As the 2025 Champions Tour, Presented by Skeeter Boats, opener on Lake Vermilion creeps closer an overwhelming sense of anticipation and excitement has hit the field. The cold Minnesota winter has come to a close, we’ve all endured seemingly 7 different seasons of weather in the past 4 weeks (aka Minnesota Spring), and Memorial Weekend has passed. So for bass fishermen in the Upper Midwest that means one thing, it’s tournament season!
Heading into his 3rd Season on the Champions Tour, Sam “Sobi” Sobieck is the prime example of this boiling pot of excited anticipation heading into a season filled with twists and turns. A schedule that only features one body of water he’s fished before on tour (Le Homme Dieu), and two locations he has a little bit of experience on from past travels (Vermilion & La Crosse), Sobi is ready to see how this story is going to unfold.
“I’m so excited and I want to get back to the Championship so badly,” Sobi said. “As an angler I’m learning and developing each year. This format is making me better (as an angler), for sure, and I’m learning how to be more efficient on the water.”
If you’re unfamiliar, the Champions Tour format is an Every Fish Counts style event with two halves. The night prior to the event, the field is given a lake split and has to fish a designated side for each half of the day. There’s often a lot of talk about the different mental gymnastics this format plays on each angler, but what’s often overlooked is exactly what Sobi spoke about at length; the efficiency factor. Efficiency is one of the biggest players in this game, and the angler who is the most efficient with their time, tends to be the one at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the day.
“We have to practice and learn the whole lake pretty fast. I can’t just have 2 or 3 good spots, I have to know the whole lake to be ready for the lake split and be ready to compete anywhere on that system,” Sobi spoke more in detail about the difficulties this format presents.
The key to the format, for him anyways, has been trying to be more consistent and having a never ending playbook when hitting the water on tournament day. The level and precision one must breakdown water in this format is truly high level, and it’s something Sobi gives those who continually finish in the top high praise for. The ability to digest water at such a rapid pace is impressive, and it’s helped him become a much better angler in the two years he’s been fishing. It may sound cliche, but bass live everywhere in a lake, and our Champions Tour field truly has to figure out how to catch them everywhere, no matter the venue. “I need to have multiple patterns and multiple cards in my back pocket to work with,” he added.
Initially, Sobi’s mindset was on a specific goal of fish caught, or an amount he needed to reach, but that mentality has changed through the years. Rather than worrying about the end result, he’s much more focused on where is the next place he can catch a bass, then another bass, and another, etc.
The mentality is now, “Where is my next bite coming from?”
Sobi further explained, “A lot of anglers I look up to, like Noah (Schultz) for example, have just taught me to always be looking for your next bass. Wherever that may be. So I’m always looking for where am I going to catch my next bass? Where can I go get another bite?”
This evolution in mindset has led Sobi to appreciate the format further. In a 5 Fish format, anglers tend to lean on a few spots where they seek out their best bites, and really lean on these areas. Now, he has found that sometimes simply throwing away your practice is the best way you can go about it.
“I’ve learned to rely on my practice and my instincts at the same time. If practice isn’t working, where can I go catch a bass (based off instinct)” Sobi said.
The growth can be seen in Sobi’s tournament results; after a Rookie Season that left him falling a few points out of the Championship field, he was able to rebound in his Sophomore season with more consistent results that lead to his first Championship birth. His first time fishing for a BRAND NEW Skeeter ZX200. However, he then experienced another learning lesson. Having been happy to make the Championship, he ended up having a pretty tough event. Now, the goals have changed.
“Year two, I really sucked in the Championship,” Sobi admitted. “In year three I expect to be light years ahead of where I was in my rookie year. Now I want to compete for a Championship.”
As all who follow the Champions Tour know, this will be no small task, however it’s completely possible. Each year we see Veterans stake their claim, and new anglers fly to the top of the ranks. The Tour is filled to the brim with the best talent the Upper Midwest has to offer, and as Sobi gushes often about, the culture around the Champions Tour is special. A field filled with anglers who are unbelievably competitive and skilled, but also made up of a lot of genuinely great human beings. One of his biggest appreciations for the Tour has been how fun it is to compete with the field, and how special the group culture is around it. They all challenge you, they all want to beat you, but at the end of the day, they’re all great people.
That competitive fire has lit new goals for Sobi heading into the 2025 Season.
“I’d like to Top-5 or Win a Tournament this year. I think I can do it, it’s a big goal, but if I make good decisions I think I can do it. I’ve learned a lot the past 2 years,” he said.
Looking at the 2025 Schedule, it couldn’t be more diverse. Starting the season on Lake Vermilion, a Canadian shield lake stuffed full of smallmouth bass, then venturing down to the maze that is the Mississippi River in La Crosse, and finally ending in Western Minnesota on the Le Homme Dieu Chain, a body of water known for incredible weedline fishing. Approaching this season, Sobi has an overflowing level of excitement, but also some nerves, which are to be expected.
“I’m eager to learn the river, but I’m not a river rat. So I’m nervous for that but I’m also eager to fish it and learn about it.” Sobi admitted that maneuvering around the river is something he’s going to have to learn to conquer. However, having a great mentality heading into the new environment.
The biggest hill he feels he will have to climb is at the only venue he’s fished a Champions Tour event, Le Homme Dieu.
“I’m most scared for Le Homme Dieu,” Sobi admitted, “because I have competed there before, and I’m hoping I won’t fish memories and I can look at it as a brand new lake.”
A key hoop that all Champions Tour Pro’s eventually have to jump through, is how to approach bodies of water as they are revisited. It’s a tale as old as time, but lakes change, and anglers must change with them. Sobi wants to be able to focus on fishing the moment, and not worry about where there’s been previous success.
However, with his new mindset and ultimate focus on optimal efficiency, the confidence is there for Sobi to have an even better year than past, and that should be scary for the rest of this Champions Tour field.
