Story by Ken Duke | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
It’s the 2025 season finale, and the biggest questions of the entire year will be answered on Saturday!
What are the questions? Well, there are three.
First, who’s going to win Stop 6 on Logan Martin Lake in Alabama?
Second, who’s going to qualify for the 2026 NPFL Championship?
Third, who’s going to win Progressive Angler of the Year honors?
Let’s take them in turn.
Who will take the win at Logan Martin?
This may be the toughest of the three questions to answers since the field starts dead even with more than 100 capable anglers. But we can speculate, so let’s do that. It’s fun.
If you’re looking for a short list of competitors who should challenge for the win at Logan Martin, you have to start with the man who pulled it off the last time the League was here: Will Harkins won in February 2024 with 47 pounds, 9 ounces. If he doesn’t repeats as Logan Martin champion, he still needs a solid finish to stay in the top 40 of the AOY race and qualify for next year’s Championship.
Six other anglers who posted top 10 finishes last year on Logan Martin are back this week, including Jesse Millsaps (3rd), Louis Fernandes (4th), Buddy Gross (5th), Jason Burroughs (6th), Kyle Welcher (7th), Todd Goade (8th), and J Todd Tucker (10th). This year’s event will not be over until these guys weigh-in.
Then there are the 11 Alabamans competing this week, eight of whom live within 100 miles of the launch ramp: Justin Atkins (Florence), Keith Bardolf (Abbeville), Scott Canterbury (Odenville), Kyle Glasgow (Guin), Matt Herren (Ashville), Wes Logan (Springville), Harry Moore (Valley), J.T. Russell, (Crane Hill), Gerald Swindle (Guntersville), Kyle Welcher (Valley), and Scott Wiley (Bay Minette).
Each of them is more than capable of putting together three good days in September and carrying home the red, white, and blue NPFL trophy.
Who will qualify for the 2026 NPFL Championship?
Right now, every angler in the field still has a chance to qualify for next year’s Championship. Forty will earn their way via Progressive Angler of the Year points, six will get there by virtue of having won a regular season tournament (Jason Christie, Greg Hackney, Scott Canterbury, Chad Marler, and Drew Cook are already in by that route). Another angler will qualify by winning the 2025 Championship next week on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.
Realistically, any angler outside the top 50 or so needs to win Stop 6 to qualify for the 2026 Championship. And the anglers inside the top 30 are mostly safe. They’d have to bomb in a big way to slip outside the top 40.
So, it’s the anglers ranked between 30 and 50 who are in jeopardy of falling out of contention or who have a chance to jump up and get inside the cut with season finale heroics.
Who will earn 2025 Progressive Angler of the Year honors?
Although it’s not a mathematical certainty, for all practical purposes the 2025 Progressive Angler of the Year race is down to three anglers: Kyle Welcher, Patrick Walters, and Greg Hackney. As amazing as it may seem, those three have held the top three spots since the second tournament of the season! Hackney led after two events. Welcher has led since Stop 3.
With three days of fishing left in the season, Welcher leads the way with 1223 AOY points. Walters is second, just seven points back, and Hackney is third, 19 points back. If Welcher can finish in the top seven at Logan Martin—as he did when the League was here in 2024—there’s nothing Walters and Hackney can do to prevent him from repeating as the NPFL’s Angler of the Year.
But if Welcher stumbles and opens the door … just a little, well, who knows?
All these questions will be answered this week.
Don’t miss it!
