Gerald Swindle and Keith Combs essentially have been in a head-to-head battle for the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year title over the last three tournaments. Swindle took a big step toward clinching the crown by making the Top 12 cut yesterday while Combs finished 18th.
At worst, if Swindle drops into 12th place today in the final Top 12 standings, he will have a 43-point lead over Combs going into the AOY Championship at Minnesota’s Mille Lacs Lake next week. With only the top 50 anglers qualifying for that event, Combs will still be alive mathematically, and he’ll be the only one who can still catch Swindle. Swindle could clinch today if he finishes fourth or better, as he’d have more than a 50-point lead over Combs too.
There have been some recent AOY champions that survived having one bad tournament in a season, like in 2013 when Aaron Martens started the year with an 85th-place finish at the Sabine River. But it’s unlikely to happen again this year.
A quick glance at Comb’s results from this season reveals the killer: 90th place at the Bull Shoal/Norfork lakes event in Arkansas. If he would have finished 50th, for example, that 40-point difference would have him breathing down Swindle’s neck going into next week. But he didn’t.
Here’s a glance at the seasons of Gerald Swindle and Keith Combs:
Elite Tournament Swindle Combs
No. 1 – St. Johns River 40th 14th
No. 2 – Winyah Bay 7th 6th
No. 3 – Bull Soals/Norfork 30th 90th
No. 4 – Wheeler Lake 10th 39th
No. 5 – Toledo Bend 34th 4th
No. 6 – Lake Texoma 3rd 16th
No. 7 – Cayuga Lake 10th 6th
No. 8 – Potomac River 10th 6th
No. 9 – La Crosse ? 18th