Strader Rides ‘Woods Wisdom’ to First MLF Victory

Growing up the grandson of a professional trapper, Major League Fishing Select angler Wesley Strader inherited something that he considers far more valuable than even the hand-crafted Kissing Crane pocket knife that his granddad handed down to him when he was a youngster: Woods wisdom.

Strader, who grew up fishing and hunting with his dad and granddad around his childhood home in Rockwood, Tennessee, considers himself an “instinctual fisherman” who relies on his gut first and his head second.

“Where I come from, we call it being ‘woods wise’: you just know which choices to make,” Strader says matter-of-factly.

Over a 21-year professional fishing career, those instincts have served him well: 42 FLW Top 10s, more than $1.5 million in tournament winnings, and after a dominant performance in the MLF Select in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a newfound reputation as a threat to win every morning he takes off for his Ride Around.

“I don’t really know how to explain it, but you’re out there on the water or in the woods and your gut tells you to do something, you just do it,” Strader says. “It’s amazing how many times you make a choice on the water, it works out, and you can’t explain why.”

Strader started accumulating woods wisdom early: he caught his first bass when he was 3 years old – a 2 ½-pound largemouth from Blue Bell point on Watts Bar Reservoir – on a strawberry Mann’s Jelly Worm, and became obsessed with fishing for a living when he was in grade school.

“You know in high school when you fill out those tests that ask you what you want to do for a living?” Strader says. “Well, I wrote in ‘pro fisherman’. Everybody laughed at me, but I didn’t care. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I just didn’t know exactly how to do it until somebody took me to a tournament as an observer.”

Strader’s gut has guided him wisely this week in Hot Springs.

While half of the 16 anglers in the two Elimination Rounds on the West Fork Ouachita River failed to break the 10-pound mark, Strader piled up 19 pounds, 5 ounces on 11 fish throwing a spinnerbait and vibrating jig, and then backed that up by reaching the 16-pound cut weight first in his Sudden Death Round on Lake Hamilton. 

When he arrived on the lower end of Lake Ouachita for the Championship Round, the clear, high water told his gut that fish would relate to grass, and that a topwater bait would be a likely way to bring fish up out of those grass beds.

Out came the PH Custom Lures Wesley’s Ploppin’ P, a balsa topwater with a plopper-style blade that eventually accounted for seven of Strader’s 11 fish en route to his 15-12 on the day (and his first MLF victory).

“It’s pretty amazing how easy things can be when it’s all clicking,” Strader says. “I guess it’s kind of like racing: you get a feel for what’s going on, and things just kinda happen the way your gut tells you they’re going to. You can watch every YouTube video in the world to try to understand it, but it’s not something you can hear or see. You just have to feel it, and when you do feel it, you’ll know.”