Bassmaster Elite Series: Swindle finishes 3rd in Angler of Year race
Bass fishing superstar Kevin VanDam won his seventh Bassmaster Toyota Angler of the Year title on Sunday, but Warrior’s Gerald Swindle was not far behind.
Swindle made up for a sluggish start to finish 29th at the Bassmaster Elite Series Dixie Duel last week on north Alabama’s Lake Wheeler. That finish was good enough to push him into third place in the AOY standings.
Swindle, who won the Angler of the Year title in 2004 despite not winning a Bassmaster top-level tournament that year, picked up a $35,000 bonus for third place, in addition to his $10,000 payday for the tournament itself.
His finish at Wheeler bumped his AOY finish from fifth place going into the week, which was a $10,000 improvement in the payout.
Swindle also qualified for the Bassmaster Toyota Trucks All-Star Week, to be held in late July. It’s a unique format, featuring the top eight AOY finishers plus four other anglers, as selected by voters at bassmaster.com.
Those 12 will fish in a semifinal event on Lake Jordan near Wetumpka.
The top eight finishers from that event will then move over to the Alabama River near Montgomery for the championship, where they will go head to head in a bracket-style playoff, which ends with the finals on July 31.