David Dudley is leaving for Plattsburgh, N.Y., tomorrow to begin preparations for the final FLW Tour Major of the season at Lake Champlain. He’ll make the drive in a familiar position – leading the Angler of the Year (AOY) standings. He holds a 1-point advantage over Jim Moynagh, but as is typically the case with the world’s current top-ranked angler, conversations about the AOY barely move the needle with him.
“It’s a broken record for me,” he told BassFan. “I don’t ever focus on winning Angler of the Year. I focus on winning tournaments.”
He’s already booked two AOY titles in his career, including last year, and a third would tie him with Clark Wendlandt for the FLW record.
“In everything I do, I only strive to win and be number one,” he added.
Champlain is his kind of lake with its healthy mix of smallmouths and largemouths and he has a solid track record there in early summer as he’s racked up three Top-25 finishes in June.
“I’m very comfortable with everything,” he said. “Whatever we can legally weigh in, be it smallmouths, largemouths, spots or shoals, I’m comfortable. It’s a tournament where lots of fish are going to be caught and it typically takes a mixture to do well. I feel very good about the month we’re going.”
Last year, Dudley took over the lead in AOY points with two events remaining and held on to win by 15 points. When he won his first AOY crown in 2008, he came out of nowhere, erasing an 86-point deficit with a 38th-place finish at the Detroit River season finale to overtake Andy Morgan and edge Brent Ehrler by a single point for the crown.
