Trey McKinney has spent most of his professional fishing career being the youngest guy in the room.
And apparently, the Bassmaster Elite Series veterans weren't exactly waiting at the dock with open arms.
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McKinney arrived on the Elite Series as a teenager and immediately started making noise. Now, at just 21 years old, he's already a former Rookie of the Year, the youngest Elite Series winner in history and, as of last weekend, the youngest Bassmaster Angler of the Year ever.
But according to McKinney, earning all those accolades was one thing. Earning the respect of the other Elites took a little longer.
"They're not a very welcoming crew to begin with," McKinney told OutKick OutDoors. "If you're somebody that's coming on the Elite Series, don't expect a warm hand of, 'Come on, buddy. The water's warm. Come on in. It's a great time.'"
McKinney isn't complaining about it. In fact, he thinks that's probably how it should be.
"Rookies coming in, you get a hard time. You've got to learn how to prove yourself," he said. "And once you do that, it honestly makes it that much sweeter."
Watch Trey McKinney's full interview with OutKick OutDoors here:
For McKinney, proving himself happened quickly on paper. He finished second in the Angler of the Year standings in each of his first two Elite seasons, both times behind Chris Johnston.
But he said the first couple of years were still a "hard road" when it came to being accepted by the veterans around him.
"This year, it's kind of watching things turn around a little bit, gaining respect from certain people that I would never see it from," McKinney said. "Now that I see that they respect me, I respect them just as much. So it's very mutual."
He laughed while describing just how different those interactions are now.
"Now I can go out and have a normal conversation with somebody, and they don't just — I'm like, 'Hey,' and they just turn around and walk off," he said. "Now we can have a conversation like man to man, and it's pretty special to see where it was to where it is now."
In other words, he's not just the kid anymore.
"Exactly," McKinney said. "I feel more welcome. I feel like I'm out there having fun. We're doing our job. We're competing. We're competitors, and we realize that. But at the same time, we have the same respect as we do for everybody."
If there were any doubts left about whether McKinney belonged among the sport's best, he pretty well erased them on the St. Lawrence River.
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McKinney entered the final Elite Series event of the season with the Angler of the Year title within reach. He then caught a 30-pound, 11-ounce five-fish smallmouth limit on Day 2 — the heaviest in Bassmaster history — and put himself in position not only to win AOY but also to win the tournament.
By Sunday morning, however, the normally cool 21-year-old was feeling every ounce of what was at stake.
"I'd never been so nervous that it affected my fishing, really," McKinney said. "But no, it really did that last day."
There was a tournament win, $200,000 and the title he'd spent three years chasing all hanging on one final eight-hour day.
"I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect me because it did," he said. "I just didn't fish very good. I got nervous. I got impatient. I wanted it to be over quickly, and it just wasn't."
The fish weren't cooperating early, either.
McKinney hit his first few spots and came away with little to show for it. That's when the thoughts started creeping in.
"There's no way I've got all the way here. I've got a good pound cushion. I'm leading the tournament. There's no way I'm letting it slip through my hands. Not this time," he recalled thinking. "I added a lot of pressure to myself, I feel like, more than I should have."
That pressure was especially understandable considering how close he'd already come twice.
Strangely enough, those two previous runner-up finishes had actually helped him stay loose for most of the week.
"I was like, 'You know what? It is what it is. We've been here twice. What's going to happen? Get second again?'" McKinney said. "It kind of took the pressure off of us."
That worked until Sunday.
"All the work we have done literally has come down to this last eight hours, and that's where it all hit me," he said.
Eventually, McKinney landed a 6-pounder, and everything changed.
"Everything was good. Everything was all right, and we fished like normal Trey," he said.
McKinney ultimately finished second in the tournament, but it was more than enough to secure the Angler of the Year title.
And there was some poetic justice in who handed him the trophy.
Johnston, the man who had finished ahead of McKinney in the AOY race in each of the previous two seasons, was there to present it.
McKinney has plenty of respect for Johnston, whom he called an "unbelievable angler." He also admitted he enjoyed finally getting the better of him.
"He beat me fair and square. It is what it was," McKinney said. "But it did feel good to finally get one on him. Like, 'Hey, yeah, you've had the last two years. This one's mine.'"
With the win, McKinney broke a record that had stood since 1992, when Kevin VanDam became Bassmaster Angler of the Year at 24 years old.
McKinney said he didn't even realize until recently that he was still young enough to take that record from the man he called "pretty much the greatest of all time."
"It's pretty special," he said.
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Safe to say, McKinney has earned his place.
At this point, nobody on the Elite Series should need much more convincing.
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