It’s here. The 2012 season is finally here!
And it only took two tournaments to see some shake-ups in the Minors and Minors-only rankings.
Actually, there were a few tournaments that shook up the rankings in the last few days. Two happened this past weekend. Another occurred two years ago.
Remember, Bass Rankings uses a continuous two-year time period to compile its rankings. That means a tournament does not have to occur for things to change. Instead, a tournament from two years ago can drop off, effectively changing how anglers move up or down.
Both instances came to fruition in the past week. There was the BASS Open at the Harris Chain and the FLW EverStart at Lake Okeechobee. Meanwhile, a BASS Open from Jan. 16, 2010 dropped off.
Now is the fun part. Let’s see how it all shook out in the rankings.
We’ll start with the top spot in the Minors-only Ranking. On Jan. 16, Trevor Fitzgerald was No. 1. On Jan. 17, Cliff Prince took over the crown, as the BASS Open dropped off, and with it Prince’s 143rd-place finish. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald completely disappeared, as he failed to have enough tournaments in a two-year span to qualify for the ranking. Four days later, on Jan. 21, Fitzgerald triumphantly reappeared at the top of the rankings after his 13th-place finish at the recent BASS Open at the Harris Chain. At the same time, Prince fell to second after he finished 65th in the same tournament.
Hectic stuff, huh? Like we said, our rankings are living, ever-changing lists, so check back often to stay up on all the latest changes. Now, back to what happened this weekend.
The two big jumps at the top were Prince (14th to 2nd) and Chad Prough (15th to 5th). Prince, we covered. As for Prough, he too dropped off a poor 2010 showing (99th place) and replaced it with a 15th-place finish at the EverStart.
Looking at the winners of the two events, Brandon Medlock (EverStart) jumped from 122nd to 74th with the victory.
As for Chris Lane (Open), he doesn’t show up in the Minors-only Ranking, as he fishes too many Major-level events, which is a nice segue into the Minors Ranking. Now, in that ranking, Lane rose from 64th to 59th, but his percentage didn’t change at all. Why? Because he also won the BASS Open that dropped off, meaning he replaced a win with a win and stayed the same. The fact that he moved up simply means people that were ahead of him fell back.
Looking at the rest of the Minors Ranking, Kevin Snider now reigns supreme after Ott Defoe finished 33rd at the Open and Andy Montgomery fell off the list due to a lack of Minor-level events.
If all of this happened after the first weekend of the season, we can’t wait to see how the rest of the year unfolds. Buckle in, fans. It’s going to be a great season!
