5 Who Should Win

It ought to be fun tomorrow.

With one day remaining in the 2015 GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by GoPro, the top five anglers in the standings are separated by less than 2 pounds. Making things even more interesting, every angler in the top 5 is someone who you could say "should win" and make an excellent case for that assertion.

Leader Takahiro Omori is a past Classic champion, and his 2004 Classic victory came in the Carolinas (Lake Wylie, which straddles the NC/SC border). He likes to crank shallow, so the warmer temps and rain in tomorrow's forecast seem like they should play into his hand.

Dean Rojas, only 2 ounces back, hasn't won a Classic, but he has four B.A.S.S. wins and has proven repeatedly that he can get it done. He brought in a huge bag on day one and backed it with a limit today, but failed to get the same quality. Interestingly, his best previous Classic was fourth place in 2004 at Lake Wylie.

Mike Iaconelli has eight B.AS.S. wins, including victory in the 2003 Bassmaster Classic on the Louisiana Delta, and when he's on something, he is tough to stop. He's brought in two good bags, with toady's a little larger than yesterday's.

Randy Howell is the reigning Bassmaster Classic champion, so the sweet taste of victory is fresh, and of the three former Classic champs in the top five, he's the only one who won a February event. And apparently some live footage of him fishing shows that he's spending at least part of the time cranking bridges, which was how he won last year at Lake Guntersville.

Rounding out the Top 5 is Casey Ashley of Donalds, South Carolina, which is only about 1/2 hour from Lake Hartwell. Ashley was virtually everyone's pick going into the event, so it would be hard to discount him when he's less then two pounds out going into the final day.

Making things even more exciting, the super close weights don't end with the fifth spot. Bret Hite is only 7 ounces behind Ashley, and Coby Carden is only 7 ounces behind Hite. In fact, Skeet Reece, who is in 10th place, is only 4 1/2 pounds off the lead.

So what does all that say? You'd better be watching tomorrow when they bring the fish to the scales because pretty much anything could happen!

Classic Stories: From Local Favorite to Maine First-Grade Teacher

Local favorite Jason Christie is in 6th place after Day 1 BASS photo by Gary Tramantina.

"I got goose bumps right there just talking about it," Jason Christie said after attempting to put into words what it would be like to win the Bassmaster Classic at home. The Oklahoma pro has been asked the same questions a million times, but he still doesn't know how to answer them becasue there's no way he can imagine how it would feel -- if it were to happen. In truth, it's probably hard for him to wrap his mind around his current emotions as he competes for his sport's biggest title on waters he is so familiar with and where he has had so much success.

After Day 1, Christie was in 6th place and in a solid position, but other names around him are some of the biggest in the sport: names like Kevin VanDam and Mike Iaconelli.

And then there are names like Jonathan Carter of Maine, who virtually no one knew anything about going into the tournament and who found himself in 7th place at the end of the first day. A BASS Nation representative who has never fished a pro level tournament with BASS, Carter is also a first grade teacher in his home state who had to use every ounce of grace he could get from school administrators to fish the necessary qualifying tournaments and the Classic itself and who almost missed a connecting flight on the way down that would have cost him a day of practice.

Mark Pierce, another Bass Nation qualifier, caught the biggest bass of yesterday. Pierce only weighed on fish, but that one fish weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces. Just being in the Classic was extra satisfying for Peirce as he had missed making the field as a BASS Nation represented by a single place a year earlier.

"Persevere," he told the Classic crowd. "I kept trying and here I made it to the biggest stage in bass fishing."

When all the fish have been weighed tomorrow afternoon, the biggest stories will be about who caught the heaviest three-day sack and has been crowned Classic Champ, just how big the winning weight was, and the lures and patterns that produced the winning fish. But to me the most interesting stories right now are the personal stories about the 53 competitors, how they got there, their perspectives going into the event and some of the little things that happen each day.

Yesterday the severe cold was also a major story at the weigh-in, although different anglers' takes on how it felt and how it affected the fish varied immensely. Florida anglers said they'd never fished a colder day, while northern anglers boasted that it wasn't really even that cold. Some said it really slowed the fish. Others suggested that it triggered a better bite.

I look forward to seeing how the stories continue to develop today. They actually are developing already as the pros have been on the water for two hours. I think I'll head on over to BASSTrakk before I steer toward the Classic Expo.

Gluszek Earns Classic Bid

Congratulations to New Jersey pro Pete Gluszek, who earned a spot in the 2013 Bassmaster Classic field by winning this weekend's Northern Open at New York's Cayuga Lake. Gluszek, who hasn't fished a classic since 1999, led the event from wire to wire and beat out Elite Series pro Stephen Browning by a little less than 5 pounds.

Northern pros in the know consider Gluszek a serious threat to win any event held on northern lakes that hold both largemouths and smallmouths or Atlantic coast tidal waters. I know Gluszek as one of my favorite pros to work with on stories because he's always eager to help and he does a wonderful job of explaining his thought processes. I haven't had opportunities to get in the boat with Gluszek for several years, but I'm always happy to see him do well in tournaments and I'm really glad that he'll get the opportunity to return to the Bassmaster Classic.

In addition to fishing tournaments and doing some guide work, Gluszek co-founded and co-hosts the Bass University with Mike Iaconelli.

Sudden Death & Alabama Rig Research

Photo Courtesy of PAA

One fish was all it took for Keith Combs to win the Toyota Texas Bass Classic and the $100,000 and Legend boat that came with the victory. One fish in a sudden death fish-off, that is.

After three full days of fishing, Combs and Mike Iaconelli had ended up tied atop the leaderboard, each with a weight of 76 pounds 12 ounces. Between Combs and Iaconelli, they had six daily limits of fish that average more than 5 pounds per bass, and they outfished the rest of the field by more than 25 pounds. Still, they were tied, and Combs was able to seal the deal with a 15-inch fish, which he caught on the same Norman crankbait he'd used throughout the week.

A championship event comprised of top pros from the BASS Elite Series, the FLW Tour and the PAA Tournament Series, the TTBC included 50 of the nation's top pros. It was held on Lake Conroe in Texas.

Meanwhile, the big buzz in the bass fishing world has been the Alabama rig, a unique multi-lure rig that's unlike anything that most bass fishermen had ever seen a week and a half ago. That was when Paul Elias revealed the crazy rig he's been using to blow away the field in the FLW event last week at Guntersville and to catch 102 pounds, 8 ounces in four days. The Alabama rig notched another big win last weekend at the Everstart event on Kentucky Lake.

Enough has been reported about the Alabama rig by folks who have seen it for themselves that I'm not going to re-hash it here. That said, I'm North Alabama bound tomorrow for three of fishing on three different lakes (including Guntersville) with four different pros. One of those pros, Chris Lane, was in the middle of all the excitement at the Guntersville tournament. If I get to see the rig and how it works first-hand, therefore, that probably will be my next blog!