Chris Lane's Astounding Day

Chris Lane weighed-in an astounding 37 pounds, 9 ounces of St. Johns River bass
yesterday to take a 9-pound lead halfway home. B.A.S.S. photo by Seigo Saito.

I mostly avoid re-hashing reports that you can read in various other places. Some things are tough to ignore, though, and a 37-pound, 9-ounce bass limit in a major tournament clearly is one such thing. That's what Chris Lane brought to the scales yesterday on Day 2 of the Bassmaster Elite on the St. Johns River.

Looking at the numbers, Lane would be in 10th place after two days if he had zeroed on Day 1! He actually had a solid 18-11 on the first day, though, so yesterday's giant bag put him nearly 9 pounds ahead of Day 1 leader Randy Howell.

The good news for Chris Lane is that he is in a great position, and because he is not sight-fishing in a crowd, he is not watching his fish supply dwindle. The bad news is that if he could do it yesterday, someone else could do it today or tomorrow. Twenty anglers had 20-pound-plus bags yesterday, and the St. Johns River holds enough big fish that someone else could surge into the spotlight with a giant bag tomorrow. In fact, although the cut-line was 28-14, barely more than half of Lane's two-day total, I'd go as far as to say that no one who made the cut is out of contention halfway home. Lane's bag today could change that story and all but seal the deal, but he was the first to say that he might catch 10 pounds or another giant bag. Not surprisingly, he did not plan to alter his approach of flippin' shallow lily pads