“You gotta pay your dues.”
That once was an unwritten rule in the world of professional bass fishing. The old pros would say, “It takes time before you can work your way to the top of the game.”
But Trey McKinney apparently never got that message. At age 20, he already is accomplishing things anglers twice his age haven’t.
Get this:
- McKinney is the youngest angler to ever qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series, the top rung of the legendary tournament organization.
- He was the youngest fisherman to ever win Rookie of the Year (in 2024) on the Elite circuit.
- McKinney also is the youngest to ever win an Elite national tournament. In fact, he has won two of them since he qualified for the circuit.
- He continued his meteoric rise to the top in B.A.S.S. this year, finishing second in the Angler of the Year standings in the Elite Series.
- Of the 33 tournaments he has competed in, he has finished in the top 10, 15 times.
What’s With This Kid?
Just eight or nine ago, he didn’t know much about tournament bass fishing and seemed destined to follow in his parents’ footsteps as rodeo barrel racers. But his love for bass fishing led him on a different path.
He was brought up in southern Illinois, not exactly a hotbed for bass fishing. But he credits his childhood days with teaching him important lessons about how to catch big largemouth.
“We have mostly small lakes in the area where I grew up (in Marion, Ill.) ,” he told Wired2fish. “What I learned most is how to fish pressured water. We’ll have 100 boats on a 2,500-acre lake in a tournament. Every point has a boat on it.
“It taught me how to fish in a crowd. A lot of it has to do with how to present your bait. You can fish a spot, but there’s always a key spot on that spot.
“If I could find a little isolated piece of cover that was holding fish — and if I had five or six of those a day — I could do well.”
A Family Affair
McKinney learned the basics of bass fishing on the pond in back of his family home. He remembers his mom putting a life jacket on him and paddling him around the pond so that he could fish. His father was supportive as well, though he was often busy running his country western store and didn’t have the time to fish.
A turning point came when Trey accompanied his cousin, Trevor McKinney, on a trip to an Illinois reservoir. Trevor, a tournament fisherman himself, taught Trey the ropes and they both ended up catching big bass that day.
Trey went on to enter his church’s bass tournament when he was just a little guy, and the hook was set.
“I never knew you could make a living as a bass angler,” he said. “When I found out, I just couldn’t get enough.”
Because he was home-schooled, he had the freedom to go fishing in his spare time. “The school work always came first,” he said. “If I completed everything, I could go fishing.”
When Rick Cheatham, a customer of the McKinneys’ western store, learned of Trey’s love for bass fishing, he offered to coach him. He had been a local fishing legend until he became involved with other things. That began a long friendship and gave McKinney plenty of experience on the mental and physical demands of tournament fishing.
“Rick and I fished team tournaments and we won three boats (the championship prize in regional tournaments),” Trey said.
Skills Honed by Time Outdoors
As an avid outdoorsman from the time he was old enough to venture into the field, he learned the correlation between hunting and fishing.
”Hunting and fishing are very much alike,” he told Wired2fish. “You’re stalking something in its natural habitat. Stealth is huge. If a fish is on edge, it won’t act like it normally would. It’s the same thing with deer. The more you can sneak up on something without letting it know you are there, the better chances you have.”
McKinney began fishing grassroots Bassmaster tournaments (the BFL circuit) in Illinois and did so well that he won Angler of the Year honors two years in a row. He then moved onto the Bassmaster Elite Qualifier Series and continued to impress there.
When he qualified for the Elites in 2024, he won only his second event in the big time. He shocked the bass-fishing world with a four-day total of 130 pounds, 15 ounces at Lake Fork in Texas, less than two pounds off the B.A.S.S. all-time weight record set by Paul Elias in 2008 on Falcon Lake.
Since then, he has worked tirelessly to improve his game. He is on the water every chance he gets, using some of the money he has earned to buy a camper so that he can travel.
Yes, he is one of the younger generation who can use the latest electronics to locate and catch bass. But he is far from being one-dimensional. His many hours on the water have given him a strong sense of how bass react in certain situations.
He is learning the business side of the sport, too, attracting major sponsors such as 6th Sense, Bass Cat, Seaguar, and FXR. Now, he is just excited to see where this wild ride can take him. He is humble about his success, yet he is confident in his ability.
“It’s so much fun being out there competing against some of the best bass fishermen in the world,” he said. “I just want to keep learning.”
