An angler has to be good — we do mean GOOD — to make the top 10 in any of our rankings.
Case in point, look at Keith Jones in the Regional Rankings. A week ago he was ranked sixth. Then he fished the ABA Weekend Series event on Lake Tyler over the weekend and finished 11th. Pretty good, right? If you can believe it, he’s been so good that an 11th actually hurt his average, and he slipped to 10th. It’s tough getting to the top, and it’s even harder to stay there.
The Lake Tyler event was one of six regional events this weekend — ABA Weekend Series on Tyler and Kentucky Lake, and FLW BFLs on Lake Seminole, Pickwick, Dale Hollow and Jordan Lake. But like last week, it was the events that dropped off that made the next notable moves, as Randy Millender dropped a mediocre ABA event on Sam Rayburn and jumped from 39th to 11th.
Behind him, Robert Grike dropped an event on the Potomac and leapt from 55th to 15th. Otis Farnell dropped the same Potomac event and went from 42nd to 19th. Meanwhile, that Potomac event was a good one for William (Bill) Kramer, and when it dropped, he dropped from 25th to 39th.
Other notable moves in the top 50 included Scott Hayes (29th to 37th), David Gnewikow (50th to 41st), Chris Whitson (71st to 42nd), Brandon Cobb (56th to 45th), Brandon Wallen (90th to 48th), Rogne Brown debuting in 49th, John Hutchins (45th to 52nd) Sam Boss (43rd to 53rd) and Michael Wooley (47th to 89th).
College
All of Bass Rankings’ rankings are unique, living things, but the College rankings take that to another level. Take the last three events.
The GSU Wackem Trail from March 9 Lake Eufaula, based on the ranking criteria, only applied to the School Ranking, as there were not enough competitors for the Teams or Individual ranks. The March 16 Fish Life Bass Tour on Jordan Lake applied to the Team and Individual ranks, but it didn’t have enough schools for the School Ranking. And the March 16 FLW College Fishing event on Lake of the Ozarks applied to all three categories.
We’re going to focus on the School Ranking for today.
If you asked most college fishing fans what school had the best team in the state of Illinois, most would say Southern Illinois, which has been a perennial top 25. And up until this past weekend those fans would be right. Now, they’ll have to look a little farther north to another directional school, as Eastern Illinois, after fishing the Lake of the Ozarks event, debuted at No. 6.
After a few minor moves, we get to Winona State at No. 17, which is quite a jump from where it was a week ago at No. 38. The team drove all the way from Minnesota and was rewarded with a third-place finish and a jump in its ranking. Well worth the trip.
Other notable moves in the top 25 include Kennesaw State climbing to No. 18, Radford College dropping its worst event and leaping 20 places to 19th, and Southern Illinois-Carbondale and Murray State both getting back into the top 25 in 22nd and 23rd, respectively.
Check back tomorrow for a breakdown of the favorites for the Elite Series event on Lake Falcon.
