With a seventh-place performance at Alabama’s Lay Lake, Brandon Cobb extended his extraordinary season five tournaments in to the 2023 Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year race. The 33-year-old Greenwood, S.C., pro has failed to make Championship Sunday only once, when he finished 20th at Georgia’s Lake Seminole in February.
Cobbs’ other events included the following: third at Lake Okeechobee, sixth at Lake Murray and fourth at Santee Cooper Lakes.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that Cobb is leading the AOY race by 49 points over his nearest competitor – second place Drew Cook. Tyler Rivet is third, 70 points back; John Cox is fourth, 71 behind Cobb; and Kyle Welcher is fifth, 72 points back.
When Cobb saw the 2023 Elite Series schedule, he couldn’t foresee anything quite as remarkable as what he’s posted, but it put a smile on his face.
“Up to this point, we’ve had the perfect schedule for me,” Cobb said after Lay Lake. “It’s all been shallow water. I haven’t hardly turned my graphs on the entire year. I’ve been fishing less than 3e feet deep since the season started. That’s just what I like to do. That’s what I’m good at.”
Cobb’s Lay Lake performance included steady progress up the leaderboard, from 23rd after Day 1, to 12th on Day 2 to fifth after Day 3. In a lake where most of the bass were postspawn and bites were tough for everyone, he was able to continually find a few bass on spawning beds.
Few Elite Series anglers are relishing the always fickle Sabine River. It’s the next test in the AOY race, set for June 1-4 at Orange, Texas. Cobb isn’t predicting success there, but he’s looking forward to the challenge.
“I actually love the Sabine,” he said. “It’s one of my favorite places in the entire country where I’ve ever fished a tournament. It’s not good fishing. But in the fall at home, all I do is river fish. I’ve got a 15-foot aluminum boat. I get back as far in the creeks as I can. It’s my favorite thing to do.
“The Sabine is like that in the entire place. The difference in the Sabine is that fish don’t live every place. I love it, but it’s also a scary tournament in that if you pick the wrong area, there’s nothing to catch. Some of the creeks just don’t have a bass in them.”
In terms of the AOY race, Cobb has been in a similar position. In 2019, when he posted two wins and finished out of the top 30 only once in the first six events of a 10-tournament season, Cobb finished 52nd at the St. Lawrence River, 73rd at Lake Cayuga and 58th at Lake Tenkiller. He finished 32nd in the AOY race.
“I don’t have a lot of confidence up north,” Cobb said. “I’m not going to lie. Smallmouth have been challenging. But I’ve done well at Champlain (Elite No. 8 this year), and I’ve done okay at St. Clair (Elite No. 7). The St. Lawrence River has always been a thorn in my side.”
Cobb has been working on that hole in his game.
“The one thing that I have been practicing in the offseason is the Lowrance ActiveTarget forward-facing sonar, which is what you have to do up north,” he said. “That’s the way you catch ‘em. It’s always been a struggle for me because I don’t like it. That’s a strong term, but when I go do it, I’m like, ‘I might catch one on the bank over there. I’m gonna go fish shallow.’ That’s usually what’s kind of been my downfall up there.”
But first things first – Brandon Cobb has a 49-point-lead five tournaments into a nine-tournament season, and event No. 6 is the another shallow water venue – the Sabine River.
A look back
Every Elite Series season is unique. If nothing else, it’s interesting to look back at the previous season and see where the AOY race stood at a similar time in 2022. Event No. 5 last year was at Lake Fork, where Lee Livesay won with a four-day total of 115-11, and three other anglers earned B.A.S.S. Century Club belts: Brandon Palaniuk (102-2), Gerald Swindle (102-2) and Shane LeHew (100-9). Palaniuk took second place in a tiebreaker.
Here’s how the top five in AOY points stood then, and, in parenthesis, where each angler finished in the final AOY standings: 1. Brandon Palaniuk (first), 2. John Cox (eighth), 3. David Mullins (17th), 4. Drew Benton (fourth), 5. Brandon Lester (second).
It’s worth noting that Chris Johnston was 33rd after four events last year. He finished 10th at Lake Fork to jump 10 places in the AOY standings and posted finishes of 19th at Pickwick Lake, sixth at the St. Lawrence River, second at Lake Oahe and second at the Mississippi River at La Crosse, Wis. If Palaniuk hadn’t made the Day 2 cut at La Crosse – and he barely did – Johnston would have had a shot in battling Lester for the AOY title on Day 3 of the final event of the season. The top three in the final 2022 AOY point standings were as follows: 1. Palaniuk 723, 2. Lester 707, 3. Johnston 700.
Editor’s note: See full AOY standings.
