Japan's Shinichi "Shin" Fukae blew away the rest of the rookies in this year's cross-tour BassFan Rookie of the Year Race. His 24th-place finish at last week's Lake Champlain FLW Tour event sealed his FLW Angler of the Year (AOY) win, and was all he needed to win the Rookie Race by a hefty 32.3-point margin over fellow FLW rookie Ray Scheide (Arkansas).

In fact, that 24th-place finish was Fukae's second-worst finish all season. Aside from his 71st at Old Hickory, he had a 4th, 5th, 6th and 11th – pretty amazing for a rookie, even if this rookie only qualifies as one because he's never fished a U.S. tour before. He's in fact a very accomplished angler in his home country, where he won AOY last year.

The next six anglers in the final rookie race standings are all also from the FLW Tour. That might not be surprising since that tour had more rookies this year due to expanding its field from 175 to 200, and also since Bassmaster Tour rookies are handicapped in that they (and all anglers on that tour) are allowed only 3 days of practice while the FLW Tour has no limit on the pre-event practice period.

Two of the FLW Tour anglers in the end-of-season Top 10 moved up in the last event. Virginia's Jacob Powroznik moved up to 4th, trading slots with Ohio's Dennis Magoto. And Florida's David Givens jumped up seven slots into 6th.

The best Bassmaster Tour rookies this year were Florida's Mark Shepard, Texas' Jason Reyes and Alabama's Jimmy Mason, who finished 8th, 9th and 10th respectively in the BassFan Rookie Race points.

Congratulations to Shinichi Fukae and all the rookies who took the plunge this year.