With his victory at Lake Champlain, Kyoya Fujita has now posted four top 10 finishes in the eight Elite Series tournaments. Yet he still trails Joey Cifuentes III by 15 points in the Dakota Lithium Batteries Rookie of the Year standings. Any way you want to measure it, this appears to be the strongest rookie class in Elite Series history.
Rookies have won half the events: Cifuentes twice (Seminole, St. Clair), Will Davis Jr. (Lay Lake) and now Fujita. Going into the final event of the season at the St. Lawrence River, five rookies are inside the Bassmaster Classic Angler of the Year points cutline (41st): Cifuentes – 6th, Fujita – 8th, Bryant Smith – 14th, Cooper Gallant – 18th, and Davis – 35th. Two more are close: David Gaston – 43rd and Cole Sands – 47th.
Cifuentes, who celebrates his 35th birthday Wednesday, just missed making his third Top 10 of the season at Champlain. The Clinton, Ark., pro finished 11th on Day 3, a mere four ounces less than Austin Felix’s 10th place total.
The finale at the St. Lawrence River this week sets up an interesting battle for the ROY title. Fujita, 27, from Minamitsura, Japan, has had only two stumbles all season – 79th in the opener on Lake Okeechobee and 100th at Santee Cooper. You can make a case for him being the hottest angler on the Elite Series. Check out his other six finishes: 2nd at Lake Seminole, 3rd at Lake Murray, 34th at Lay Lake, 19th at the Sabine River, 7th at St. Lake Clair and 1st at Lake Champlain.
The most impressive performance in that list might be a rookie angler taking 19th-place at the Sabine River. For all Fujita’s obvious expertise in catching smallmouth bass using forward-facing sonar, the top 20 finish at the Sabine illustrates Fujita’s versatility.
Bryant Smith, 32, from Roseville, Calif., demonstrated his versatility at Lake Champlain in posting his second Top 10 finish of the season. He was 7th at Santee Cooper. Before Champlain, Smith said he was as uncomfortable as he’d ever been before a tournament. He was unfamiliar with the huge lake and unsure of his ability to catch roaming schools of smallmouth bass with forward-facing sonar.
“This was a breakthrough for me,” said Smith, after taking 4th place at Champlain.
And it stopped a bit of a slide for him. Smith has missed only three top 50/Day 2 cuts this season, but two of them were in the events prior to Champlain – 69th at the Sabine River and 55th at Lake St. Clair.
Cooper Gallant, 25, of Bowmanville, Ontario, can cap an exceptional rookie season at the St. Lawrence River this week, where he has experience. Gallant’s rise into 18th place in the AOY standings has been fueled by his recent success on smallmouth waters – 4th at Lake St. Clair and 18th at Lake Champlain.
Finally, there’s this note, about the last two rookie classes on the Elite Series: They took 7 of the top 11 places at Lake Champlain. Finishes by second-year pros included Cody Huff – 3rd, Jay Przekurat – 5th, Alex Redwine – 6th, and Jacob Foutz – 8th.
