Tired of dice baits yet?
Well, I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is we can get back to tournament coverage, as the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series heads to famous Lake St. Clair to feast on big brown bass.
The bad news, if you think that way, is that the derby may very well be won with a dice bait.
The Elite field has finished seven of nine regular season events, and while I’ve been handicapping Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year, Bassmaster Classic and relegation odds for months, with two events left things are really starting to come into focus.
Mark Zona and Tommy Sanders did such a great job on their podcast of explaining who’s in danger of getting relegated that I’m not quite ready to revisit that topic. Instead I’d rather begin by focusing on the top of the food chain — the AOY race. Here’s how I frame what we’re likely to see:
The top two – By finishing 11th at Lake Tenkiller while Jay Przekurat finished a season’s worst 50th, Chris Johnston narrowed the gap at the top of the AOY chart to a mere three points. With two fish factories coming up, that’s effectively a rounding error, although potentially a very meaningful one. Neither of the two pros has missed a 50 cut yet, but that 50th place finish is 20 places worse than Przekurat’s second-worst finish, and 17 points worse than Johnston’s worst finish. Indeed, head to head the young Wisconsinite beat the reigning AOY in the first five regular season tournaments, albeit by more than six places only once. (At Lake Hartwell, Johnston was 31st and Przekurat was fifth.) In the last two events, however, Johnston has gained 12 and 39 points.
St. Clair finishes – Przekurat and Johnston have only gone head to head at St. Clair in B.A.S.S. competition once: In the 2023 Elite event Jay finished 11th and Chris finished 26th. They’ve each competed in one other Bassmaster event on the big lake near Detroit. Johnston finished sixth in a 2020 Elite and Przekurat won last year’s Open.
La Crosse finishes – The two leaders have only competed against each other once at La Crosse, in the 2022 Elite where Przekurat finished 12th and Johnston was the runner-up. Przekurat has competed in several other events there – he was 162nd in last year’s Open and fished a Nation Regional and an Open (as a co-angler) there before his Elite career.
Who’s a closer? – Over the past three seasons where they’ve competed against one another, Johnston’s finishes in the last two events of each season have simply been unreal. In six tournaments, he’s only finished outside of the top four on one occasion (23rd at Lake Champlain in 2023) and has four second-place finishes. That’s an average finish of better than ninth. Meanwhile, Przekurat has never missed a Saturday cut, but he’s only made the Top 10 once (that same Champlain tournament in 2023). His average finish across the six tournaments is approximately 18th.
Who else has a shot? – While it’s easy to focus on the presumed horse race between Johnston and Przekurat, I’d guesstimate that anyone in the top five in points has a shot at the title. That really means top six because Bill Lowen and Kyoya Fujita are tied at 548 points apiece, 51 out of the lead.
The super soph – Trey McKinney is third in the AOY race, just 13 points back. He is no doubt kicking himself for finishing 89th at the St. Johns River. Other than that tournament, he’s only finished outside of the top 11 on one occasion, when he came in 29th at the Sabine River. He’s made it to Day 4 in a remarkable four of seven events, plus the Classic, where he finished a distant second to Easton Fothergill.
Needs a boost – Patrick Walters is in fourth, 32 points out of third. At one point in his career that might’ve condemned him to being an AOY also-ran, but now that he’s more than figured out the smallmouth game, he can’t be ignored. In six previous tries, he’s never finished worse than 16th in AOY, and prior to last year’s 12th-place finish, he was no worse than fifth in the prior four years. He’s used to being here, but he’s also yet to taste the title. He’s yet to have a win this season, after earning one each of the last two years (one in smallmouth territory). He’ll likely need two top 15 – or event Top 10 – finishes to end up on top.
Tie in fifth – After Walters, Bill Lowen and Kyoya Fujita are tied with 548 points apiece. It’s hard to think of two anglers whose perceived styles are more different. Lowen has been on tour since Fujita was in grade school. He’s also about as old school as it gets. Meanwhile, Fujita is a master of electronics and finesse. They each have proved things in recent events, though. Over the past few years, Lowen earned two Elite wins, proving he’s not just a consistent check chaser. Meanwhile, Fujita’s strengths were expected to be dampened on Lake Fork and the Sabine, where he finished fourth and third, respectively. Lowen, who was in the original Elite Series field in 2006 and has never missed a season, is in position to notch his best AOY finish – he was ninth in 2021 and 11th in both 2019 and 2008. The past few years have been tough on him, though, despite breaking through on the win front. The 11th-place finish in 2019 was the only time he finished better than 40th in the AOY race in the last eight seasons. Prior to that, he finished better than 40th seven straight years. He hasn’t fished a Classic since 2021.
Classic struggles – We don’t know precisely where the Classic cutline will fall, but expect it to hit between 42nd and 45th place. At that latter generous inclusion level, Carl Jocumsen, who has made three Classics in a row would be the bubble boy. Other notable anglers within 50 points of 40th place include Tennessean David Mullins (47th), heavy hitter Keith Combs (49th) and pseudo rookie Dakota Ebare (50th). Drew Benton, who has competed in seven straight Classics, is in 55th. Randy Howell, the 2014 Classic winner, is in 56th. If he were to qualify it would be his 17th Classic overall, but his first since 2018.
Rookie race – There are eight true rookies in the Elite field. Defending Classic champ Easton Fothergill gets an automatic pass to next year’s Championship. He’s currently in 31st place, so if he can roughly maintain that position he’ll open a spot for someone else. Paul Marks (10th) is well within the cut, as is Tucker Smith (25th). Emil Wagner is just on the right side of the bubble (36th) while Evan Kung (54th) has some climbing to do. Andrew Loberg (62nd) isn’t mathematically eliminated, but it’ll be a tough pull.
Keep mope alive – Without a victory at La Crosse, it’s highly unlikely that Jeff Gustafson will compete in Knoxville (one other back door entryway would be to sign as a defensive tackle for the Volunteers). He’s been dominant in two Tennessee River events and I’m sure many competitors might not admit it, but they’d be thrilled not to have him in the field. He finished 26th in La Crosse in 2022.
International competition – As noted above, Jocumsen is on the Classic bubble and Gustafson seems unlikely to qualify. That leaves four more Canadians and three Japanese anglers to represent the international field. Chris Johnston is all but certain to make it. His brother Cory Johnston and Cooper Gallant are also well within the cut. Rookie Evan Kung, the final Canadian, is in 54th, and will need two solid performances to get inside. Amongst the Japanese anglers, both Kyoya Fujita and Taku Ito are in the Top 10, while Kenta Kimura is in 87th.
Where art thou, BP? – Brandon Palaniuk, this year’s Lake Okeechobee winner, is in 59th place. The possibility of him missing two Classics in a row is a testament to just how good the competition is these days. His record at La Crosse is spotty – he’s averaged 50th place, and never finished better than 25th. However, that’s somewhat marred by the fact he led on Day 1 in 2013, but ultimately finished 77th because his Day 2 catch was disqualified due to a culling error. St. Clair has also been a mixed bag for him. While he was the runner up to Todd Faircloth in 2015, he subsequently finished 29th, 61st and 46th in Elite tournaments there.
This is going to be a fun final two nail-biters. Stay tuned for my daily analysis throughout the tournaments.
