If you were watching BassTrakk closely in that last 30 minutes or so, you saw Rick Clunn blow up.
All of the sudden he was at the top of the leaderboard with a weight of 58 pounds or so, close to the total many pundits believe will actually win this derby. It was of course a mistake. A 2 pound, 8 ounce fish got punched in as a 28 pounder and a 1-1 got punched in as 11 pounds. Those kind of weights will certainly shoot you up the standings in any event.
Given that it’s raining constantly out there and anyone who has used a smart phone knows a wet screen and your fingers don’t always jive with what you are really wanting to do, we will forgive the marshal.
But the miscue on the scoring (it’s fixed now, by the way) gave us a bit of a pause. Maybe Rick Clunn is pulling off another magical day, like so many that have defined his career and this sport.
And if you dig into it a bit, even without the 28- and 11-pound fish, Clunn is actually on the cusp of having one of those moments. Clunn is currently in 53rd in BassTrakk just ounces of getting into the top 50 cut for tomorrow. Making that cut is critical to him and all the old dogs who love to watch him re-create great days and make new memories. Most folks, even the anglers he’s fishing against, are pulling for him to make the Classic.
After his semi-dismal Day 1, most folks assumed there was no chance. He came into this event in 56th in AOY and on the bubble for making the AOY Championship. Yesterday he fell to 64th and out of sight and out of mind for most of us.
But with the miscue of a marshal, we now see that Clunn is on the verge of possibly staying alive for one more chance.
Making the cut is critical, and he’s dangerously close to that. If that happens and continues to climb we could be seeing him at Mille Lacs next week.