Ah, to be young and in bass fishing.
Fisher Anaya is among those hoping to continue the youth movement in B.A.S.S. Anaya, a teenager from Eva, Ala., is a baby step away from becoming the third youngest to qualify for the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series.
“If I could tell you before I come out of the womb it was a lifelong dream, that’s what I’d tell you,” he said.
Anaya stands third in the Nitro Boats Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers points and only needs a decent finish in the finale on Lake Okeechobee, Nov. 13-15. Anywhere around the cut and Anaya could be celebrating an Elite berth for his 20th birthday on Nov. 20.
“It’s awesome,” he said of the chance. “For me to look at the standings and think — this fast at 19 years old — I would already have a shot at making the Elites, is insane.”
The top 25 in the EQ standings has 18 anglers in their 20s. The Top 10 after the third event advance to the 2026 Progressive Elite Series, and it’s sure to include some youngsters.
Last year’s EQ qualifiers averaged 27.1 years old, up from the previous year’s 24.8, and those rookie classes have earned some impressive hardware. In 2024, all nine made the Classic and two scored Elite titles, while 2025 rookies won the Classic, two Elites and the first of three EQ events.
Anaya even being in the mix this year was kind of a fluke. Under the mentorship of longtime Elite Gerald Swindle and others, Anaya was advised not to jump in before he was ready.
“I didn’t plan on fishing Opens this early in my career,” he said. “I’ve been told it could hurt your confidence, but I don’t know, something told me to go fish them.
“Where I’m at now, it’s crazy. To be 19 and in the shoes I’m in, it’s awesome.”
Along with high school and college programs and technology accelerating the learning curve, Anaya said younger anglers have more freedom, meaning more time on the water.
“If you want an honest answer, us younger guys, we don’t have other things on our mind stressing us out nearly as bad,” he said. “We don’t have a family to take care of, a wife, two kids. A lot of us don’t have bills to pay — ‘If we don’t make a check here, I can’t afford my house payment.’
“That guy doesn’t get to go pre-practice because he doesn’t want to leave his family. And he’s trying to get back to them. So, I think a lot of it is we have a lot of free time, and we fish every day of the year, basically.”
Skill is definitely a factor, he said, as is the decision making, which goes back to time in the boat.
“You have to be mentally prepared. A lot more goes into it than just going out there finding and catching a fish,” he said. “You know you can pull up to your best spot and they don’t bite for you, a lot of guys are just going to spin out instead of just hunkering down.
“A lot of these younger guys, being on the water every single day, they get mentally prepared and physically prepared to say, ‘Hey, if this don’t work, maybe here in a couple hours it might fire back up.”
While admitting knowledge of a fishery can be beneficial, there can be a home-lake curse of knowing too much, he said. That can lead an angler in wrong directions.
“It can spin you out, because you know they should be doing this but they’re not,” Anaya said. “Then a guy shows up there, never seen the place before, and he finds them on something they never get on. It’s just a time of the year they’re there, and low and behold he wins it.”
That will be Anaya’s approach for Okeechobee, a place he’s never been and is not researching. He said he doesn’t want any preconceived notions, that he will head down there with his background of power fishing on Lake Guntersville and “just do me.”
“All I know is it’s a big bowl,” he said. “Never been there. Never touched it. I’m just going pull down there the first day of practice, put in and go fishing.
“I’m just going to make sure my equipment is ready to go. I’m going to try and use some knowledge I know fishing grass here at the house and roll with it down there.”
Anaya made the three-tournament EQ sprint by finishing second in Div. 2 of the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens. He opened the season in February with a ninth-place finish in the weather-shortened Sam Rayburn shootout. He followed with 11ths at Kentucky Lake and Lake Norfork, also a one-day event. With a 24th at Leech Lake, he finished the series with 749 points, just two behind 21-year-old Texan Pake South.
In the first EQ, Anaya scored a 19th-place finish at Lake Champlain. With a fifth at Wheeler Lake, he’s totaled 170 points to tie 36-year-old Grae Buck in third place. They are five behind EQ leader Matt Messer, 23, and four back of Aaron Jagdfeld, 24. Former Elite Russ Lane, at 53, is the “great, old hope” tied in fifth with 22-year-old Jace Lindsay at 164 points.
Besides Elite invitations, there is $110,000 of Nitro Boats bonuses for the Top 10, with a handsome $45,000 going to the EQ AOY.
The estimated total to finish in the Top 10 is 223.5 points. Anaya needs to finish at or above the money cut of 40th to gain the needed 54 points, but he’s not counting.
“I try not to look at it, but my dad is — I think he’s more nervous than I am,” Anaya said. “My dad’s adding, Swindle is adding. They were all doing their math. They were like, ‘Well, if you finish 40th I think you might get in.’
“I’m like, I don’t even want to think of it like that. I just want to go down there and Top 10.”
If he does, Anaya would become the third youngest to make the Elites. In Oct. 2023, Trey McKinney was 18 years, 7 months, and 19 days old when he qualified for the Elites, eclipsing Bradley Roy, who was two weeks from his 19th birthday when he made it in October 2009.
McKinney was 18 for the first three days of the Toledo Bend Elite, turning 19 on Championship Sunday after finishing 12th. He became the youngest Elite champ the following week at Lake Fork at 19 years, 1 week. McKinney, the 2024 Dakota Lithium Bassmaster Rookie of the Year, won a second Elite in 2025 when he again finished second in the Progressive AOY standings.
That’s a tough act to follow. Can Anaya be the next wonder kid? Anaya would sure like to take a shot. Yet he’s not so keen on sweating the possibilities of making the Elites.
“I’ve honestly tried not to think about it because the more I think about it, I’m going to get just more and more stressed,” he said. “But I feel good. I’ll keep an open mind, just go down there and fish and put all my faith in the good Lord. If he’s willing, and it’s my time to make the Elites, I’ll do good.”
