After putting in a heck of a rookie season on the Bassmaster Elite Series, California's Jared Lintner had to wait for the final two FLW Series events to finish before knowing whether he'd be the best true rookie in all of fishing. How would he do that? By winning the BassFan Rookie of the Year (ROY) Race, which tracks the results of only those anglers who have never before fished a tour-level event.
One of those FLW Series events finished last week, at Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., and so far Lintner is sitting pretty.
Going into that event, Georgia's Paul Driskell was the highest FLW Series rookie in the race, at 5th in the standings. But an 82nd at Lake of the Ozarks helped him fall eight places to 13th in the standings. More importantly, that puts him a big 28 points behind Lintner.
And even more importantly, Driskell is still the highest in the ROY standings of any FLW Series rookie.
Does that mean Lintner has this race sewn up? It sure seems that way. We'll find out for sure next month, after the final FLW Series event of the year is fished.
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