As the Bass Pro Tour enters the final two laps of the 2023 season in the Natural State – Michigan’s Lake St. Clair and Saginaw Bay for Stages Six and Seven, respectively – the Bally Bet Angler of the Year Race appears to be destined to run deep into the final week of the seven-tournament season.
AOY leader Ott DeFoe (360 points) carries a marginally comfortable lead into General Tire Stage Six Presented by John Deere Utility Vehicles, on a familiar St. Clair fishery with a not-too-familiar pursuer – Dakota Ebare (332 points) – on his heels and a handful of others trailing.
DeFoe is the sport’s most contemporary example of “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride” in the context of Angler of the Year awards. The Mercury pro finished second in the BPT AOY race in consecutive years – trailing Jordan Lee by 19 points in 2020 and losing out to Jacob Wheeler by 34 points in 2021 – and has earned seven AOY Top 10s in 12 years since bursting onto the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2011.
Without editorializing too much, it seems that DeFoe’s AOY time is coming, fast.
DeFoe isn’t a Top 10 regular in fisheries dominated by smallmouth – which St. Clair is sure to be – but he’s no slouch, either, usually finishing in the top third of the standings and occasionally popping a Top 10. He’s also a bit of a magician with his ability to conjure up patterns and spots on the fly, as most recently proven during an 18-pound flurry in the final 40 minutes of his second qualifying day at Lake Guntersville, which helped propel him from the bottom 10 in his group and over the Toro Cut Line.
DeFoe would eventually fish his way into the Championship Round of that event, earning 71 AOY points vs. the 13 to 15 he would’ve earned if he hadn’t engineered that 18-pound explosion.
If there’s one angler a leader would least like to see lurking in his rearview mirror as the race surges north, it’s Ebare. The Texas pro is not only enjoying a sensational 2023 season (two wins, multiple top fives, approaching $400,000 in winnings), but he’s a handful whenever brown fish enter the picture. Ebare is 4-for-4 earning Top 10s in the smallmouth fisheries the Bass Pro Tour has visited in his two years on the circuit, and notched a couple of additional second-place finishes in smallie country while fishing the Pro Circuit.
Ebare gained 20 points on DeFoe at Cayuga Lake, finishing third to DeFoe’s 23rd, and seems “all in” on finishing out the 2023 Bass Pro Tour schedule with a flourish – he skipped Tackle Warehouse Invitational Stop 5 on the Potomac River last week to pre-practice on Saginaw Bay. And while he’s never fished a derby out of St. Clair, Ebare was one of a small handful of anglers who ran all the way to St. Clair during the 2022 Pro Circuit Super Tournament out of Sandusky, Ohio, and has spent a few days driving around the lake in previous years.
“I don’t know it know it, but I have a little bit of knowledge to start with,” Ebare said of St. Clair. “These northern fisheries just suit me, and it doesn’t matter if it’s smallmouth or largemouth. I just like to fish for fish that bite.”
The breakout success story of the 2023 BPT rookie class to date, Tennessee pro Matt Becker started the season with a middle-of-the-pack finish at the Kissimmee Chain (47th) in February but hasn’t finished worse than 23rd since. His climb up the AOY standings has been unwavering since the start of the year, surging from 47th to 14th from Stage One to Stage Three, and from 14th to third from Stage Three to Stage Five while socking away three top fives.
Becker likes the brown fish in Great Lakes fisheries, too. He’s fished the Northern Division of the Toyota Series for seven years, collecting a handful of Top 10s on places like Lake Erie, the 1,000 Islands and the Detroit River.
One could make the case that Alton Jones Jr. is the hottest angler on the Bass Pro Tour roster right now. In his last four tournaments, Jones finished 11th at both Lake Murray and Lake Guntersville, fifth at Cayuga and won Heavy Hitters by 59 pounds on Bussey Brake. The Mercury pro’s average finish in that time is seventh.
If not for a middle-of-the-pack finish at Cherokee/Douglas lakes at Stage Two (43rd), “Junior” would be creeping up on Ebare for second place in the AOY race.
Jones is also a wizard with forward-facing sonar and a top-shelf smallmouth angler with a literal lifetime of experience fishing for brown fish on the Great Lakes. He fished as a co-angler with his dad for three years in an annual Skeeter Owner’s Tournament out Lake Erie and remembers catching smallmouth in Bris Bay and the Detroit River when he was 9 or 10 years old.
“I can remember having some amazing day on those fisheries, but it’s still intimidating to think about the challenge that St. Clair fishery presents,” Jones said. “I’ve had success in the past by being good at forward-facing sonar – the fish tend to roam and can be hard to pinpoint, so it’s really a feast or famine place. I’m excited to compete up here, it fits my strengths, but it’s still intimidating to think about the potential of what it takes to really do well on St. Clair.”