Another week, another new No. 1 angler in the world.
For those keeping track, the last month has been a revolving door at the No. 1 position in our Majors World Ranking. Brent Ehrler started the month there before Mark Rose took it over. A week later, Kevin VanDam claimed the spot before his 2010 Bassmaster Classic victory dropped off and his 2012 Bassmaster Classic did little to help him. That again left Rose in the thrown.
Now, we have a new king: Edwin Evers.
So how did Evers jump from seventh to first overnight? On Wednesday, a 2010 FLW Tour event on Table Rock dropped off, along with Evers’ 138th finish – his worst finish, statistically, since 2007. Ridding himself of that anchor improved his two-year average nearly three percent, now to 789.572.
Of course, that lone event doesn’t make or break an average. To be No. 1, you have to be consistently amazing. Eight top-10 finishes, along with an 11th, in two years is pretty amazing and tied for the second most in the last two years (Bryan Thrift has 12 top 10s in the last two years).
Now, Evers wasn’t the only one affected by that one FLW Tour event. Apparently, that was a real hit-or-miss tournament for a number of pros in the top 20.
The biggest miss-turned-hit was Keith Combs, who made an even greater leap than Evers, going from 19th to 10th – his first time in the top 10 since we launched – by dropping a 133rd. David Dudley also played leap frog, going from fifth to second after dropping a 69th finish.
Meanwhile, Ehrler won that event, yet, his average wasn’t hurt too bad by the loss thanks to his consistency. He still dropped a spot to seventh, but it’s nowhere near the fall it could have been, such as what happened with Andy Morgan and Thrift. Morgan finished eighth in that event and Thrift finished fourth, respectively, and losing those finishes dropped them from second to fifth and third to sixth.
It seems, just like the weather is ever changing in the spring, so is the No. 1 spot in the Majors World Ranking. However, we do feel one angler will establish himself at the top sooner or later. Maybe that happens this weekend at the FLW Tour event at Lake Hartwell.
Check back Monday to find out.
