To win the Bassmaster Classic an angler must make the right adjustments. We were told, repeatedly, at Media Day on Thursday that Sunday’s champion would be the man who figured things out during the course of competition, not the guy who had the best practice or the sharpest game plan coming into the event.

Kevin VanDam told us he was more prepared than ever to fish the Classic. He was the first man outside the cut and ended up working the floor of the expo for his sponsors instead of fishing on Sunday.

VanDam has won 4 Classic titles. His strength has been his ability to make adjustments on the fly and to do so before others do.

He later mentioned that he did not make the right moves when a heavy storm blew through Alabama at midnight before Day 1 of the 2014 Bassmaster Classic. Many anglers expected the storm to have little effect on fishing, but it changed everything.

One adjustment many pros say they now wish they had made sooner is to go shallow. Bass in the grass went to the inside edge – 0-to-3 feet deep. A lot of guys expected the fish do the opposite.

Eventual winner Randy Howell found bass as deep as 8 feet on the final competition day. But he was not fishing grass. He looked at his electronics and saw “noodles” – streaking fish at the base of rip rap along the highway 431 causeway over Spring Creek. They choked on crankbaits. Howell used a Rapala DT 6 and later switched to a new Livingston Lures model that as yet doesn’t have a name, not even a catalogue number. The Livingston crank vibrated his rod tip and Howell says bass could find it in the off-color water.

Howell did not credit a technical decision for his win. He said it was, instead, a bit of guidance from above. When his name was called at morning’s launch he had every intention of going to a particular bridge. “And then I heard a little voice say ‘do you want to be good, or do you want to be great?’. It’s the eeriest thing. I had a peace about it and I made a right turn and went to spring creek.”

Howell was immediately rewarded with a limit that weighed about 25 pounds.

Word spread and a crowd gathered on the water behind him. For nearly a half mile along Hwy 431 cars were parked and a crowd had gathered to cheer every 4-pound fish that Howell caught . . . and then released. How do you cull when your livewell is stuffed with 5 pounders? Howell had the answer. “I ran to the back the creek. Spring Creek has hardly any grass. Fish are on the rip, the creek channel or maybe the docks. But there’s a little grass way in the back. I went back there and caught a six-and-a-half-pounder. I won this tournament by a pound.”

Do the math:  Howell’s late big fish gave him his winning margin.

He was asked why he decided to pick up and leave such a productive spot and run to the back of the creek just to catch one, albeit very meaningful, fish. “I had another one of those moments. I heard the voice again.” Divine inspiration? “If people hear me talk about how I believe, well they might think I’m crazy.” Most would say it would be crazy not to follow such a clear calling.

In his book, Shaw Grigsby points out, “At the highest levels of the sport bass fishing enters the realm of the mystical.”

Rick Clunn has often spoken of the need to follow your gut, your intuition, whatever somebody wants to call it. I have asked Clunn where that voice comes from. Last night, in a quiet moment, I asked the same of Howell. “I know where mine comes from,” smiled the Classic Champ and follower of Jesus Christ.