The Northwest's Top 20 - Ranking the best bass anglers

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by D.J. LaRoche on March 1, 2010 at 12:14pm

This is going to be a tough one! I know I would put Hobbs #1 and Ecktemkamp#2, but after that, you have a ton of great sticks. Marcantonio, Hall, Kromm, the list goes on and on, and you could probably swap any of these guys around in the top 3 for sure. I know several of these guys are really tough on certain lakes, and several teams on the NW circuit are extremely tough. (Abbott & Flowers), but I am not sure how they are by themselves. Probably pretty damn good. So basically, I don't have a clue!

Permalink Reply by BigBass Dez on March 1, 2010 at 1:13pm

Joel ,

Touchy topic here IMO , Your asking to me to tell you who we Feel like should be in the top 20 , well out of fairness i would actually base it on something like over the past 5 years which anglers remained in the top 20 in standings on NWbass soley based on weights and results . Well how fair is that too the a guy like tag watson ? is that too say that he doesnt deserve to be in the top 20 ? I would consider tag to be in the top 10 respectively for a # of reasons , but at the same time how fair is that to an angler that based on averages stayed in the top 20 over the past 5 years in NWbass event (get my point).. im kinda with DJ , i can name a few no dout but i dont feel comfortable stating more than the obvious anglers ...How about a top 5 pick for the northwest , that would be easier i think ..

Permalink Reply by David Ohl on March 1, 2010 at 1:26pm

Uhhh... This one might be tough! Theres so many different things to consider. Pont standings, amount of $ won, # of top ten finishes, # of top 5 finishes, # of wins, angler of the year standings. In no particular order her are definately some of the top anglers: Lippincott, Echternkamp, Wolsky, Hobbs, Hall, Abbot, Flowers, Kromm, Hogue, Conklin and a few more that are debatable.. Im sure there will be argument, but what the hell is wafish without a little bickering!

Permalink Reply by David Ohl on March 1, 2010 at 1:28pm

Oh yeah of course Tag Watson is up there without a doubt!

Permalink Reply by Mark Maderos on March 1, 2010 at 5:28pm

Ok I'll take the bait or beating. Any serious tourney angler better believe they are in the top 20 or they are just donating $$$.... So with that said, I say myself. You have to believe in yourself if your going to be sucessful. If you don't believe you can win or consistently finish near the top, to me then your wasting your $$$.
As to my list of guys
Ron Hobbs Jr
David Kromm
Aaron E
Paul Hall
Mike Wolsky
Marc Marcantonio
Mark Maderos
Don Hogue
Chris Lambert
Tag Watson, if he was still fishing tourney's he'd be winning tons of cash
Rob Flowers
Jeff Abbott
Gene Batey
Mitch Ratchford
Lippencott
Gibney
Andy Smith
C Lynch
Jim Garrett
all others

Mark

Permalink Reply by Chad Simon on March 1, 2010 at 6:17pm

THERE WILL NEVER BE A PERFECT LIST! How about the top 20 Tournament Anglers of 2009. This would eliminate a lot of variables. There is no way you will ever correctly name the top 20 Washington bassers. For all we know, there might be some Joe Blow out there that no one has heard of that could whip us all. I know I've ran into my share of Joe Blow's at the launch! I beleive if you took into account standings for FLW, N.W Bass, ABA, BASS Federation Nation, and Washington State bass federation you can get an idea of the best tournament anglers. Anyone can win a tournament, and that's why I would look more closely at standings. What about people like Gabe Lowe, Tom Librande, Andy Gemmill, Steve McMannis, and Ron Mace just to name a few?

Permalink Reply by David Ohl on March 1, 2010 at 6:59pm

Most definately McMannis & Gemmill!

Chad Simon said:

THERE WILL NEVER BE A PERFECT LIST! How about the top 20 Tournament Anglers of 2009. This would eliminate a lot of variables. There is no way you will ever correctly name the top 20 Washington bassers. For all we know, there might be some Joe Blow out there that no one has heard of that could whip us all. I know I've ran into my share of Joe Blow's at the launch! I beleive if you took into account standings for FLW, N.W Bass, ABA, BASS Federation Nation, and Washington State bass federation you can get an idea of the best tournament anglers. Anyone can win a tournament, and that's why I would look more closely at standings. What about people like Gabe Lowe, Tom Librande, Andy Gemmill, Steve McMannis, and Ron Mace just to name a few?

Permalink Reply by Ben Hanes on March 1, 2010 at 7:51pm

It's tough here cause we almost always fish in teams. If you believe that each partner in these teams is as close to or as good as the other, then the top 10 in NWB would make up the top 20. Just in what order, who knows? Like how much better is Kromm than Echterkamp, or vice versa? The top 20 teams wouldn't really work. I've consistenly made it in the top 20 in NWB, but I wouldn't consider myself among the 20 best individual anglers necessarily. There's only 10 teams (thus 20 anglers) at the top, and then there's also those guys like Lambert who only fish a few tournies but are definitely among the best. Very tough. It's also difficult to measure the ability of guys like Tag Watson because we do not necessarily know how he performs in tournaments. No offense to Tag, as I know he's extremely knowledgeable. It's difficult to gauge the history of performance for guys who do not do tournaments, or haven't for quite some time. So here's a shot at my list:

Hobbs
Kromm
Wolsky
Echternkamp
Hall
Lippincott
Hogue
Batey
Gemmill
McMannis
Marcantonio
Matkowski
R.Mace
Lambert
Lynch
Flowers
Abbott
Conklin
Johanson
Simon


And of course, I'm 21st ready to strike at any of these top 20! Bess and Delay are 22nd and 23rd respectively, and can take Hobbs from behind anytime!

Permalink Reply by Joel on March 1, 2010 at 8:01pm

My rankings won't be based solely on tournament winnings, because that would ignore the reality that some of the best anglers in the area aren't "tournament guys". I can virtually guarantee you that Tag will be in the top 5, and, he may challenge for #1.

I've done puh-lenty of number-crunching with tournament results, though, and will say that there WILL be some consideration paid to tournament success. However, and I will say that it's not based solely on the results of the 2009 season. You NW Bass/ABA guys all know, there are certain anglers out there who every one of you says "Dammit, there's ( ). I wish they hadn't shown up today."

That's the case year after year, no matter how successful (or unsuccessful) a guy's tournament season is.

To borrow from the California example again, does anybody here think Mike Long isn't one of the best anglers on the West Coast? He is, without a doubt, one of the best largemouth anglers in the world, but he's not a big tournament guy. Same with Larry Hemphill, who catches more big fish on Clear Lake in a year than Skeet has caught in his entire career.

And so it all goes into the mix. Where would Larry Gonczy - rest in peace, Larry - have fit in this list, despite the fact that he didn't fish tournaments? He would've been on it, for sure.

What comes out at the end will be heavily opinionated, heavily researched, and, undoubtedly, just as heavily debated.

JS

Permalink Reply by S Hwang on March 1, 2010 at 8:09pm

Joel said:

does anybody here think Mike Long isn't one of the best anglers on the West Coast? He is, without a doubt, one of the best largemouth anglers in the world, but he's not a big tournament guy

And the few he does enter he ends up doing pretty well from what I've seen. Like who wants to fish against Tag on Whatcom? (or anywhere for that matter)

Permalink Reply by Ben Hanes on March 1, 2010 at 8:16pm

Okay, nevermind..... I went and happened upon Tag's page and found that my face was turning red and I began sweating as I was so jealous of all of those freakin' huge hawgs! I'm not worthy!!!

Permalink Reply by Andy Smith on March 1, 2010 at 8:28pm

Well said Mark you should believe in yourself.

Mark Maderos said:

Ok I'll take the bait or beating. Any serious tourney angler better believe they are in the top 20 or they are just donating $$$.... So with that said, I say myself. You have to believe in yourself if your going to be sucessful. If you don't believe you can win or consistently finish near the top, to me then your wasting your $$$.
As to my list of guys
Ron Hobbs Jr
David Kromm
Aaron E
Paul Hall
Mike Wolsky
Marc Marcantonio
Mark Maderos
Don Hogue
Chris Lambert
Tag Watson, if he was still fishing tourney's he'd be winning tons of cash
Rob Flowers
Jeff Abbott
Gene Batey
Mitch Ratchford
Lippencott
Gibney
Andy Smith
C Lynch
Jim Garrett
all others

Mark

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