Larry Nixon – Mr. Megabucks

As we’ve discussed previously discussed on the Bass Fishing Archives Trivia, Larry Nixon won four Megabucks events over his career with B.A.S.S. In all the years that Megabucks was around, there was only one angler to come close to that mark, Doug Garrett, who won two.

If you look at Nixon’s career earnings with B.A.S.S., nearly 1/3 of that total was from Megabucks alone.

Nixon wasn’t just a multi-time winner of Megabucks, though, he had a penchant for winning off-beat events that B.A.S.S. put on. For example, he won two BASS Champs events, 1978 at the Atchafalaya River and 1982 at the Ohio River, along with the 1987 Bassmaster Team Championship held on the St. Lawrence River. Then, to cap off his string of off-beat wins, he won the 1992 Bassmaster 25th Anniversary event held on Beaver Lake. Add a Classic to the mix, and you can see why Nixon was always a heavy favorite when B.A.S.S. conducted a special event.

Back to Megabucks, though. Why was he so strong in those events? For a five year period, he was nearly unstoppable. He won in 1988 at the Harris Chain, won both events in 1990 (one at the Harris Chain and the other at Guntersville) and he won the 1991 event at Chickamauga making it three in a row.

Then in 1992 he placed fourth at Guntersville and a year later he placed second at Lake Murray. In a span of five years he made nearly 1/2-million dollars just in Megabucks alone. It was as if the format was tailored specifically for him.

Recently at the 2014 FLW Cup I had a chance to sit down with Larry and talk to him about his reign over Megabucks. It was a great conversation that shed a lot of light on why he did so well in those events and how he treated them compared to other tournaments.