It’s hard to imagine a season-long contest finishing any closer than the Bassmaster Elite Series Rookie of the Year race. Roy Hawk came into the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year tournament with a mere four-point lead over Jake Whitaker. Based on the Day 1 standings, Hawk’s lead is down to a single point.
“It’s fun and we’re having fun together,” said Hawk of the duel. “Jake’s a great kid. With his whole story, I’d be stoked if he won it too. But I ain’t gonna give to him.”
There was little give in either angler Thursday. Whitaker, who lives in nearby Fairview, N.C., weighed 13 pounds, 8 ounces to finish Day 1 in fifth place. Hawk, who is from Lake Havasu City, Ariz., totaled only seven ounces less to finish in eighth place with 13-1.
There’s another statistic that further indicates the closeness of this contest. The tiebreaker system in Toyota Angler of the Year points is the total weight caught by each angler during the first two days, when the full field competes, of every Elite Series event on the season. As it stands now, Hawk’s total is 218-5, and Whitaker’s is 218-2.
They’ve had decidedly different ups-and-downs to get to that amazing three-ounce difference in tiebreaker weight. Hawk began the season with a second-place finish at Alabama’s Lake Martin followed by a third-place at Oklahoma’s Grand Lake. Whitaker finished 74th and 93rd, respectively, in those events. But Whitaker has been slowly chipping away since. A big swing occurred at South Dakota’s Lake Oahe, where Whitaker finished 23rd and Hawk was 93rd.
The widely different tournament results are indicative of the two anglers. Hawk is a 47-year-old married father of four. Whitaker is 26 and single. Hawk qualifies as a rookie on the Elite Series, but he’s an accomplished western U.S. tournament angler. Whitaker is the “local boy” here on the Georgia-North Carolina border at Lake Chatuge. And he’ll have a large friends-and-family cheering section this weekend.
“My mom and dad and my sister are here now,” Whitaker said Thursday. “My girlfriend, her family and other friends are coming in for the weekend.”
Whitaker smiled and added, “No pressure.”
Nope, no pressure at all. The Elite Series Rookie of the Year race has boiled down to a two-man, two-day fish-off, separated by a single AOY point.