Ohio native Bill Lowen takes tournament title in Elite Series – Outdoor News
Palatka, Fla. — Twice in three days vegetation threatened to thwart Bill Lowen’s efforts. Both times persistence prevailed, as the Brookville, Ind., pro and Ohio native tallied a four-day total of 73 pounds, 14 ounces to win the 2025 FXR Pro Fish Bassmaster Elite at St. Johns River in late February.
Lowen, who won his first Elite title at Pickwick Lake in 2021, placed third on Day 1 with 21-5, then took over the lead with a second-round limit of 24-4. Sacking up 18-1 on Semifinal Saturday, Lowen held the top spot and entered Championship Sunday with a 5-4 lead over his nearest competitor.
Day 4 proved excruciatingly stingy, as Lowen struggled to coax fish that showed increasing sensitivity to the week’s severe cold front. He missed his limit by one keeper, but after anchoring an otherwise slim bag with a 7-pound, 7-ounce bass, Lowen turned in a final bag that went 10-4 and edged Jay Przekurat by 4 ounces.
“Today was weird; I lost my fifth fish three times, and one of them was a good one – maybe 4 or 5 pounds,” Lowen said. “I’ve always said, ‘When it’s your time, it’s your time and you can’t do anything wrong.’
“Even though I lost those fish, the good Lord was looking out for me. To say I’m a two-time Elite winner is unbelievable.”
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Lowen caught all of his fish in Deep Creek, north of the tournament site, on the river’s east bank. He chose this artery because its 20-plus-foot depths appeared to offer greater stability in the behavior of largemouth bass than shallower areas.
“It was all dependent on the tide, and the tide just never got right today,” Lowen said. “All week, my bigger bites came when the tide got low, but that window got later and later every day.”
Lowen caught his first-day fish on a blue craw 3 ⁄8-ounce signature series Lure Parts Online flipping jig with a Zoom Super Chunk. From then on, he did most of his work with a 5 ⁄16-ounce blue craw signature series Lure Parts Online swim jig with a Zoom Super Speed Craw.
“The key was fishing that swim jig really slow,” Lowen said. “In that cold water, they just wanted that bait moving slowly.”
That tactic, while clearly productive, was not without risk, and a Day 2 entanglement nearly cost Lowen the tournament. When one of his better fish became ensnared in a sunken tree, Lowen tensely tugged and manipulated his rod for a couple of minutes until the main branch miraculously broke and released the fish.
Two days later, Lowen’s painfully slow final round saw Deep Creek taunting him with a random obstruction that blocked his ability to reach one of his key areas. With the cold front dropping water temperatures, Lowen targeted areas with slightly greater warmth.
“Last night during the high tide, a grass mat moved into one of my best bends in the creek,” Lowen said. “I had caught a 5 and a 6 there in the last three days and that mat was in my way.
“I said, ‘I’m just going to punch through that mat,’ so I dropped right through that mat and ping through a lot of mats this week and never got a bite. If that hadn’t dropped through there, I wouldn’t have caught that key caught that 7-7. I’ve been drop- mat hadn’t blown in there and I fish.”
