08/25/2026
Meet our machinery: Trey McKinney is a household name among anglers. A three-time Bassmaster Elite Series Champion, the 22-year-old angler from Carbondale, Illinois currently sits in first place in the 2026 Bassmaster Elite Angler of the Year points race!
Trey has been rightly described as a generational talent in bass fishing... something the St. Croix Team suspected as early as ten years ago, when we began working with him.
Trey does much more than help St. Croix sell fishing rods; he provides input and feedback to our Product and Engineering Teams on many of our bass-rod series and delivers cutting-edge tips and insights that help our anglers become better on the water... including all of us employed at St. Croix Rod.
"I was fortunate to meet Trey through a mutual friend when he was about 12 years old," recalls St. Croix Director of Sales, Dan Johnston. "We'd have these phone conversations about fishing, and even though I'd been bass fishing my entire life, the things this young man would say to me consistently blew my mind. Even at that age, Trey looked at the details of fishing and pieced things together that so many really good anglers never even think about. It's been so much fun watching Trey succeed at every level over the years, and we couldn't be prouder to have him as a part of the St. Croix Family."
Trey uses a huge variety of St. Croix rods, but some of his all-time favorites are the VICTORY VTC73MHF, LEGEND X2 LXTC74HF, and the LEGEND TOURNAMENT BASS LBTS71MF. Trey is back in action this week at the final event of the 2026 Bassmaster Elite season, the Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River, August 27-30. Trey leads Drew Cook and Cory Johnston in the AOY race by just one and two points, respectively. Good luck, Trey, and thanks for everything you do for our anglers!
