CHICAGO, Ala., July 21 - Building winds and finicky bass reshuffled the 30th annual BASS Masters Classic leaderboard Friday and selected a clear leader from what had been a tightly knit field of contenders.
On the strength of the event's largest five-bass limit (13 pounds, 1 ounce), veteran Virginia pro Woo Daves jumped from 10th into the second-round lead with 21 pounds, 5 ounces. Florida's Shaw Grigsby is second with 17-1, followed by Mark Rizk of California with 16-10. Fourth place is shared by four-time Classic winner Rick Clunn of Missouri and Japan's Norio Tanabe with 16-6.
The 54-year-old Daves, competing in his 15th Classic, has been in this position before. He held the lead twice in past Classics on his home waters (James River) before coming up less than 1 pound short each time of winning competitive fishing's most important title.
"I've been through this several times and it always seems like it slips away from me," Daves said. "I don't get this excited any more. I've been at this a long time and I'm just going fishing tomorrow. My lead is not insurmountable. Nothing is insurmountable in this game."
Daves' limit of smallmouth bass were caught on a Zoom tube jig impaled on a light jighead and tied to 6-pound test line. His most productive spot is a series of rocks in Lake Michigan located in the shadow of the famous Sears Tower. "It was really pretty rough," he said. "When I got out of the boat, it felt like I was still bobbing."
Grigsby, the 44-year-old host of the One More Cast television show on TNN, also caught the bulk of his 8-pound, 14-ounce limit Friday in wind-blown Lake Michigan. "It's hard to fish efficiently when you have waves breaking over the bow and over the sides, and knocking you down," he said. "My experience fishing saltwater sure came in handy today."
Grigsby's success came on a 3/8-ounce Strike King spinnerbait and tube jig. After spending the morning rocking and rolling on the big lake, he switched gears and ran to a protected harbor to finish out his limit.
Third-place pro Mark Rizk fished in a crowd in the Calumet River Friday without success when he stumbled upon a group of schooling bass. A finesse worm produced six bass in consecutive casts to enable him to fashion a respectable limit weighing 9-10.
"I was really hurting before I stumbled into a bunch of feeding fish," Rizk said. "Those fish were just going crazy. It surprised me because I had never seen anything like it in this river system."
The Classic concludes Saturday when the champion is awarded $100,000.