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.
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