Story by Ken Duke | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
With Stop 6 on Lake Murray now in our rear-view mirror, we can look back at the 2024 season and answer a lot of the questions that have driven discussion since the beginning of the year.
First, the 2024 Progressive Angler of the Year is Alabama’s Kyle Welcher. He edged out Georgia’s Drew Cook by a mere eight points in the closest race since 2021, when Keith Carson won the title by just one point over Brandon Perkins.
The worst finish by Welcher all season was 18th at Saginaw Bay. Cook’s worst finish was 15th at the season opener on Logan Martin Lake. Cook had three top 10 finishes and Welcher had four.
They finished first and second in weight at the scales, too. Cook weighed in 84 bass for 268-08 and Welcher had 83 for 260-13. It could hardly be closer.
It’s also worth noting that both Welcher and Cook were new to the NPFL this year … though hardly new to big-time tournament bass fishing. Rookies came up big in 2024. The top three finishers in the AOY race (Welcher, Cook, and Missouri’s Brock Bila) were all rookies. Twelve of the top 20 in AOY were rookies, and 20 of the 42 anglers who claimed berths in the 2025 NPFL Championship were rookies. With the influx of new blood coming into the League next year, the trend may continue.
What’s surprising is that despite all the rookie success, five of six regular season tournaments and the Championship were won by NPFL veterans. The only event won by a rookie this year came last week at Lake Murray when Bailey Gay became the youngest champion in League history at just 21 years, 6 months, and 28 days of age. He eclipsed the previous record by about nine months set by Will Harkins at the season opener on Logan Martin. Even with all the young talent in the NPFL, it may be quite a while before Gay’s mark falls.
As mentioned, 42 anglers have earned spots into the 2025 Championship that will take place next October on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina. The qualifying group includes the top 40 in the AOY race plus Brandon Perkins as the defending champion and Nick Brown as the winner of the Chompers-NPFL Stop 5 on Lake of the Ozarks. The other tournament winners also finished in the top 40 of the AOY race, and there are no “double qualifications,” so the field is locked in at 42.
Remarkably, of the anglers ranked in the top 40 going into the season finale, only two dropped out and lost their berths in the Championship. Scott Hamrick moved up two places despite finishing 50th at Murray to claim 40th place, and Matt Massey moved up eight spots—from 47th to 39th—on the strength of his 5th place finish in South Carolina. Just goes to show how hard it is to shake up the standings late in the season, when most of the points have already been allocated. Fortunately, NPFL’s win-and-you’re-in policy gives everyone something to fish for right up to the very end.
Matt Massey’s leap in the standings was remarkable for another reason. He weighed in 34-12 over two days with just seven bass. That’s nearly a five-pound average and it was anchored by the Power-Pole Big Bass of the event, an 8-03 that came on the first day. If Massey had managed just one more bite from an “average” bass….
