainly power fishing tactics in the current, grass mats, or epic backwaters. If you close your eyes and think of bass fishing heaven, you’d get something pretty close to this area on the (Mississippi) River. This should be such a fun place to fish, but like usual the stress is cranked up this week.”
Regardless of the results of this tournament, it would be hard to look at this season as anything but a success for Team Toyota’s newest pro angler.
There have been lots of highs: winning his sixth Elite Series trophy in dominating fashion on Lake Okeechobee, catching a ten-pound beast in the Bassmaster Classic Celebrity Pro-Am, a fifth-place finish on Lake St. Clair. All while keeping his family first and making memories on the road with his wife Tiffany and their two daughters.
That said, the competitive fire burns hot inside Palaniuk to lock up a Classic berth and get back to bass fishing’s biggest stage in Knoxville, Tennessee next March. His goal is attainable this week, but Palaniuk purposely keeps himself blind to the specific point totals or exactly where he needs to finish.
“I know I need to catch ‘em but I intentionally do not want to know the point gap,” Palaniuk explained. “I don’t want to go into this event, or any tournament, thinking I just need a top 50, or top 20 finish. Even if that’s the case, I don’t want to put a target in my mind and feel like I can let off. Earlier in my career that burned me, nowadays I just choose not to look at the points.”
Palaniuk leaned on this headstrong mindset going into the last tournament on Lake St. Clair and it served him well. The logic is simple, if he fishes to win and falls short, he’ll still have put his best effort forward to finish as high as possible.
‘Shoot for the moon and end up among the stars’, type thinking. There is a lot on the line for BP and many others this week and regardless of the result, Palaniuk will be composed as he backs his boat down the Veterans Freedom Park boat launch Thursday morning, ready for another round of high-stakes chess with his familiar rival that is the Mississippi River.
