A fourth-place finish in the Knockout Round sealed the deal on Birge claiming his first Fishing Clash Angler of the Year title. Photo by Phoenix Moore.
Mitchell Forde, Bass Pro Tour Press Release
SANDUSKY, Ohio — Zack Birge will be the first to admit that everything has seemed to break his way in 2026.
“Every turn I made, it seemed like I ended up in a good place,” the Oklahoma pro said.
But when he faced the opportunity to cap his dream season by clinching the Bass Pro Tour Fishing Clash Angler of the Year title during Saturday’s Knockout Round at Suzuki Marine Stage 7 Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches, it sure didn’t come easy.
The wind whipped up big waves on Lake Erie, and Birge spent all day bobbing up and down on the deck of his Bass Cat. His closest pursuer in the points race, Jacob Wheeler, rocketed out of the starting blocks with 57 pounds in the opening period, virtually assuring himself a spot in Sunday’s Championship Round. Thus, Birge knew he had to finish 11th or better Saturday to avoid giving Wheeler – the AOY winner four of the past five years – an opening.
Around the midpoint of Period 3, Birge slipped as far back as ninth. Between the relentless waves and the pressure to clinch his first AOY crown, Birge threatened multiple times Saturday afternoon to throw up on MLFNOW!. But, as he’s done each day on Erie and just about every day all year, he came through in the clutch. He boated five scorable bass for 13-9 in the last 80 minutes to climb to fourth place and seal the Angler of the Year victory, which will earn him $100,000.
“I never thought I’d be in a position to say I had an opportunity for Angler of the Year against all these guys that are so good,” Birge said shortly after lines out. “It’s freakin’ awesome, I know that. I’ve had so many good things happen this year, so many good events. … I’ll probably never have a year like this again, but it sure does feel good to get one.”
Birge has been consistently solid across his eight-year Bass Pro Tour career, including finishing sixth in the AOY race in each of 2024 and 2025. But entering 2026, he admitted winning the title wasn’t on his radar.
“Just making REDCREST and Heavy Hitters and that kind of stuff – cashing checks, Top 10s – that was kind of my goals coming into the year,” he said. “And it’s just kind of been one of those years where we made a Top 10, we made another Top 10, we won one, we made another Top 10. And then about halfway through the season, it starts becoming a reality, like, hey, there’s a shot at AOY.”
Birge started the year strong with a fourth-place finish at Guntersville. That gave him a shot of positive momentum that he never relinquished. He followed it up with a 15th-place showing on Lake Hartwell (incredibly, his lowest finish of the season). Then, he claimed his second career Bass Pro Tour victory with a runaway final at Stage 3 on Lake Waco.
While that gave Birge even more confidence (not to mention the Angler of the Year lead), he said AOY still wasn’t on his radar at that point. But he just kept stacking on good finishes: eighth place at Stage 4 on O.H. Ivie and Lake Brownwood, third at REDCREST (which didn’t impact the points race but kept his mojo rolling), fourth at Stage 5 on Beaver Lake, third at Stage 6 on Grand Lake.
The through lines in all those strong showings were Birge “making great decisions” and fishing his strengths – two things that went hand in hand. In recent years, he’s made it a point of emphasis to stick to the techniques he’s best at rather than trying to change his game to fit every fishery. For Birge, that means power fishing around shallow cover, typically with a bladed jig or a swim jig. He said he weighed “99%” of his bass this year on those two baits.
“Earlier in my career, when I started, I got wrapped up in a lot of ‘this is the thing you’re supposed to do at this lake; this is what you’re supposed to do at that lake,” Birge said. “And the more I’ve fished, the more I’ve traveled around and seen different places, the more I’ve realized that you’re better off just sticking with your strengths regardless of where you’re at and making it work.”
That made Birge more confident in his decision-making. If what he was doing wasn’t working, he knew it wasn’t a case of being around bass that didn’t want to bite; it was time to either relocate or change tactics.
Rick Pierce, the longtime president of Bass Cat Boats, who has known Birge his entire life, believes simplifying his approach was the single biggest key to Birge’s spectacular season.
“I think he’s just starting to dial in on his style,” Pierce said. “I think prior times, going into the years, he was trying to be a lot more versatile instead of trying to focus on his strengths.”
A key adjustment on Erie
No decisions have loomed larger than the ones Birge has faced at Erie. First and perhaps most important was the call to visit the massive fishery before it went off-limits. Birge thanked two-time FLW Tour Angler of the Year Bryan Thrift for nudging him to do that.
“I’m not someone to go pre-practice anywhere,” Birge said. “It’s not something I’ve ever really done, and I’m usually too busy to go do it anyways. And when I got done at Grand, Thrift walked by, and he said, ‘Are you going to Erie?’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t plan on it.’ And he said, ‘You better take your butt to Erie.’ And I thought about it for a second. I was like, ‘You know what? He’s right.’ I drove straight up here from there and got about four days of pre-practice in before it went off-limits. And the stuff that I found then is what I fished this week, and it’s the place I sat on all day today.”
During his scouting mission, Birge found both shallow largemouth and offshore smallmouth areas. Staying true to the strategy that had carried him all year, he started each of the first two days winding a bladed jig around the bank. That worked well on Day 1; he topped 50 pounds on the day and sat eighth. But on Day 2, his largemouth didn’t cooperate. He mustered only three scorable bass during the first half of the day and slipped perilously close to the Lucas Oil Cut Line.
Birge recognized that it was time to stop fishing his way. He ran to his offshore area and stacked up nearly 40 pounds during the latter half of the day to climb all the way to fifth. Despite the wind and waves, he committed to spending all of Day 3 in that zone. Showcasing the versatility required of any modern Angler of the Year champion, Birge broke out the spinning rods and spent all day shaking a minnow and dragging a tube, both with and without forward-facing sonar.
“It’s not something I typically do, but it’s something I feel like I’m decent at,” Birge said of the finesse approach. “I may not be the best with forward-facing sonar, but I feel like I can at least compete with it. And to be able to compete against these guys, you have to have some knowledge of how to use it and be confident with it.
“It’s scary catching big smallmouth on spinning rods and light line. You’re always going to lose some; you’re going to break some off. But it was the best opportunity I had to have a decent finish and do well, so I had to stick with it.”
Birge’s trademark horseshoe mustache and yellow sunglasses (he bought them off TikTok for $17, then made them a permanent fixture after wearing them during the win on Lake Waco) might give him a jovial air. But to anyone watching live during Period 3, the pressure he felt to close out the AOY win was obvious.
“It stressed me out all week,” he said. “I didn’t sleep the night before the tournament. I didn’t sleep the second day. I didn’t sleep last night. I’ll bet you I sleep really good tonight.”
An all-time strong season
Birge’s season isn’t over yet, but no matter what happens from here, it’ll go down as one of the most impressive single seasons in professional fishing history. He finished in the Top 10 in seven of eight Bass Pro Tour events. He has an outside shot at setting the record for best average finish for a BPT season – he’ll break Wheeler’s 2022 mark if he finishes first or second during Sunday’s Championship Round.
The fact that he one-upped Wheeler – who put together another characteristic season, making five of seven Top 10s and never finishing worse than 14th – only adds to Birge’s sense of accomplishment.
“Jacob’s always a contender for Top 10s; he’s always a contender to win an event, every single one we fish,” Birge said. “AOY, he’s always in the running for it. He’s one of the absolute best. And I can’t say that I’ve beat him many times, but I can at least say that I got him once.”
On top of his BPT dominance, Birge has also won a pair of events on the NPFL. He sits second in the AOY race there with one event left. Between the two tours, he’s cashed a check at every event and already pocketed more than $600,000 (including his $100,000 AOY payday) before collecting his Stage 7 paycheck.
“This year for him is a Kevin VanDam year,” Pierce said. “He’s having a year that really would be as good as Kevin’s best years in his prime. Now, that doesn’t say that he’s Kevin VanDam; but this year is a Kevin VanDam year.”
Further setting Birge’s season apart is the fact that, at a time when 20-somethings have taken bass fishing by storm, he’s done it as a 35-year-old father of two. But while having fewer familial obligations and thus more time to spend on the water might benefit some younger anglers, both Birge and Pierce said his support system – especially his wife, Kristina – is one of his biggest advantages.
“I think Kristina is so involved in his career and so involved in taking care of details that, for Zack, it relieves some pressure,” Pierce said. “For some people, having a family on the road with you becomes a deterrent, because they’ve got to do this, they’ve got to do that. You’re always worried about the children eating or sleeping on time. But in Zack’s case, I think that support factor is a big thing.”
Birge didn’t just show up at the top level and start winning, either. He’s worked his way up the tournament ladder. After fishing collegiately for Oklahoma State, he spent a few years competing in Phoenix Bass Fishing League and Toyota Series events in Oklahoma. A win at the Toyota Series Championship in 2014 served as a springboard to the FLW Tour, where he got progressively better and earned an invitation to the Bass Pro Tour.
That journey has given him an appreciation of just how difficult it is to emerge as the best of the best across an entire season.
“It’s an accomplishment we all want,” he said of winning AOY. “Just like a win, just like a championship, it’s a title that I’ll get to have forever. A lot of people don’t have them, so I’m very thankful to get one.”
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