Story by Ken Duke | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
If you think it’s too early to look at the Progressive Angler of the Year race, you’re wrong. It is never too early to look, never too early for anglers to start thinking about points, and never too early to speculate on who’s cruising and who’s crashing when it comes to the NPFL’s most prestigious title.
After two stops on the 2025 schedule, Louisiana’s Greg Hackney is leading the race with 493 out of a possible 500 points. He got there with an eighth-place finish at Santee Cooper and a win at Lake Norman. Just one point behind is South Carolina’s Patrick Walters, who was sixth at Santee and fourth at Norman. Last year’s AOY—Kyle Welcher—is third with 487 points.
The top 10 are separated by just 27 points, and the top 24 are separated by 63 points, so—as you’d expect this early in the season—it’s a tight race.
Who are the frontrunners? Who still has a solid shot at AOY? Who doesn’t have a prayer?
Those are tough questions without easy answers, but NPFL history can teach us something about the AOY race.
First, did you know that in the previous four seasons of the NPFL, the eventual AOY never finished lower than 15th in the season opener and all tallied at least 1,422 AOY points.
An NPFL win earns an angler 250 points. Second place gets 249. Third gets 248, and so on. To put that in perspective, Keith Carson averaged an 11th place finish to win AOY in 2021. Gary Adkins averaged 14th in 2022, Todd Goade averaged 6th in 2023, and Kyle Welcher averaged 8th in 2024. None of the AOYs finished worse than 29th in any tournament during their AOY season.
There’s been no room to stumble, and remarkably high finishes at all six regular season tournaments have been required to claim the big gold shield that goes to the Progressive AOY.
But this year is different in several important ways, the biggest of which is the talent level in the league. There is more talent in the NPFL in 2025 than at any other time … by far. If you don’t agree, you haven’t looked at the roster.
There are a dozen anglers in the 2025 NPFL field who have won major titles—AOYs and championships—and dozens more who have won national tournaments with the NPFL and on other trails. It’s a star-studded group that rivals any league on the planet.
What does that mean for the AOY race?
For one thing, it means it’ll be harder to rack up top 10 finishes like Todd Goade did on his way to AOY in 2023. He never finished worse than 10th! I don’t believe that will ever happen again. The field is too large and too strong.
For another, without real-time imaging units (forward-facing sonar), it’s going to be tougher for an angler to limit every day and avoid a poor finish. That ensures that the AOY standings will get a good shake at every stop this year. For example, after Stop 2 at Lake Norman, Seth Ellis jumped up 46 places while Buck Mallory fell 55 spots. Of course, those kinds of jumps and falls happen even with FFS, but they happen more often without it. Forward-facing sonar stabilizes the standings. The lack of FFS destabilizes them.
These jumps and falls are less dramatic as the season progresses and points accumulate. It’s harder to make up ground later in the year. By the season finale, it’s probable that only three or four anglers will have a viable shot at AOY. For now, maybe there are 25.
Why so few after just two events? It goes back to the talent level. If you’re currently 67 points behind the leader. Can you make that up? Sure! All you need is a good finish or two and for the leader to stumble. But what about the 20-plus anglers between you and the leader? Will they all stumble, too? Probably not.
And our current leaders are wildly accomplished. Greg Hackney has already won AOY honors with FLW and BASS. A third AOY with a third league would be unprecedented and one of the greatest achievements in the sport’s history. Patrick Walters is arguably the best angler who has never won a major AOY title, and he is inarguably the GOAT of the NPFL. Kyle Welcher is the reigning NPFL AOY and perhaps the hottest pro in the country, coming off a historically dominating win at the Pasquotank River.
If you think AOY hasn’t crossed their minds or that they believe it’s too early to think about such things, I think you’re wrong.
