By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor


With three placements of 45th or lower on his ledger through the first five 2015 Bassmaster Elite Series events, Kevin VanDam considers himself fortunate to be in 7th place in the Toyota Tundra B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year (AOY) race.

"I'm honestly surprised that I'm as high as I am considering the finishes I've had," said the seven-time AOY who's put together a strong comeback season in the wake of his worst year ever in 2014. "This year has been really challenging for the field as a whole – just look at some of the (familiar) names down the list who are outside the Classic cutoff.

"But those guys could turn it around with a couple of top finishes. Just about anybody could."

The biggest separator this year has been the West Coast swing, which the circuit undertook for the first time since 2010. The three anglers (Dean Rojas, Justin Lucas and Aaron Martens) who dominated the derbies at California's Sacramento River and Arizona's Lake Havasu have put considerable distance between themselves and the other contenders on the points list.

"That's been a major part of it, and another part has been some of the weather conditions," said VanDam, who was the runner-up at BASSFest (Kentucky Lake) in the most recent Elite event. "We've had some extreme changes at certain events, and the difference between 40th place and 20th is pretty narrow at a lot of those bodies of water. A lot of times it's just one key bite."

Hard Times at Havasu

If VanDam ends up 30 points or fewer shy of claiming his 8th AOY, he'll be able to point to the tournament at Havasu as his downfall. He'd finished just one position out of the final-day cut at Sacramento and took some good momentum to the scenic Desert Southwest impoundment.

He sacked 17-06 on day 1 to put himself among the initial Top 10, but then weighed just 3-06 on day 2 to plummet 48 places and out of the first cut.

"I really enjoy Havasu, but I was kind of kicking myself after that second day because I took a big chance and it didn't work out," he said. "I hadn't been getting a lot of bites, but I was on the right quality and I thought I could make it happen again, and it cost me making the cut."

His program consisted of targeting post-spawn female largemouths with topwater offerings.

"They were real specific, ultra-shallow fish and there wasn't a lot of them, but if I got a bite it was a big one. When you're throwing a topwater, you're not going to catch all of them. I had the bites (to compile another mid- to high-teens bag), but I just didn't catch three of them.

"There are times when you just need to survive so you can fight another day. I gave up a lot of points there that I didn't have to."

In Comfort Zone

VanDam trails Rojas by 83 points going into this week's event at the St. Lawrence River, which will be followed by derbies at the Chesapeake Bay and Lake St. Clair in August. The AOY Championship will be staged at Sturgeon Bay (Wis.) in mid-September.

As BassFans know, KVD's record on higher-latitude venues is stellar. That buoys his outlook concerning his AOY chances heading into the season's home stretch, but that optimism is tempered a bit.

"Last season, some of the places where I thought I was going to do real well ended up being some of my worst tournaments," he said. "That being said, with the experience I have, fishing northern bodies of water gives me a lot of confidence, although I'd like to be a bit closer points-wise.

"Then again, these guys are so good as a field now that there really aren't too many places where somebody has a great advantage over everybody else."

He finished 14th at the St. Lawrence, which he describes as "a really cool place," in 2013. He's pleased that Lake Ontario, where Brandon Palaniuk ran to catch massive smallmouths en route to victory 2 years ago, will be out of play this time.

"With the lake shut off, that changes things immensely. I understand why they did it, for sure – I believe it at least partially had to do with the host community wanting the tournament (to play out) on the river. There's still going to be plenty of water to fish and this year, with the fish in the north being so far behind, there'll be some ultra-shallow and some deep and it won't be totally a smallmouth-dominated, deep-water tournament this time.

"Largemouth are going to be a big factor and a guy can fish any way he wants to there. I love fishing clear water, so when we go to Sturgeon Bay, St. Clair or Waddington, those places are right up my alley."