Making It Look Easy

By winning back-to-back Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year titles, Chris Johnson joins only three others in the exclusive club. Their names: Guido, KVD and Roland.

Select company indeed.

What’s it take to win Angler of the Year, repeatedly? Consistency near the top is certainly key. But is there a fishing strategy that can be followed?

Looking at Johnston’s performance across 2024 and 2025 should give us a clue, or so I thought. My goal was to uncover his blueprint for dominance, perhaps a mathematical pattern that leads to the top of the standings.

What I found, however, was an equation that may never be solved. Which led to more digging.

Consider this: For possibly the first time in history - certainly the first I can remember - the Bassmaster Angler of the Year never had a top-10 finish throughout the season. You read that right.

In 2025, Chris Johnston’s best performances were a pair of 11th-place finishes. He never fished a Sunday. How then, we must wonder, could he have won AOY?

The answer lies in his worst performances, rather than his best. In 2025, Johnston never finished worst than 33rd. He cashed a check in every event.

Looking further, Johnston’s closest competitors all had one bomb. An 89th for Trey McKinney; a 92nd for Kyoya Fujita.

So the key, then, is to eliminate any catastrophes. Johnston confirmed, sort of.

“It didn’t feel like a stellar year,” he said when I called. “I was just cashing checks, paying the bills.”

“All year, I was never on the winning fish in practice.”

Compare that, though, to 2024. Again Johnston took the AOY title, but he did it with four top-10 finishes, including a runner-up showing in which he lost by an ounce. That same year, Johnston missed just one paycheck, with a finish in the middle of the pack. Still, no bombs.

Looking at the statistics, it seems like Johnston had a much better performance in 2024. Yet, this season he actually accumulated more points. From a quick glance, it almost seems like the math is wrong.

But it’s not. In 2025, Johnston kept himself near the top and in the game. He was a singles hitter instead of a slugger. The 2025 performance was slightly better than 2024, but drastically different.

It would make sense, then, that Johnston’s methods must have changed. I’d guess he stayed off the bank, forever focusing on schools of limit fish with the aid of live sonar. More good, but not great, catches.

But I’d be wrong.

“In 2024, a lot of it was a minnow bait on a jighead,” Johnston noted. “This year, forward-facing played a role in less than half (of his fishing). It was more shallow, flipping and bed fish.”

It may surprise many fans that Johnston is a shallow-water power fisherman by trade, his smallmouth prowess only being capitalized on in recent years. Back in the early days of his career, Johnston chased only green ones, in the reeds and under docks.

Johnston is truly a working-man's pro – you can hear it in his voice.

“Every year, my first goal is to make the Classic, then have a shot at AOY when we head north (for the final events of the year),” he said.

This year, of course, he achieved both. In his seven years on the Elite Series, Johnston has yet to miss qualifying for a Bassmaster Classic. He’s won two AOYs, but only one event. I wondered what that was.

“I’m knocking on the door,” Johnston confirmed. And he’s right, finishing second six times in those seven seasons.

So what could it be? Certainly there must be a winning strategy or secret method to Johnston’s success.

“I fished the same way in 2025 that I have for 12 years,” he said.

Damn. Certainly there was a tightening up once the AOY was in his sights.

“Yeah, there was,” he confirmed. “At the Mississippi River, I chose to stay in pool 8 to avoid getting locked out.”

The result was a 19th-place finish for the AOY win. Smart move.

With the interview winding down, I tried one last Hail Mary to uncover Johnston’s secrets, and finally scored.

“Three times this year, I caught a big fish in the last 10 minutes that moved me way up the standings," he added. "There was an eight-pounder at the St. Johns, another key fish at Tenkiller. The were some never-give-up moments for sure."

That, it seems, is fairly common for the Canadian superstar.

“I never quit. I always fish until the last minute,” he noted.

And it’s paid off – a lot.

While a technical strategy to winning bass fishing titles may never be established, one factor again comes forth: Determination. Belief in the fact that one cast - whether it’s the first or the last - is all it takes to win. A chip and a chair. Confidence backed by performance.

Chris Johnston has that in spades. His wining formula, as it turns out, was there all along.

Joe Balog is the Executive Director of Mighty River Recovery, a nonprofit organization working to restore Florida’s St. Johns River. A former national tournament angler, product designer, seminar speaker and guide, Balog has worn just about every hat available to a professional angler. Today, he enjoys rehashing his experiences and adding veteran insight through his weekly Bass Wars column.

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