(Editor's note: This is part 1 of a 3-part story that analyzes the 2008 BassFan World Rankings.)
BassFan today published its final edition of the BassFan World Rankings for the 2008 season. The Rankings won't change until after the 2009 Bassmaster Classic next February.
What follows is an analysis of those end-of-year Rankings. Part 1 (below) examines the Top 10, while part 2 looks at significant movements throughout the Rankings.
1st: Kevin VanDam
Kevin VanDam again ends the year as the lone superpower and No. 1-ranked angler in the world. He sits atop the throne with a massive 35-point lead in the Rankings.
Only once in the 7-year history of the Rankings did VanDam fail to end the year ranked No. 1 – that was in 2005, when Greg Hackney achieved the honor.
To put VanDam's 35-point lead into perspective, his lead after the 2004 season was a mere 2 1/2 points.
The World Rankings factor in finishes from the prior 2 calendar years, so on VanDam's record now are 29 finishes with highlights that include:
> 4 wins
> 12 Top 10s (41%)
> Only two finishes out of the money (55th, 56th)
> Back-to-back 3rds in the Bassmaster Classic
> An average finish of 18th
2nd: Todd Faircloth
The quiet Texan Todd Faircloth began a steady climb up the Rankings at the end of the 2006 season, when he won at Table Rock. He improved from 63rd to 47th that year, then turned things up in 2007 with steady fishing and a bushel of finishes in the high-teens. That helped him end last season ranked 27th.
He turned red-hot this year with six Top 10s and a win at Amistad. He was neck-and-neck with VanDam for the BASS Angler of the Year (AOY) title, but imploded with a 93rd at the Oneida season finale.
Todd Faircloth began his ascension with steady fishing, but turned red-hot this year with six Top 10s.
Despite the Oneida disaster, Faircloth ended the season ranked 2nd in the world – no small feat for the 10-year pro.
3rd: David Dudley
Kevin VanDam's considered the "World's Most Dangerous Angler," but right behind him in that category comes David Dudley. After a comparative slump in 2005-06, during which Dudley largely focused on investing his $1.25 million in FLW championship (now Forrest Wood Cup) and Ranger M1 winnings, he came back strong in 2007.
In fact, he finished 99th, 11th, 24th, 15th, 2nd, and 51st in the 200-boat regular-season events in 2007, and went on to finish 8th in the Forrest Wood Cup.
This year, finishes of 67th, 43rd, 28th, 26th, 1st, 38th, and 14th (Cup) helped him end the year ranked 3rd. That's the highest Dudley's ever been ranked, and he's the highest-ranked FLW Tour pro right now.
It's somewhat problematic to compare the FLW Tour and Elite Series, since the Rankings calculate finishes against other ranked anglers. And because the FLW Tour traditionally allows single-event entrants, FLW Tour pros by the nature of the Tour fish against many lower-ranked pros.
Nonetheless, to look at straight finishes, cut each of Dudley's finishes by 50% (to create a 100-boat comparison) and he'd have six Top 10 finishes in 14 events. Strong.
4th: Skeet Reese
Skeet Reese is the only pro in the Top 5 who moved backward from where he ended the 2007 season. Remember that last year he turned ultra-hot and won the BASS AOY title.
Reese fished strongly this year, but had a hard time converting on day 3 and tended to finish outside the Top 12 cut. He fished day 4 just once this season, when he finished 9th at Clarks Hill.
Notable is that, because the Rankings work on a 2-year basis, anglers tend to drop finishes each month they fish. Because the Elite Series stretched into September last year, Reese still has two finishes from the 2006 season on his record. One was good (10th at Table Rock), while one hurts him (43rd at the 50-boat Bassmaster Legends Major).
David Dudley's record is remarkably consistent.
In the next Rankings edition, which will follow the 2009 Bassmaster Classic, Reese will drop those two finishes. Depending on how he finishes at the Classic, that could help him.
5th: Mike McClelland
The World Rankings reward wins with bonus points, so anglers who win more often typically see their rankings improve more quickly than anglers with near-misses.
That's one of the factors that's helped BASS pro Mike McClelland climb nine spots this season to end the year ranked 5th. He won in 2007 at Grand Lake, and again this year at the Harris Chain.
He does have a problem with bombs – four times in the past 2 years he's finished 70th or worse – but each of those finishes came in 2007.
This season he was much more consistent. He never finished outside the money (Top 50), and logged two 4ths and an 11th.
6th: Brent Ehrler
Brent Ehrler, an FLW Tour pro, first achieved notoriety when he won the 2006 FLW championship, but it wasn't enough to vault him into the top tier of the Rankings. Since that time, though, he's demonstrated some remarkably consistent fishing.
In 14 events over the past 2 years, he's finished inside the Top 20 six times (43%). This year, he finished a single point behind Dudley in the FLW AOY race. And Ehrler finished 7th at the recent Forrest Wood Cup.
After a 67-spot Rankings climb last year to 35th, Ehrler climbs another 29 spots this year to end the season ranked 6th.
7th: Andy Morgan
Andy Morgan looked like the most likely candidate to win the FLW AOY this year, but a 192nd-place trainwreck at Detroit left the door open for Dudley. That Detroit finish was Morgan's worst in more than 6 years, and it dropped his rank from 3rd to 7th, then further to 9th. But he earned two spots back in this final edition of the Rankings to finish the year ranked 7th.
Skeet Reese is still fishing well, but was seldom able to convert strong positions into Top 12 cuts this year.
Notable for Morgan is that his fishing, which was already strong, got even better when he switched boat companies (to Bass Cat) and signed his own title-sponsor deal after being passed over by FLW Outdoors for a team deal. There's also speculation that Morgan might use that independent sponsor base to make a move toward BASS via the 2009 Bassmaster Opens.
8th: Edwin Evers
For BASS pro Edwin Evers, 2007 was up and down, with five finishes out of the money alongside a win and three other Top 10s.
He hit a steadier gear this season. He missed two checks, but finished 3rd three times and also logged finishes of 9th, 12th and 13th.
That all helps him improve three spots on the year to end with an 8th-place ranking.
9th: Aaron Martens
Aaron Martens seems a near-permanent fixture inside the Top 10. He might slip out for a little while, but invariably he climbs back up. He's been ranked much higher than his current season-ending 9th, and he's clearly hurt by some poor finishes this year (like 77th, 66th, 72nd, 51st).
A larger look at his 2 years shows more about the type of angler he is. In that time period, he's won once and posted a total of 14 Top 15s.
10th: Michael Bennett
It's certainly not unheard of, but nonetheless rare to see a 3rd-year pro end the season inside the Top 10. Michael Bennett did just that this season when he edged out Jacob Powroznik by 0.3 points to end the year ranked 10th.
Bennett was able to offset some comparatively weak finishes over the past two seasons (109th, 116th, 183rd, 107th) by winning twice this season – the Lewis Smith FLW Tour and the Forrest Wood Cup. Wins are rewarded heavily in the World Rankings methodology, evidenced by Bennett's 45-spot improvement over the course of the year.
Notable
> This final edition of the World Rankings still includes two FLW Series events from late 2006 – Lake of the Ozarks and Lewis Smith. The Series split to two divisions after the 2006 season and was no longer factored into the Rankings.
– End of part 1 (of 3) –
