(Editor's note: This is part 1 of a 2-part analysis of the statistics compiled by the Top 25 in the FLW Tour Angler of the Year (AOY) race. The BassFan staff will take Wednesday off in observance of the 4th of July holiday, and part 2 will be published on Thursday.)
Who've been the most consistent performers on the FLW Tour in 2007?
You might think the answer is just a click to the Angler of the Year (AOY) standings away.
Ah, but it's really not that simple. The standings represent accumulated points, and those can be piled up in a hurry (i.e. a Top 10 finish) or ground out over a longer haul. It's just about impossible to contend for the AOY with more than one truly bad finish, but one or two real good ones can put an angler with a couple of tank jobs on his ledger right up there with those who've been the steadiest throughout the season.
Several different yardsticks can be used to measure consistency and show how the AOY leaders got to their lofty perches. As the final regular-season event at the Detroit River approaches, we'll pull out a few of them to take a hard look the Top 25 in the points chase.
Fish the Weekend
Jay Yelas will take a 26-point AOY lead into Detroit, which means if he finishes 26th or higher, he'll win the award for the second time regardless of where anyone else ends up. And just about any way you look at it, he's been the dominant angler on Tour this year in terms of consistency.
The fastest way to rack up points is to make the Top 10 cut after the first 2 days and qualify to fish on Saturday and Sunday. Yelas has done that three times and has two runner-up finishes (Beaver and Norman).
Five others have each made it to the weekend twice: Mark Davis (3rd in the points), rookie Bryan Thrift (16th), Darrel Robertson (17th), Dave Lefrebre (20th) and Ray Scheide (24th).
Lefebre notched his Top 10s in the first two events and was the AOY leader after Fort Loudoun-Tellico, but has fared no better than 72nd in the three events since. Conversely, Scheide (who ended up 4th in last year's AOY race) spent the early part of the season buried deep down the points list, but finished 8th and 9th in the last two events to make a big leap.
Yelas and David Dudley (4th) are tied for the most Top 25s with four each. Davis, John Sappington (6th), Michael Bennett (10th), Larry Nixon (15th) and Robertson have each made three.
Sappington's three straight Top 25s this spring were his first since 2003. The 23-year-old Bennett turned the trick in the first three tournaments of the year, but has ended up 81st and 86th in the last two.
Like fellow Arkansan Scheide, Nixon has heated up recently after a lackluster start to the year, and his campaign has been the opposite of Bennett's. After opening with an 89th and an 87th, he won at Norman and has backed up that victory with a pair of 23rds.
Stay out of Triple Digits
The Top 5 in the AOY race have one thing in common: None have finished 100th or lower in any of the five events thus far. Dudley's 99th at Travis to open the season is the worst outing among that group.
Shinichi Fukae has yet to finish outside the Top 40 in 2007.
Yelas' lone non-Top 20 was a 78th at Travis. Shinichi Fukae (2nd in the points) has been ridiculously steady, with nothing worse than a 38th at Norman.
Fukae's rock-solid consistency is in stark contrast to his 2006 campaign, when he combined two wins with two triple-digit finishes. His only Top 10 this year was a 5th at Fort Loudoun-Tellico.
Others in the AOY Top 25 who've yet to go below the century mark are Jacob Powroznik (8th in the points), Luke Clausen (9th), Bennett, Brent Ehrler (11th), Mark Rose (12th), Chris Baumgardner (13th), Katsutoshi Furusawa (14th), Nixon and Thrift.
Gabe Bolivar (7th) and Ron Shuffield (21st) came within a whisker of joining the crowd above. Bolivar's worst finish was a 100th at Fort Loudoun-Tellico, and Shuffield's worst was 100th at the Potomac.
Tracy Adams' 161st at the Potomac carries the distinction of the lowest finish to date by a Top 25 member. He's 19th in the points.
Other bombs were turned in by Chad Morgenthaler (159th at the Potomac), Robertson (158th at Beaver), Jack Gadlage (144th at Beaver), Aaron Hastings (133rd at the Potomac), Scheide (128th at Norman) and Lefebre (127th at Beaver, a venue that punishes him annually).
Morgenthaler is 22nd on the points list. Gadlage is 25th and Hastings, the winner at Travis, is 23rd.
Notable
> Clausen, Ehrler, Rose, Furusawa and Gadlage have yet to make a Top 10 this year. Gadlage doesn't even have a Top 25, but has three finishes among the Top 33.
> Part 2 of this story will look at the anglers among the AOY Top 25 who've made the biggest jumps in the standings and the BassFan World Rankings presented by Tru-Tungsten compared to last year.
– End of part 1 (of 2) –
