After last week's FLW Tour event on Lake Okeechobee, Florida's Bobby Lane leads the BassFan Rookie of the Year Race. His 7th-place finish isn't a win (last year rookie Ray Scheide won at Okeechobee), but it's a good one and equates to a 41-point lead in the standings over Nevada's Marcus Clouse. Clouse finished 49th, the second-highest finish of FLW rookies at the event. Bassmaster Tour rookies get their first shot this week.
Notes:
> FLW is fielding 27 rookies this year vs. 42 last year, when it expanded its field from 175 to 200 anglers.
> Remember that the BassFan ROY Race only counts "true rookies," meaning anglers who have never fished the boater side of a tour-level event before. This means that the following anglers new to the FLW Tour this year do not qualify for BassFan ROY consideration:
- Asa Godsey -- Clewiston, FL -- fished 1987 Bassmaster Megabucks
- Bobby Lanham -- Scottsdale, AZ -- fished 1991 Megabucks
- Sean Minderman -- Spokane, WA -- fished St. Clair Bassmaster Tour event in August 2001
- Scott Suggs -- Bassmaster Tour rookie last year
- Art Ferguson III -- longtime Bassmaster Tour pro
(PLEASE NOTE: Richard Bennett of Roseville, Calif. was incorrectly listed as an FLW Tour rookie this year. He is the same person as RJ Bennett, who was a Bassmaster Tour rookie in 2004. He has been removed from the 2005 ROY standings, and the remaining rookies have been re-sorted accordingly. Any discrepancy between the text above and the standings below is due to this re-sorting.)