During the break between Day 1 Classic Bracket sessions, let’s take a look back at the Toyota AOY Championship at Mille Lacs Lake. There are some remarkable statistics from the lake that was ranked No. 1 in the U.S. by Bassmaster magazine this year. Mille Lacs fished incredibly similarly to the headline-making way it did in the 2016 AOY Championship.
That usually doesn’t happen – for a fishery to be in that type of yearlong spotlight and continue to produce. It doesn’t get much more identical than this: In 2016, the average weight of the bass (mostly smallmouth) brought to the scales in the three days of the AOY Championship was 3.9492 lbs; in 2017 it was 3.9449 lbs. That’s a difference of .0043 of a pound. Basically, a 4-pound smallmouth bass was the average both years. When a 4-pound smallmouth is average, well, the word “uncommon” doesn’t seem strong enough.
The following graph shows how Mille Lacs was almost identical in 2016 and 2017 at the AOY Championship. The only major difference was the number of 25-pound bags, and two of those were two over 26 pounds in 2016. Keith Combs bumped right up against the 25-pound mark twice this year with 24-15 on Days 1 and 2.
The following is a compilation of the three-day totals each year.
| Three-day AOY Championship | 2016 | 2017 |
| Total bass weighed-in | 729 | 726 |
| Total weight | 2,878-15 | 2,864-2 |
| Average weight per bass | 3.9492 lbs. | 3.9449 lbs. |
| Big bass | 6-10 | 6-1 |
| Big bag | 26-2 | 24-15 |
| Limits caught | 139 | 137 |
| Bags of 25 lbs. or more | 7 | 0 |
| Bags of 20 lbs. or more | 76 | 77 |