Yes, it’s early, three tournaments into the nine-tourney Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series season. But this is where the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year race starts becoming interesting. As is typical this early, there’s a crowd at the top of the standings. John Garrett and Will Davis Jr. are tied with 270 points. Jay Przekurat is two points back. The top seven anglers are separated by only 20 points.
To add some perspective, in last year’s AOY standings after three events, rookie Trey McKinney was leading with 293 points and rookie Tyler Williams was second with 285. Eventual 2024 Angler of the Year Chris Johnston was in seventh place.
There will be plenty of twists and turns along the way to that final day on the Mississippi River at La Crosse, Wis., in August. For a bigger snapshot of the 2024 season, here’s a list of the top 20 anglers in the AOY standings after three events and where they finished in the final standings.
- Trey McKinney – 2nd
- Tyler Williams – 11th
- Jordan Lee – 9th
- Justin Hamner – 5th
- JT Thompkins – 15th
- Kyle Patrick – 16th
- Chris Johnston – 1st
- Patrick Walters – 12th
- Stetson Blaylock – 31st
- Cory Johnston – 3rd
- Kyoya Fujita – 36th
- Cody Huff – 6th
- Kyle Norsetter – 26th
- John Garrett – 8th
- Jacob Foutz – 4th
- Hunter Shryock – 23rd
- Cooper Gallant – 17th
- Hank Cherry Jr. – 69th
- Jay Przekurat – 7th
- Wesley Gore – 10th
The good news in that list is 19 of those top 20 after three tournaments qualified for the 2025 Bassmaster Classic, and that early top 20 produced the top 12 in the final AOY standings. The bad news is a good start doesn’t guarantee a Classic berth. Two-time Classic champion Hank Cherry struggled down the final stretch of the season and dropped to 69th in the final standings.
Let’s take a closer look at Chris Johnston’s 2024 Angler of the Year season. He posted his best finishes of the season in the last two events – 2nd (1 ounce out of 1st) at Lake Champlain before clinching with a 4th-place finish at the St. Lawrence River. Johnston qualified to compete on the final day in two other events — in the season opener at Toledo Bend, where he finished 7th, and at the St. Johns River, where he was 5th. Johnston’s worst finish was 57th at Wheeler Lake. It was the only time he didn’t advance inside the top 50 to compete on Day 3.
One thing stands out in Johnston’s career overall and in his AOY Championship season in particular — he almost always moves up in the standings from Day 1 to Day 2. Last season he was 66th on Day 1 at Lake Fork and moved up to 17th on Day 2. At Lake Murray he went from 39th to 17th. At Lake Champlain, he went from 21st to 4th.
Johnston took that trait to another level last week at the Pasquotank River. He was 84th on Day 1 and jumped all the way to 14th with a 24-pound, 5-ounce limit on Day 2. Johnston would finish 21st.
Again, it’s early. Some past AOY champions have had historically bad starts. No. 1 on that list is Brandon Palaniuk’s 105th-place finish at Lake Okeechobee in the second tournament of his 2017 AOY Championship season. Aaron Martens finished 85th in the season opener at the Sabine River in his 2013 AOY Championship season. Clark Wendlandt was 81st at Lake Chickamauga in the second tournament of his 2020 AOY Championship season.
As someone who has researched the previous 19 years of the Elite Series, I can find no common denominators in determining an AOY Championship season other than the obvious: You’ve got to post about four or five Top 10 finishes along the way. It doesn’t matter when they occur.
