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JACOB WHEELER
If Tennessee pro Jacob Wheeler has taught us one thing in the past nine years as he ’ s rampaged through the highest levels of bass fishing , it ’ s how to use the thesaurus – excellent , exemplary , exceptional , outstanding , and on and on . But in choosing one superlative to describe Wheeler ’ s 2020 tournament campaign , it ’ s simply this : dominant .
Wheeler started the year by crushing the Championship Round field by 28 pounds at the Bass Pro Tour season opener at Lake Eufaula in February , and then picked up a Toyota Series champion ’ s trophy at Pickwick in May , and yet another $ 125,000 winner ’ s check at the first-ever Pro Circuit Super Tournament in June on Chickamauga .
Oh , yeah : Wheeler also finished second at the other two Super Tournaments – losing to Tom Monsoor by less than 3 pounds on the Mississippi River and to Justin Lucas by a single ounce on Lake Erie – third at the Bass Pro Tour event on Lake Okeechobee and 10th at the first-ever Heavy Hitters . His final tally for the season : seven top 10s and almost $ 380,000 in tournament winnings .
Wheeler finishes 2020 in the number one position in Bassfan ’ s World Rankings by nearly 40 points ( a position he ’ s held since July of 2019 ).
Yep , dominant .
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RON NELSON
Ron Nelson ’ s rise to stardom ( and an AOY title on the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit in 2020 ) seemingly happened over a two-year period . After all , Nelson ’ s 2019 was highlighted by earning Polaris Rookie of the Year honors on the Pro Circuit , and before that , only the most hardcore of bass fishing fans knew his name , despite his dominance on Northern fisheries in the Toyota Series .
Now , Nelson ’ s is a name every bass fishing fan knows , and rightly so considering how impressive he was in 2020 . Starting with a fifth-place finish on Sam Rayburn to start the Pro Circuit season , Nelson went on to total two top 10s and four top 20s on the year ( including a second-place finish at Lake Martin ). Nelson would tell you he had some disappointing finishes , but fishing an entire tour-level schedule and never finishing below 41st place in any event is far from a letdown .
At 44 years old , Nelson proved that age really is only a number last season when he locked up ROY . This season , a year older , wiser and more experienced , he proved that , amidst a youth movement in the sport , there ’ s still plenty of room for talent – regardless of how it got there .
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JORDAN LEE
He ’ s been a full-time bass pro for seven years now , so it ’ s no longer accurate to describe Alabama pro Jordan Lee as simply a “ wunderkind ”. Yes , he ’ s still in his 20s , but after an astoundingly successful 2020 season , it ’ s entirely accurate to ditch “ wunderkind ” and start to whisper “ one of the best of all time ” in the same sentence as the low-key Jo Lee .
Lee ’ s 2020 season included a slew of “ firsts .” He was the winner of the first-ever MLF Heavy Hitters event in June , and caught the first $ 100,000 bass in MLF history when he boated a 7-4 big fish in the final round of that big-fishfocused special event . He claimed the Bass Pro Tour Angler of the Year award in July , his first tour-level AOY ; a week later , he claimed his first General Tire World Championship ( although the rest of the world didn ’ t know it until that event was shown on Discovery in November ).
And he was a virtual lock to fish the final day in each Bass Pro Tour competition : Lee was the only angler to earn four Top 10s in the fiveevent regular season in a field of all-time greats .
Over $ 360,000 in tournament winnings later , the former wunderkind can look back on one of the most wunderbar seasons of an already legendary career .
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KYLE HALL
At just 23 years old , Kyle Hall is what many people think of when they picture a Polaris Rookie of the Year award winner – youthful , unassuming and talented beyond his years . The youth movement in professional bass fishing is alive and well .
Hall , who hails from Granbury , Texas , finished 10th in AOY standings on the Pro Circuit in 2020 , which is impressive in its own right , to say nothing of the fact that the rookie phenom bombed in his first tournament of his professional career with a 142ndplace showing on Sam Rayburn in January . Recovering from that start is really what defined Hall ’ s season and proved he was worthy of ROY honors .
After that abysmal start , Hall picked himself up , brushed himself off and went on to never finish lower than 45th in any event that followed . He finished 12th on Lake Martin , turned in a top 10 at the Mississippi River in July and followed that up with a 26th-place finish to close out the season on Lake Erie , amid a stacked Super Tournament field of both Pro Circuit and Bass Pro Tour pros .
Add a fifth-place showing at the TITLE a couple weeks later and Hall announced his arrival on the big stage with authority in 2020 .
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