Trey McKinney understood the significance of the smallmouth bass fighting on the end of his line.
Already in his third year as a professional, the 21-year-old angler had spent most of the final day of the 2026 Bassmaster Elite season feeling something he had become shockingly good at suppressing: pressure.
“I was absolutely crappin’ myself probably,” McKinney told me a few days later. “I was just thinking, I’m not gonna mess this up. Everybody’s watching. I have a big one. I have to catch this big one. I need this big one. This is AOY. This is everything I’ve ever done.”
And when he finally lifted that 6-pound smallmouth into his boat, everything changed.
“Everything just went quiet,” McKinney said. “Everything was peaceful again. My brain wasn’t chaotic after that.”
From launch time until that pivotal bass in the late morning, he said his mind was “a pinball machine with so many balls going around, it was crazy.” After catching that good one, he was able to get back to fishing like normal.
As it turns out, that one fish was the difference-maker that allowed McKinney to secure the 2026 Bassmaster Elite Angler of the Year (AOY) title—the youngest angler ever to win the award. And now, 21-year-old McKinney is also one of the very few people in the world who have taken a record away from the legendary Kevin VanDam, who was 24 when he became the youngest AOY in 1992.
But honestly, McKinney’s age may not even be the most interesting part of this story.
McKinney Already Knew How to Win
Winning bass tournaments is nothing new for McKinney. His fishing résumé and trophy collection, just from his journey up to the pro ranks, would make most seasoned fishermen envious. After just three years as an Elite pro, he has collected two big blue Elite trophies.
But two titles had remained so close, yet just out of reach—the titles every angler dreams of. Amazingly, McKinney finished the AOY race in second place each of his first two years of competition. In doing so, he qualified to compete in his first two Bassmaster Classics, finishing second in both of them.
Again, that’s already a career that most professional anglers would gladly take after decades of competition. But being so painfully close to the sport’s biggest prizes so many times has provided the young angler with an unusual amount of experience and lessons learned.
Now, as this year’s official Angler of the Year, McKinney describes his earlier efforts bluntly.
“I choked trying to win it for the last two years,” he said.
I asked him to explain that harsh choice of words.
He explained that “choked” wasn’t really about his ability to catch fish under pressure. It was about making little mistakes.
For example, during his rookie year he answered a phone call during competition hours, leading to a disqualification at a tournament that was otherwise going great. If not for that DQ, it appeared that he was going to walk away with AOY.
“I think we’ve just grown, matured a little bit,” McKinney said. “Having a little bit less of those mistakes.”
How You Really Win Angler of the Year
Three full seasons as a pro have changed the way he thinks about points and the AOY title.
“Every single day that you’re out there on the competition water matters,” he said. “Every place, every fish. One fish, even in your worst tournament of the year, can be the difference.”
If you lose a five-pound bass on the final day of a tournament that you were in contention to win, everyone remembers it. But if you lose that exact same fish on day two, when you’re in 90th place, nobody really notices.
But that one fish might have moved you up 20 places in the standings, giving you 20 more points at the end of the year. Those points can easily be the difference in AOY.
“The tournaments that you really didn’t do that good, is the ones that is gonna separate yourself the most,” McKinney said.
This year’s Elite Series event on Santee Cooper was an example. Heading in with a strong lead in AOY, a 90th-place bomb left him dazed. After finishing runner-up in AOY the previous two years, he admitted thoughts of “Here we go again” were unavoidable. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t,” McKinney said. “There’s always one every year.”
But as we now know, he recovered from that setback. Although it ended up being one of the closest AOY races ever, on the final day of the season’s final event on the St. Lawrence River, McKinney became the Angler of the Year.
Winning Without the FFS Asterisk
If you’ve followed anything to do with bass fishing the past couple years, you might not be surprised to learn that winning this year’s AOY trophy was particularly sweet to McKinney.
Starting with the 2026 season, B.A.S.S. split the schedule between tournaments that allowed forward-facing sonar (FFS) and tournaments where it was prohibited.
Of course, as a young and very successful angler, McKinney has heard all of the criticism from those opposed to FFS. After winning AOY, he told Bassmaster, “There’s really not much anyone can say ever again.”
I asked him specifically who he was talking to.
“It’s only certain people…the social media people,” he said.
McKinney doesn’t apologize for using FFS. In fact, he told me directly, “I know I can catch them without forward-facing, but I’d rather not.”
“I don’t see why people get so turned up on whether it’s, ‘Oh, I caught him with this, or I caught him with this,’” he said. “I still caught more bass than you.”
To McKinney, if everyone has access to the same tools, it’s a fair competition. Mastering every available tool is just part of being a professional fisherman.
“It felt good kind of just going out where I caught them with both,” he said. “Nobody can really take it from me.”
Of course, he would have loved to win every AOY possible, but maybe having to wait a few years was for the best.
“It was honestly a blessing in disguise that I did win it this year instead of the last two years,” McKinney said. “It would have been a lot of drama around it just because of LiveScope.”
Finishing in the top 21 in three out of four non-FFS events this year, including a top 10 at Guntersville, should go a long way toward silencing those critics.
More Than Catching Bass
I’ve noticed another aspect of McKinney’s meteoric rise that doesn’t show up in the tournament stats.
I’ve worked with many professional anglers through the marketing side of the fishing industry for more than two decades, including my work with McKinney sponsor FXR Pro Fish who arranged this interview. I was scheduled with McKinney for late on Friday afternoon heading into the long Labor Day weekend—the last interview of the day. I was told he had already spent the day—and likely most of the week—talking with media and sponsors regarding his new title. I was even asked to push our interview back 30 minutes because those conversations were running long.
I would have understood if the kid was running on fumes. Almost anyone would have been.
He wasn’t.
I found McKinney to be thoughtful, engaged and enthusiastic. That’s a huge part of being a professional angler that sponsors depend on, and something McKinney already handles with the best of them.
Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising. He estimates he fishes 200 days or more each year. While many of his peers are experiencing college life, he’s often alone on the road.
“I’m living this life, but all my friends are in college, and they’re having a ball, and I’m out here just grinding,” he said. “It’s tough, man.”
But that definitely wasn’t said with an ounce of pity. This is everything McKinney wants. And after several years of pressure, refinement and near misses, he said “This season finally felt fun.”
Thinking about his runner-up finishes, he said, “I already knew the outcome of that. I’ve already been there. I was like, I’m just going to go for the win no matter what.”
Now at 21 years old, he holds one of the two most coveted titles in professional bass fishing.
Yet, strangely, the one trophy he doesn’t have must look like a giant bare spot on the McKinney mantel.
It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Trey McKinney has been runner-up twice in his only two Bassmaster Classic appearances to date.
In the spring of 2027, he’ll get another chance.
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