Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Morrison sweeps Invitationals Angler of the Year, Rookie of the Year titles

Alec Morrison won almost everything possible on the Invitationals this year. Photo by Rob Matsuura.

By Mitchell Forde 

Major League Fishing Invitationals 

TRENTON, Mich. – After catching fire at the Toyota Series level in 2023, Alec Morrison entered his debut season touring nationally on the short list of favorites to claim the Polaris Rookie of the Year title for the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals. True to form, Morrison continued his meteoric rise through the tournament ranks by not only coming through to claim that crown but winning the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race as well.

While Morrison came up 10 ounces short of winning Stop 6 Presented by B&W Hitches on the Detroit River, he’ll return to New York with an impressive hardware haul. After besting Jake Lawrence by 17 points in the season-long AOY competition, Morrison received $50,000 from Fishing Clash as well as a berth to REDCREST 2025 on Lake Guntersville. He’ll also receive a new Polaris UTV plus an invitation to join the Bass Pro Tour — Major League Fishing’s top circuit — in 2025.

“It feels unbelievable,” Morrison said. “It’s super cool to be able to win against such a stout field.”

Laying the groundwork for a spectacular season

For as long as he can remember, Morrison has wanted one thing more than any other: To make his living fishing for bass. He’s worked to achieve that objective since well before he was old enough to drive.

“I’d get home from school, and my mom would bring me to the lake and dump me in the water, and I wouldn’t do my homework,” Morrison recalled with a laugh. “I would just go out there and literally fish until dark. I spent a lot of nights fishing until dark and then graphing until like 3 a.m.”

Bud Cipoletti, who Morrison considers a mentor and close friend, first met Morrison when Morrison was about 11 years old. It didn’t take long for Morrison’s knowledge and passion to stand out as he competed on and around Lake Champlain, his home fishery

“Everybody just saw the fire in his eye, the passion, the focus level at a very young age,” Cipoletti said. “And we all saw it coming, his ascent to success.”

The rest of the country got a glimpse of what Cipoletti had seen in 2023. That winter, Morrison spent several months living with Cipoletti and Garrett Rocamora in Florida. Already a strong offshore smallmouth angler, Morrison threw himself into learning more about shallow grass fisheries and trophy-sized largemouth with gusto and results that amazed Cipoletti.

“I met up with him at the end of a day on (Lake) Placid together, and I watched him put together like a 49-pound bag,” Cipoletti recalled. “It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I watched his whole process, and it felt like somebody who had perfected their method. He had a whole system of scanning forever, for four hours, and finding all of the juice, and then going back through scientifically, methodically — with the wind, against the wind. And I watched him put together that insane bag, and I was like, this is crazy. And the thing is, he did that every day for the next few weeks. He put together like 45-plus-pound bags on a lake that everybody had said was on the downslide. And then he won every local tournament in Florida that he entered.”

Morrison rode that momentum to a May Toyota Series event on Sam Rayburn Reservoir. In his first ever trip to the famous fishery, he not only beat a field of Texas hammers but set a Toyota Series record with his 24-pound margin of victory.

While Cipoletti said he wasn’t surprised by Morrison’s performance, Morrison himself points to his Rayburn route as a moment he started to believe he could compete outside of the Northeast. That confidence further ballooned as he went on to win one Phoenix Bass Fishing League event on Champlain plus finish second in another as well as winning the Angler of the Year crown for the Toyota Series Northern Division.

“Rayburn was definitely a huge turning point,” Morrison said. “I feel like I fished kind of a specific kind of way, and I had a few good events on my home body of water, Champlain, in years past, but I basically never won anything. Once I was able to get that victory, I was able to kind of look at myself as an angler and realize, I can do this; the way I like to fish works.”

A nearly flawless campaign

Even as well as Morrison finished the 2023 campaign, he didn’t enter his rookie season on the Invitationals thinking about winning Angler of the Year or qualifying for the Bass Pro Tour. With Rayburn and Champlain both on the schedule, his primary goal was to win one of those two events.

“I was like, I should probably fish (the Invitationals) considering two of them are places I feel really confident at,” Morrison said with his typical nonchalance. “So, that was really the main goal going into the season was to win those two events, and it’s really crazy how things kind of came together.”

While Morrison didn’t hoist the trophy at either event, he did finish among the Top 10 in both. Now, looking back at a season he initially thought might contain some highs and lows, it’s his consistency that jumps off the page.

Morrison made the cut at all six Invitationals. He finished among the Top 10 four times, with three of those being fourth place or better. His average finish of 8.67 is the best by an angler on the Invitationals/Pro Circuit since Bryan Thrift in 2010.

“He had 17 pretty much great days of fishing in a row,” fellow Invitationals pro and New York native Brett Carnright said. “He never slipped up one time, never had an off day, which is extremely impressive, because when you go to new bodies of water and only get three days of practice, usually a couple times throughout the year, you’re going to have a bad day.”

While his season contained a lot of memorable moments, Morrison pointed to two that went the furthest toward propelling him to the points crown. The first occurred on Day 2 at Sam Rayburn, when he caught an 11-pound lunker. The second came during his first day of practice on Kentucky Lake. Morrison said he feared that event more than any other on the schedule, but after finding a stretch of offshore structure dotted with spawning smallmouth, he suddenly believed he could contend for the win. It was after he finished fourth in that event that Morrison said he seriously started gunning for Angler of the Year.

              


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