Ott DeFoe had a single goal for his first Bassmaster Elite Series season: to qualify for the 2012 Bassmaster Classic. He achieved that, with 33 places in the Toyota Tundra B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year (AOY) race to spare.

"I felt like if things went extremely well, I might be able to

equal my best (points finish) on the FLW Tour, which was 13th," he said. "Anything similar to that would've been a stellar season.

"To end up 4th in the points was definitely a pleasant surprise. I don't know if I can have another season like it next year, but a Classic win would be a great way to start the year off."

All the Right Moves

At age 26, DeFoe already has 5 solid seasons of tour-level competition behind him and, to this point, doesn't know what it feels like to fail to make his circuit's championship event. He switched leagues in order to get a shot at fishing the Classic – an event he attended many times as a boy on summer vacation.

The 2011 campaign was easily his best as a pro and he cashed paychecks in seven of the eight Elite events. His only miss was a 58th at the Arkansas River, where he came up a pound shy of the cut after a four-fish day 1.

"My decision-making worked out at almost every tournament and the conditions just ended up being right for me," he said. "There were only two tournaments where I wasn't in the Top 50 after the first day, the Arkansas River and West Point, and one of those ended up being a Top 12.

"Whenever I had to change up to get on the right track – whether it was the first day, the second or even the third – it seems like I was able to do that."

The high point of the year came at the very end, when he emerged as the champion of Toyota Trucks All-Star Week. The event, which played out across two different venues over the course of a week, featured the Top 8 from the points list, plus four competitors who were voted in by fans.

The $100,000 payday was especially nice considering that his wife had recently delivered twins.

"I'd kind of already crossed off all my goals – I'd won the Rookie of the Year and made the Classic. Winning an event in my first year on top of all that seemed like too much to ask, but then it happened."

More Time on the Road

One thing that'll be different for DeFoe in 2012 will be the amount of time he spends on the road, and next year his traveling party will consist of five people instead of three. Other than the two season-opening events in Florida and the Arkansas River, all of the 2011 stops were within just a few hours' drive of his home in Knoxville, Tenn.

"There's one at home (Douglas Lake), but all the others are like 10 hours-plus," he said. "I like the look of the schedule as far as the places and the times of year we're going there, but it'll definitely be a little more time in the truck."

A trip he's eagerly anticipating is the one to Shreveport, La. for the Classic on the Red River. He's only been there once– for the 2010 FLW Tour event that got canceled due to dangerous conditions created by high water.

"I wasn't that crazy about the place, I can say that. But the time I was there it was flooded and muddy and cold, and that's probably a lot of the reason why. I got five bites on one of the practice days, but none on the other 2 days, so it didn't make a real good first impression on me.

"It's shallow-water power-fishing, which is what I like, but I don't really like places that are hard to get around on. Idling through 14 miles of standing timber trying to get someplace isn't my idea of fun."

It'll be the Classic, though. And no matter the venue, that's exactly where he's always wanted to be."

Notable

> DeFoe shared practice information with Andy Montgomery, another angler who was fishing his first Elite season after moving over from the FLW Tour. "It wasn't the type of thing where we'd end up doing the same thing in most of the tournaments, though," he said. "At West Point and for a day or two at the St. Johns we were fishing the same kind of stuff, but other than that, we hardly ever saw each other. I trust him 100% and I think he feels the same way, and we both thought it worked out well."