PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — After two tournaments in the 2024 Elite Series season, Bob Downey needed a spark. He’d finished 68th in the season opener at Toledo Bend and 88th the next week at Lake Fork. The spark came with the birth of Bob and Kristi Downey’s first child, a boy named Jett, on April 10th.
The Elite Series’ next event was scheduled to start the next day at Florida’s Harris Chain of Lakes. It’s a full day’s drive from Detroit Lakes, Minn., to central Florida, but Downey had been considering it.
“I would have had to leave the night of the birth of our first child,” Downey said. “Obviously, never having a kid before, I didn’t realize that was an impossibility.”
Downey stayed home and took a zero at the Harris Chain, which left him in the mid 90s, near the bottom of the heap in the 103-man Progressive Angler of the Year standings. It was fitting that Kristi brought Jett to Plattsburgh this week. Jett celebrated his four-month birthday here as his dad made his fifth Day 2/Top 50 cut in a row, finishing 37th Sunday.
Downey is now 44th in AOY points. He has a good chance to qualify in the top 40 for an automatic berth in what would be a fourth Bassmaster Classic in his five-year Elite Series career. He needs just one more solid performance in the season finale at St. Lawrence River this week.
“My goal, just to kind of keep some mental focus on the season, was to jump up into that next (AOY points) bracket after each event,” Downey said. “When I was in the 90s, I wanted to get in the 80s, then the 70s, then the 60s, just to have some motivation for the rest of the year. I hit that stride every time. I jumped from the 60s to the 40s after Smith Lake.”
It was at Alabama’s Smith Lake, stop No. 7 on the Elite Series, where Downey finished 14th, topping the 15th-place finish he posted at the Florida’s St. Johns River after returning to the tour in April.
“I told myself going into this New York swing that no matter what happens, it’s been a good run, not to put too much pressure on myself,” Downey said. “I think that’s why I think I was fishing better. Because I was so far out of it, I didn’t really stress about a lot of things.”
Downey, 36, has a decent track record at the St. Lawrence River. He’s made the Day 2/Top 50 cut in his four previous events, finishing in the 40s three times with a high of 10th at Clayton, N.Y., in 2022. One more top 50 performance might be enough to complete the Jett stream ride into the 2025 Bassmaster Classic for Downey.
