Brandon Palaniuk posted a regular season like no other in Elite Series history in rising to first place in the Toyota Angler of the Year standings. As has been mentioned repeatedly, if Palaniuk takes the title, he’ll set a record for worst finish during the season by an AOY champion. His 105th place finish at Lake Okeechobee would “surpass” Aaron Martens’ 85th place finish at the Sabine River in his 2015 AOY title year.
“I’m still pissed off about Okeechobee,” Palaniuk said in July while he was posting a third place finish at the St. Lawrence River. “I’m going to stay pissed off until the last day at Mille Lacs or for the rest of my life.”
In other words, only the AOY title will wipe out the memory of his bomb in Florida. And by Sunday we’ll know whether Palaniuk can lighten up on his Lake Okeechobee performance.
Going into this AOY Championship at Lake Mille Lacs, Jason Christie has the best chance of overtaking Palaniuk for the title and the $100,000 first place check that goes with it. Christie is 15 points behind. Based on the one-point difference for each place in the final standings, Christie must finish 16 places higher than Palaniuk to win.
Christie met his Waterloo/Okeechobee at Lake Dardanelle this season, where he finished 72nd. When it was noted that 72nd is a lot better than Palaniuk’s 105th, Christie said, “Yeah, but Brandon and Florida, that’s understandable. Dardanelle is a place where I’ve won.”
Christie won the Elite Series event at Lake Dardanelle in 2014, and he’s usually strong on anything associated with the Arkansas River, just downstream from his eastern Oklahoma home.
Jacob Wheeler remains mathematically alive in the AOY race. But he’d have to finish 34 places higher than Palaniuk AND 19 places higher than Christie to pass the two anglers in front of him. Casey Ashley is fourth in the AOY standings, 64 points behind Palaniuk. In this 50-man AOY Championship, it’s not mathematically possible for him to pass Palaniuk.
Here’s a look at the seasons of the top four anglers in the AOY standings following the Elite Series regular season.
| Palaniuk | Christie | Wheeler | Ashley | |
| 1. Cherokee Lake | 12th | 14th | 1st | 61st |
| 2. Lake Okeechobee | 105th | 42nd | 61st | 31st |
| 3. Toledo Bend | 5th | 2nd | 10th | 4th |
| 4. Ross Barnett | 18th | 27th | 53rd | 34th |
| 5. Sam Rayburn | 1st | 7th | 3rd | 13th |
| 6. Lake Dardanelle | 12th | 72nd | 20th | 13th |
| 7. St. Lawrence | 3rd | 19th | 47th | 8th |
| 8. Lake Champlain | 3rd | 19th | 4th | 35th |
| 9. Lake St. Clair | 29th | 1st | 22nd | 53rd |
| Average finish | 20.9 | 22.5 | 24.5 | 28.0 |