Third time’s the charm, right?
After back-to-back second-place finishes in the Bassmaster Elite Series, both times behind Chris Johnston, Trey McKinney is officially the 2026 Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year. Edging out Chris’s brother Cory Johnston, Trey becomes the youngest winner ever at just 21 years old, and also secured the largest smallmouth bag in Elite Series history with a whopping 30 pounds, 11 ounces during the final stage at the St. Lawrence River.
I caught up with Trey last week to chat about the final stage, winning AOY, fishing for deep Great Lakes smallmouth, his offseason plans, forward-facing sonar, and more. For the young Illinois native, the shock is finally starting to wear off and the reality of this incredible accomplishment is starting to sink in.
With some time to reflect, he calls it something he’ll remember for the rest of his life:
“I’ve been so close to it for a couple of years now, it really… it really hadn’t soaked in, you know. I knew it would happen, but I kind of like blacked out. It was great, everything was awesome, but I didn’t realize that it had actually happened, you know? But now looking back into it and letting it soak all in and stuff, man, it was an unbelievable, unbelievable week. It was something I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.”
Of course, when you’re young, hungry, and finally taste victory after coming up just short two years in a row, one might expect Trey to be getting right back to work. But that’s not the case at all; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. In order to keep that killer instinct alive, Trey immediately switches over to the hunting season.
WBE has launched the inaugural Champions tournament in Nashville this year, featuring the best from both the Bassmaster Elite Series and Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour. After that final derb in October, Trey will be putting the rods away for the season.
“I’m quite the opposite. A lot of people think like, ‘Oh, he works hard.’ Yes, so I do work extremely hard. The problem is I work almost as hard as I possibly can, so then like, there’s a fine line of getting burned out right there at the end of the season. And that’s when I take a break and I switch the gears over to hunting. Literally, as soon as I got home, I drove 16 hours straight back home, got to my house at 4:30, woke up at 5:30, and headed straight to the dove field. We killed out on doves, all my family and friends, we killed out, killed two bands, and so honestly, the gears have been switched.
I got one more tournament left in Old Hickory, I’m going to go down there and fish. The rods are going to be fishing for a couple more weeks and then they’re locked up. And it’s time for the weapons to come out.”
And just so we’re clear, that includes ice fishing, which isn’t very prevalent in Southern Illinois anyway. For Trey, it’s more about recharging the batteries and letting that bass excitement grow before he gets back out on the water in January:
“Here, where we are, we used to get pretty cold, but honestly, you’re risking your life getting on ice just to catch a bass. That’s the thing for me is like, I have to be excited for it. For me to be the best, and at the top end of my success, you know, for me to be the best I possibly can, I gotta be excited for it. And that usually consists of not fishing during the winter.
And man, that first like kind of warmy day where it’s like 35 to 50, you know, during the day, low at night is like right at freezing, when I get that first day like that and they’re biting a jerkbait real good down in Texas or something, January, now that’s when I get fired up, you know, like I’m ready, I’m done, you know. It’s fishing time then.”
Nothing quite like that first jerkbait bite of the year, am I right?
No doubt about it, it’s been one heck of a year for Trey McKinney, and something tells me that he’s just getting started.
