LA CROSSE, Wis. — Brandon Palaniuk certainly has a flair for the dramatic. In what had to be the most stressful day of his career, he didn’t catch his fifth keeper until there were 30 minutes left until check-in time Saturday. The other four keepers didn’t come quickly either. Palaniuk, who has led the Progressive Insurance Angler of the Year standings since the Lake Fork event in May, came oh so close to seeing his chance for a title vanish Saturday at the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at the Mississippi River.
“I hate drama,” Palaniuk said. “But, man, it likes to follow me around. You might as well stitch ‘drama’ on my back pocket.”
By making the Day 2/top 47 cut Saturday, Palaniuk eliminated Chris Johnston from the AOY race, even though Johnston is leading the tournament after two days. Even if Palaniuk faded to 47th place Sunday and Johnston won the tournament Monday, they’d be tied with 701 AOY points, and Palaniuk owns the tiebreaker over everyone else in the field. The tiebreaker is total weight from the first two days, when the full field is fishing, over the course of the season.
This is now a two-man race for the AOY title, and Brandon Lester is very much in contention. He finished Day 2 in 11th place with 28-6. Palaniuk is in 37th place with 24-10.
“All the pressure is on Palaniuk, it’s not on me,” Lester said. “I can’t imagine how he feels. He’s a cool, calm, collected cat, but it’s got to be weighing on him a little bit, knowing that the whole bass fishing world is watching.”
Palaniuk admitted as much after his five-bass limit hit the scales and weighed 11-13.
“I’m usually pretty put together,” said the 34-year-old Rathdrum, Idaho, pro. “But I’m a wreck right now to be honest. I didn’t catch that fifth one until 30 minutes to go. Without that one, I don’t make the cut. I don’t know how many I lost. I had a really good shot at 13, 14, maybe 15 pounds, but I didn’t get them in the boat, so I don’t know how big they were.”
Palaniuk estimated he had 17 blow-ups on a frog without a hookup, saying, “By the 17th one, I thought this might not even happen. With 30 minutes left when I caught my fifth one, I about cried. I knew it was a make-or-break moment right there.”
Palaniuk said he’d experienced an equally stressful moment when he won his first AOY title in 2017 at Minnesota Mille Lacs Lake.
“On the last day, I had maybe one bass at 11:30 or 12 o’clock. I rolled up to ‘Dwayne Johnson’ and I caught almost 20 pounds off of one rock – ‘The Rock.’ That one rock won me AOY. Before that, I was not going to win. Then I caught those and won by 14 points.”
Here’s the math going into the Palaniuk-Lester matchup: Palaniuk came into this tournament with 647 AOY points, leading Lester’s total of 610 by 37 points. If Lester were to win – worth 100 points – his AOY total would be 710 points. If Palaniuk finishes 38th – worth 63 points – his AOY total would be 710 points as well.
Again, Palaniuk owns the tiebreaker, having caught a total of 329-4 on Days 1 and 2 of the nine tournaments this season. Lester’s total is 293-11.
If Palaniuk finishes 38th or better Sunday, he’s the 2022 Angler of the Year. However, after as much as he struggled Saturday and the narrow margins between places in the standings – there’s only 1 pound, 1 ounce separating 37th place and 47th place – Palaniuk finishing 38th or better is anything but guaranteed.
If Palaniuk finishes 39th or lower and Lester qualifies for the top 10 final on Monday, the AOY race won’t be decided until Championship Monday – the last day of the season.
