I am going First Glance, because in a day or so, all the footage will be out, photos, articles on baits and presentation, the real nuts & bolts of how the anglers caught their fish.  Right now we are going off the cuff, a little anyways.

Congrats to Skeet Reese, this with his AOY title validates his career if he never boats another bass in a tournament, not likely!  I think several guys were on fish to win this event, but it seems that Skeet just made the right decisions and for the most part must have fished pretty clean and landed his bites.  The early reports are he used two main baits, the new Crazy Legs Chigger craw and the Lucky Craft Redemption Spinnerbait.  These baits seem very fitting, since a chigger craw was Skeet’s demise when Boyd Duckett used it to knock him to second on Lay Lake and Skeet designed the Redemption Spinnerbait for Lucky Craft and that is exactly what he got, REDEMPTION!!!  It will also be interesting if other anglers start sporting Skeet’s new hair style….  Maybe since he could spend less time on his hair and more time preparing tackle or sleeping and that is what fueled his win…….


Iaconelli is a great angler, but I think our ear drums will appreciate him not winning   As I review the final standings, the most interesting thing I noticed is that not a single angler was able to break 20lbs on more then one day.  The weighs were really kind of up and down for all the anglers, I think that is just the nature of the Red RIver to some degree.  I believe the guys weights who varied less were the ones that made the better adjustments in either area or presentation or both.  COngrats to Federation Nation champ Brian Schmidt for his 6th place finish, awesome job!!!

Couple interesting things, Kelly Jordan left his primary area early today with a few small fish, later in the day Alton Jones slipped in and caught 20lbs, so if KJ would have stuck it out or came back earlier, it could have been a different story.   Also Jami Fralick was sharing an area with Snowden, the first two days, Fralick caught the big bag, today Snowden had the big bag and would have won it for Fralick, tough to say what would have happened if they didn’t have to share.

Seemed like pad stems and wood were big keys.  Soft plastics, Spinnerbaits, jigs and a few crankbait fish.  Like Kenyon Hill said, it is very much Meat & Potato fishing.

Photo Courtesy of ESPN.com
I think my Fantasy team took a nose dive as all 3 of my remaining anglers fell in the standings.  Better luck in 2 weeks at Amistad.

RichLindgren.com 
Bass Fishing Today
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Congratulations to Skeet Reese!!

Man some big bags of fish were weighed in again today, I hope they give some better coverage to those 20lb plus bags tonight on TV.  There were 5 monster bags outside of the Super Six.  A couple of 6 & 7 pound fish weighed.  Man I wish I had the ESPN360.com

More to come later!!!

Moving day at the Classic lived up to the billing.  Some guys stumbled like Boyd Duckett, but a bunch of the anglers really stepped on the gas on Day 2.  On day 1, Boyd had the loan 20lb bag, on Saturday there was a 20lb bag and three 22lb bags.  For the most part, you needed to catch them better today then on Friday just to keep pace.  Even though the air & water temps cooled, the cloud cover made the bass  easier to harvest for most of the anglers.

I am very impressed with Jami Fralick’s consistency, looks like he has found a stellar area and has also been managing his fish.  I some what expected to see him fade away much like Charlie Hartley did last year, but now I believe he will be right there at the end with a few other anglers.  Other anglers like Kelly Jordan have eluded to catching their bags early and the going to new water, so we will see what pros have managed their fish well on Day 3.   The bite sounds to be tougher on Sunday, but guys that have left their fish early each day, may be able to really milk those areas on Sunday to push for the win.  We have the top 7 guys all hunting for their first classic and three former classic champs right behind them.  I would say that there is a 80-90% likelihood that we will have a first time champ this afternoon.

Photo Courtesy of ESPN.com
The Federation Nation anglers are for the most part not in contention to win after today, but 3 of them made the cut, which is very respectable.  There is a possibility for someone to make a big charge, because I get the feeling that the Red can very cruel, so a couple guys could stumble on top and someone could catch an 8lb bass and make a big threat. Alton Jones did tell a story about breaking off a 10lb bed fish twice at the end of the day.   But I believe for all practical purposed, the Top 10 guys are ones with legitimate shots at taking home the $500k.  Boyd & Ike are tied for 9th and sit just under 5lbs out of the lead.

Reports say most guys caught them on reaction baits yesterday, Skeet = Spinnerbait, Jordan = Magic Shad, Fralick = Swimming Jig, Davis = Crankbait, will those presentations work today with high skies or will they need to adjust?   Will guys like Martens or Wolak who were finesse fishing soft plastics be able to keep their bite going better.  One thought is that Kelly Jordan is fishing closest to the launch, so maybe he can get an early bite better with his reaction baits while his competitors are still running.

Photo Courtesy of ESPN.com
My Fantasy Fishing team rebounded a bit on day 2, while I only got 3 guys fishing on day 3, all of my guys increased their weights and moved up in the standings.  Right now my score is 1171, which bumps me to 11th out of 34 in my group, 9643 overall, 68.6 percentile.  I still think my guy KJ will come through and anchor my Fantasy Fishing team to a solid finish!

RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

Below is the unnoficial leaderboard at the end of the day, again you can see the large variance & for the most part, the top part of the field were all a bunch of sandbaggers today when it comes to the BassTrakk.

I don’t have access to ESPN360 either, but right now they are showing pictures of the monitors on the Expo Cam, so I can now see a mini-screen of the weigh-in with audio.  And can kind of see it, if I watch it in full screen.

Also, another Bassmaster Classic content source was found today.  Check out Dave Mercer’s Video Blog at his Facts of Fishing site.

I hope a few of you can watch this as well.

Rich