TWO WINS A DECADE IN THE MAKING
Most anglers dream about a career like Neal ’ s . Nearly a decade of success , with six top-20 finishes in the points race across nine Pro Circuit seasons alone and a couple more on the Bass Pro Tour side . More than $ 1.2 million in earnings . Thirty-four top-20 tournament finishes . Major sponsors . Significant name notoriety . That alone is a hell of a resume ; one most can only dream of . But there was still something missing as he exited the stage in Massena , AOY trophy in tow . A big something : a tournament victory . Just one major tournament victory .
See , winning AOY was the first of two major feathers Neal was chasing to add to his cap . The other – a major tournament win – came about a month later on Lake St . Clair in the Bass Pro Tour 2021 season finale . Before that , Neal had never won a tournament above the Phoenix Bass Fishing League level , and that last one came in 2012 . He has 33 Top 10s and finished second half-adozen times , but he ’ d never hoisted a big trophy for a single-tournament performance until that mid-September tournament on the big stage . You know who had , though ? Seemingly everyone around him . Buddy Gross was a rookie and Neal ’ s travel partner in 2016 when Gross took home a Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit win on Pickwick Lake – a tournament at which Neal finished second . Fellow Dayton , Tennessee resident Andy Morgan – who Neal has known since childhood – got his morning coffee at Neal ’ s tackle shop the morning Morgan won the Bass Pro Tour event on Lake Chickamauga in 2019 . Even amid his greatest career achievement of winning Angler of the Year , the sport reminded him a day later of his seemingly constant , close proximity to victory when Cody Pike ( again , a rookie and Neal ’ s travel partner ) won the final Pro Circuit event of the regular season on the St . Lawrence River .
“ I ’ ll be honest , winning Angler of the Year was a little relief because it ’ d gotten to the point where I didn ’ t think I ’ d come out on a top of anything ,” Neal admits . “ Seriously , I went [ into the final event on the St . Lawrence ] thinking I ’ d finish second [ in AOY points ] because it ’ d happened so many times before .”
That kind of bridesmaid-but-never-the-bride scenario can really wear on an angler after a while . It definitely did for Neal at first , especially when he felt he did everything right and fluke circumstances intervened to allow another angler to surpass him the final day .
“ The ones where dumb luck beats you sting , where you did everything right and you still lose ,” Neal says . “ Greg Hackney winning at Pickwick with his Power-Poles down in the middle of summer was one like that . But now it ’ s happened so many times that it ’ s like any other day . Even when Jacopo [ Gallelli ] won at the Potomac earlier this year ( after an insane 20-pound final day that left Neal again finishing second ), I knew I did everything I could . “ It just wasn ’ t my time .” Yet .
Neal had flirted with major championship wins multiple times in his career before wrapping up the Pro Circuit Angler of the Year title .
PHOTO BY ROB MATSUURA
46 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2021