Andy Morgan has fared pretty well in the two Bass Pro Tour non-points events in 2021 – he was 16th in the REDCREST Championship at Lake Eufaula and 6th in Heavy Hitters on the three-lake venue in North Carolina. The regular season, though, has been a different story.
Except for an 11th-place showing on his home lake (Chickamauga), it's been a rough season for the man who's been one of the most consistent performers in the game for the past two decades. In the other four tournaments, the three-time FLW Tour Angler of the Year (AOY) has fared no better than 49th in the 80-angler field, and his 38th-place finish out of the 40 anglers in Group A in this week's derby at the St. Lawrence River will result in a final placement in the mid 70s, which will drop him quite a ways down the points list.
He started the event at No. 42. Only the Top 40 qualify for next year's REDCREST.
"I'm going to need a couple of Top-10s (in the last two regular-season events at Lake Champlain and Lake St. Clair) to have a chance," he said. "It's been a strange year – I just can't get anything going my way. It's really come down to a lack of bites."
His disdain for smallmouth fishing is well known, and bronzebacks, of course, are the dominant species at the St. Lawrence. He tried to catch largemouths during his group's first day on the water after he found eventual group winner Jacob Wheeler sitting in the only good smallmouth area he'd discovered in practice.
"I'd never been (to the St. Lawrence) before and I only found the one place that was super-strong," he said. "They were on beds and I made a mistake by not going there first.
"After that, I had nothing to fall back on. I had to go largemouth fishing and I was a little surprised by how poor that was. Then all I did (Sunday) was idle and look, trying to get familiar with as many bays and bars as I could. They spawn in the same places every year and I did learn a lot that should help me in the future."
