(calm music) - The Mississippi River, it flows from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, and the fishing can be fantastic and anglers from all over the US have descended upon this small Minnesota town in the driftless region to target bass this weekend.

But their main reason for being here is much bigger than that.

(calm music) (poignant music) - To be honest with you, this is probably one of the most amazing things you can just be a part of.

- Oh man, it's just, it's such a cool event.

- It's incredible, doesn't even make sense.

- This would be just a great event to raise money for a cause that is, it's undescribable.

- [Bret] This event is the Dick Hiley St. Jude Bass Classic, which has been raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for 25 years now, but it's not structured like your typical charity tournament.

- To get in the tournament, there's a $350 entry fee.

We do have a fundraising minimum of $500.

And years ago that was brought up at the committee before I was involved and it was kind of a hot button issue and they thought, gosh, we're gonna lose all these teams because they don't wanna raise $500.

And all of a sudden the fundraising dollars kept going up and up.

Well, then we added an accelerator, I believe, in the 20th year of the tournament to have $20,000 first place prize.

Well, what we did there is not only did you have to meet the $500 fundraising minimum, but you also had to raise $5000 for the accelerator, for it to go from 5000 1st place to 20,000.

(calm music) - [Bret] Over the years, the fundraising efforts have evolved and right now they have a model that's working well, all thanks to Dick Hiley.

- Dick was the first person that really chose to, not only raise money for St. Jude by paying his entry fee, because when this tournament started, there was a portion that would go to St. Jude's from the entry fee.

Well, Dick was the first person to raise money on his own outside of that, just by asking people, "Hey, we're raising money for St. Jude, would you like to be a part of that?"

That's kind of what started getting us where we are here today with the fundraising minimum.

We're all competitive as anglers.

That's what we do.

We go out there and try to beat each other, catching the most fish.

But in this tournament, it's a little bit different because we're trying to raise more money than the next person and that is really what has taken this from, again, the first year $11,000 fundraising event, which went to St. Jude 25 years ago to a million dollars this year.

- [Bret] Yep, you heard that right.

Anglers raised over $1 million for St. Jude this year.

- And I was around when we hit a million dollars cumulatively, and I think that was the 14th year.

And then like they started shooting for these big numbers, like, we're gonna try to do 500,000 next year.

And it's like, man, this seems impossible.

And then now here we are, we did a million dollars in 14 years and then now 10 years later we did a million dollars in one year.

(poignant music) - Your boat order is not gonna be a draw, like most fishing tournaments, where if your boat won today, you're gonna be boat 76 tomorrow.

No, it's gonna be based on how much money you raise.

That is really what engaged all the anglers.

And there are a lot of guys that were in the forties, fifties, sixties, in the boat number and they were sick of that and they decided, you know what, I'm gonna put my effort into the fundraising and all of a sudden they're raising five, $10,000.

♪ O'er the land of the free ♪ And the home of the brave (all cheering and applauding) - [Fat Cat] Get ready for day one, folks.

Stay safe, we'll see you back here this afternoon, 2455, good luck, y'all catch 'em up.

(bright rock music) - [Judge] Go!

(bright rock music) - You know, every pool is a little different.

Pool four has Lake Pepin.

So the lake holds a lot.

It has weeds, it has rock, it has points.

It doesn't have as much current as like the regular river channel does.

Pool five has a lot of river channel, a lot of backwaters, a lot of points, a lot of wing dams, sand drops.

They have a wide variety for bass.

And then they have Weaver, which is a big weed lake that has channels through it and has a tremendous population of both Northerns, pan fish and large mouth and small mouth.

Wing dams are a big key right now.

They hold small mouth, they hold large mouth, they hold Walleye and Northern and they hold pan fish.

The Mississippi River is probably one of the most fertile bodies of water around, period.

They have a phenomenal walleye and sauger population and the growth rates are phenomenal.

Bass are the same way.

Large mouth, small mouth bass are second to none anywhere.

- Swift moving water, a lot of current, a lot of back water, a lot of small mouth.

Like this time of year, man, we had guys weighing in bags, all bags of small mouth, all bags of large mouth, a lot of mixed bags.

It's a unique fishery.

It really is.

It has a little bit of everything here.

It'll be an exciting day right here.

All right, here we go, man.

Team number 56, Mike Kiese and Tim Domaille.

Mike's 11th year with us.

Tim's 15th year with us.

These guys raised $11,520.

Hey, how you doing?

- [Mike] Wonderful.

How are you?

- Oh, we're doing good.

You got a six fish limit?

- [Mike] No, we got five.

- You got five fish.

Okay.

- I was pretty confident going into today that we would've done rather well.

And I think the water dropping five degrees from yesterday put 'em in a little bit of a negative mode.

It's one thing to be competitive and to fish the tournaments and want to do good and win the money, but for me it's all about raising money for the kids.

- Team number 39, Shawn Bergsrud and Wyatt Stout, second year fishing the tournament, these guys raised $12,330 this year.

Team number 36, you guys raised $9,275.

Team number 61, $22,670.

(crowd cheering) This is wild.

Like just saying 10,000, 14,000, 20,000.

These guys are just raising this money.

It's incredible, man.

Truly is.

- It's a great event.

And I think this year they've raised over a million dollars that they've given back to St. Jude and being a patient there, we know what that means.

Ryan's a former patient at St. Jude.

He was diagnosed with leukemia when he was eight years old around 2013, 2014.

- It's a very hard and arduous process going through there, but they try and make your life as comfortable as you can.

And they pay for your bills, they pay for everything.

Our bill would've came out to be around $2 million, but St. Jude paid for it.

They paid for it and that relieves a lot of stress off of the families.

- Like Ryan said, they just took care of everything and it's such a wonderful organization.

But they rely on donations and that's why this event is so important is these bass fishermen out there and they're raising money and families like myself and other families are just grateful for that 'cause we couldn't afford that kind of treatment.

- And everybody said St. Jude's is the happiest place on earth.

Well, how can it be the happiest place on earth when there's little kids there that are fighting for their life?

Well, the way that the hospital is designed, it really is.

It's incredible.

There's so many things that I really can't tell you about, just from the way that they decorate the hospital, it's not white, it's not boring, there's colors everywhere.

There's stuff on the walls.

Everything is at a child's level, drinking fountains, check-in counters and so when the kids get there, they feel welcome.

- I've never shared my story about my battle with, my family's battle with childhood cancer.

So I was nine years old, I was diagnosed with leukemia.

We didn't have St. Jude.

It tore us up, man, like me getting cancer.

It devastated, the family dynamic was stressful.

How you go pay for this, how you go, you're trained to do everything, right.

You're conditioned to pay your taxes, wash your face, brush your teeth, you're conditioned, you're brought up to do all these different things.

Drive on the right side of the road.

But one thing you're not taught is how to handle your kid getting diagnosed with cancer.

So I saw what it can do to a family without the help of St. Jude.

And so that's why St. Jude is so special to me 'cause I see them alleviate that pressure.

Their fundraising total this year is $25,024.

Thatta boy.

Do we got a six fish limit?

- Yeah, we got lucky.

We only caught six all day.

She's pretty tough out there.

- It's fishing, man.

We're fisherman.

We want to catch 'em but at the end of the day, yeah, it's one of the only times that you go fishing, you can shrug it off 'cause you're doing it for a different reason than just bring home the chrome.

You know what I mean?

Alright folks, well that is a wrap for day one of the 25th Dick Hiley St. Jude Bass Classic, 2263 is leading day one and the Wenzel's Whopper leader is?

- [Judge] 5.28.

- 5.28.

(bright music) - Every year we have a patient family here.

We have a lot of success stories.

Success stories are important.

Every, I'd say about five years, we have a family that is not a success story.

That is probably the driving force right there that reminds us there's still a lot of work to do.

- Dylan wants to have a career, get married and someday have a family of his own.

Your commitment to St. Jude means that he has the chance to do all these things and more.

Thank you for all the ways that you support St. Jude.

You guys are just amazing, to raise the money, not just for our family but for everybody.

- Alright, so we talked about little surprise, right?

We talked about a little surprise.

This event was supposed to happen in May.

Something happened for you in May, too.

Did you have a birthday in May?

- Hey Dylan, Kevin VanDam here.

I heard that you're a huge fan and I also got a little bit about your backstory.

I know that you've been through a lot and man, I definitely think and be praying for you and I love that you love spending time on the water with your dad, so that is so awesome.

Happy 19th birthday!

♪ Happy birthday to you - It really is a special event and then it goes to St. Jude and the families and I just can't begin to explain to you what that means to those people.

- The 2023 25th Anniversary Dick Hiley St. Jude Bass Classic officially raised and surpassed $1 million, raising 1 million, that's a long number, bro.

$1,005,282 for the kids at St. Jude, actually.

Let's come on.

(all applauding) This year's total brings the 25-year tournament total to over $6.8 million for the kids of St. Jude.

Incredible, man.

(all applauding) (bright music) - [Joe] We've achieved our ultimate goal, which raising money for St. Jude's and we hit that million dollar mark, which is absolutely incredible.

(bright music)