Story by Ken Duke | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
There are a lot of ways to follow a tournament trail. One is to watch episodically—from individual tournament to individual tournament, keeping a close eye on each event, following your favorite anglers, picking up tips and insights where you can, maybe even tracking the competition on waters that you fish frequently.
This is like watching a sprint.
I do that.
Another way is to look at the tournament season as a collection of events, each one telling part of a larger story, all working toward a conclusion that reveals the best individual angler (the NPFL Progressive Angler of the Year) or anglers (the qualifiers for the annual NPFL Championship).
This is like watching a marathon.
I do that, too.
When you enjoy the tournament season from both perspectives, it’s fun to see how they come together to tell a story. I make a point to congratulate each winner. They’ve earned the accolades. They are the best of that week … on that body of water … at that time. And that’s not a small feat, especially when more than 100 talented professionals are all trying to win on the same playing field with roughly the same tools and the same opportunities.
But the greater feat—in my eyes—is AOY. To be the best over the long haul of six tournaments is somehow greater than being the best in any one. I think that’s true even though in half the previous NPFL seasons (and each of the last two), the AOY did not win an event. Todd Goade was AOY in 2023. He finished second at Santee Cooper and third at Lake Lanier, but he didn’t win. Last year, Kyle Welcher was AOY. His best finishes were third at Lake Hartwell and fourth at Lake Murray.
AOY is a “battle of attrition.” You cannot win it at any one tournament, but you can lose it that way. The field starts out with everyone being even, but the contenders fall away—one after another—by small failures and misfortunes, until only one is left.
At the risk of being too simplistic, it’s almost fair to say that half the field is eliminated from AOY contention at each event. It means that about 60 of 118 anglers were essentially out of the AOY race after Santee Cooper. Another 30 were gone after Lake Norman. When we wrap things up at Douglas Lake, we’ll be down to 15.
Is the battle of attrition that unforgiving? No, not quite … but almost. Of all the previous AOYs, all were inside the top 10 after three events. In fact, all were well inside the top 10 after two events. And I’ll bet you right now that our eventual AOY is currently in the top 15.
But that was a different time … with a different field of anglers. Today’s NPFL field is much stronger and more talented than any previous collective in the league’s brief history. It’s not as “top heavy” as in other seasons. There are more anglers who are capable of winning AOY, and that opens things up quite a bit.
For the anglers outside the top 20 or so in the AOY standings, the challenges are two-fold. First, they must step on the gas and figure out a way to gain points on the leaders. They can do that with a string of hard-fought top 10 finishes. That might be enough to close the gap.
But the second challenge is out of their control. While they’re putting together a great streak of tournament successes, they can only hope that no one ahead of them in the standings is doing the same thing, keeping pace and leading the pack.
One thing is certain. Whoever wins the NPFL Progressive Angler of the Year award for 2025 will have beaten the best field of competitors in league history and one of the best fields in any league’s history.
These guys are that good!
