Another Auburn Showdown For Classic Bid

B.A.S.S. photo by Seigo Saito

A year ago, Jordan Lee's final-day battle for a spot in the Bassmaster Classic field was against his brother and Auburn teammate, Matt Lee, and Matt edged him out to fish the Grand Lake Classic. A year later, after a full season of competition against college anglers from all over the country, Jordan Lee has again made it all the way to the final round and will be battling for an opportunity to fish the Classic. This year, instead of fishing against his brother, Lee will fish against his longtime best friend and another Auburn teammate, Shane Powell.

No matter which teammate brings in the best catch from Michigan's Grand River today, the Classic's college representative will again come from Auburn, which is an extra exciting prospect to either angler as the Classic will be held on Alabama's Lake Guntersville.

Today's competition is head-to-head, with weights from the past two days erased, and looking back at the last couple of days tells little about who is most likely to win. Lee had the biggest bag of eight anglers on Day 1 with more than 15 pounds, but conditions changed notably yesterday, and his best Day 1 pattern didn't hold up on Day 2. Had they been competing against each other yesterday, Powell would have won, but only by about a pound.

We'll find out this afternoon at 4:00 eastern. That's when they weigh 'em. You can watch it live on bassmaster.com. And when the college anglers get done, Hank Cherry, Kevin VanDam, Edwin Evers and Cliff Pace will weigh their fish for the All Star championship.

Pace Persevered to Prevail in Classic

Today was the toughest day Cliff Pace has ever endured on the water. He began the morning with a commanding lead in the Bassmaster Classic. Not insurmountable, but very impressive, and everyone knew that he would have to stumble somewhat to not get the chance to hoist the trophy at day's end, even if someone else caught them quite well. Fortunately for Pace, none of his nearest competitors put together a true Grand Lake monster bag, because the day was a grind for him, with two very early fish and then absolutely nothing -- NOTHING -- for hours. Of course, he had no way of knowing what anyone else was doing, so as far as he know, the sport's biggest title could have been slipping out of his hands.

Pace ended up catching two more fish very late in the day and brought in four fish that weighed 11 pounds, 8 ounces. As it turned out that was enough to allow him to beat Brandon Palaniuk by 3 pounds. Palaniuk's 15-pound bag got him closer to Pace, but it wasn't enough to overcome Pace's 7-pound lead, which was the result of 21-pound-plus days on Friday and Saturday.

Pace earned a check for $500,000. More importantly in the minds of most pros, he earned designation as a Bassmaster Classic Champion. Congratulations Cliff Pace.

Palaniuk's Plan

Brandon Palaniuk, BASS photo by Gary Tramontina.

Brandon Palaniuk is currently leading the Bassmaster Classic. Well, he's leading based on BASStrakk, which is a live tracking of anglers' estimated catches. That said, he started this morning 7 pounds behind leader Cliff Pace. Palaniuk has a limit already today, while Pace is only showing to have caught two fish. That means Palaniuk, who leads by only a few ounces, can only increase his weight by culling, while Pace gets the full weight of his next three legal fish.

No matter where Palaniuk finishes, his success is largely the product of an cool and ambitious game plan. Palaniuk visited Grand Lake last February, long before he knew if he would even get the opportunity to compete in this classic, to explore February spots and patterns. He said on stage that he has caught fish from all the places where he caught fish last year and that he has spent both days running a pattern that he discovered during his special practice period a year ago. Although he hasn't revealed specifics, he apparently is fishing seven or eight very specific spots, rotating from one to the the next, and throwing two primary lures. The BASS blog revealed this morning that at least two of the fish Palaniuk caught today bit a green Wiggle Wart.

Making Palaniuk's special scouting trip to Grand Lake extra noteworthy, he's no local. He lives in Idaho. His plan definitely worked. We'll find out this afternoon whether it worked well enough to make him the 2013 Bassmaster Classic Champion.

2 Kicker Fish

Cliff Pace made it clear that the main difference between him and the rest of the fishermen near the top of the standings after two days of competition in the Bassmaster Classic was that his second-day bag included two extra large fish: a 6-12 and a 7-2. The latter, in fact, was the biggest fish caught by any angler today.

Pace isn't serving up false humility. He does believe he has found a solid pattern that targets larger fish; however, he believes the same is probably true about the other guys at the top of the standings, and he noted that he is not getting many bites, which makes success more volatile. That means that despite holding a 7-pound lead over his nearest competitor, the Classic is no done deal. He only got seven bites today, so not landing any given fish (especially one of the big ones) would have had a very big impact on his catch today. He also knows that Grand Lake has a lot of big fish in it and that someone could put together an absolute monster bag tomorrow.

Read the complete Day 2 story on bassmaster.com.