Story by Ken Duke | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
With two events left in the National Professional Fishing League season, the Progressive Angler of the Year race is heating up. Alabama’s Kyle Welcher has led most of the season, but Georgia’s Drew Cook is only six points back, and in the parlance of such battles, “six points ain’t nothing!” You can lose that in the blink of an eye or the sweep of a fish’s tail.
Here’s how the NPFL points system works. It’s all in Rule 6 of the 2024 rules: “250 points are awarded to the winner of each qualifying tournament, 249 to 2nd, 248 to 3rd, etc.”
With 971 points, Kyle Welcher is on top of the standings. It means he’s averaging a top nine finish this year. In fact, his worst finish in 2024 is 18th, and that was just a few weeks ago at Saginaw Bay. Impressive!
But maybe not impressive enough because Drew Cook is just six points out, and he’s that close despite only bringing four bass to the scales on Day 1 of the season opener at Logan Martin Lake in Alabama. If Cook had boated a fifth keeper that weighed just three pounds, he’d have moved up six places, and they’d be tied.
The tightest AOY race in NPFL history was also the first — in 2021. That’s when Florida’s Keith Carson edged out Tennessee’s Brandon Perkins by a single point — 1,439 to 1,438. Both anglers had bad final rounds at Grand Lake in Oklahoma. Carson left the door open, but Perkins couldn’t take advantage.
In 2022, Gary Adkins bested Taylor Watkins by 23 points, 1,372 to 1,349. A year later, Todd Goade put together what is arguably the greatest regular season in NPFL history. He finished in the top 10 of all six regular season events. It was a tale of remarkable consistency. Goade tallied 1,470 points to average a sixth-place finish. Will Harkins posted 1,442 points to finish second.
Will this year’s AOY race be as close as 2021? Well, it can’t get any closer than a single point, but this season promises to be more dynamic since so many pros are still in the hunt. Jason Burroughs — currently in 10th — has 908 points. That’s just 63 points off the lead. If Welcher slips — just a little — at both the St. Johns River (Sept. 26-28) and Lake of the Ozarks (Oct. 23-25), who’s to say Burroughs can’t post a couple of top 10s and pass him? The same is true for all the other pros in the top 10.
You have to like Drew Cook’s chances on the St. Johns. Though he lives in Georgia, he’s Florida savvy, and the fishing could be tough next week. Unless Welcher is on his game, Cook could easily make up the six points that separates them.
And don’t overlook Brock Bila. He’s young, talented and calls Lake of the Ozarks his home water. That’s where the season ends. Bila is currently ninth in AOY — 56 points behind Welcher. He’ll need to at least cut that in half at the St. Johns to have a viable shot at AOY going into the finale.
With two tournaments left, there are still a dozen or more anglers with a viable chance at the title, and most of them are from the Deep South. In fact, 15 of the top 20 are from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee or the Carolinas.
With six days of fishing left in the season, the AOY standings are poised for another shake-up … or two.
