Going up – or falling fast

This isn’t your ordinary tournament. Let’s get that straight right out of the box.

ESCANABA, Mich. — This isn’t your ordinary tournament. Let’s get that straight right out of the box.

There are fish being caught and weighed and points tallied just like every ordinary Elite event. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

For instance, Brett Hite leads this thing with a monster bag of smallmouth. Ordinarily, the focus would be on Hite and those five shiny bronze-backs, but in an almost weird way, they mean virtually nothing in this contest.

Let that roll around in your noggin for a second: Five smallmouth weighing in at almost 25 pounds are basically inconsequential in this event. The world really is going to the dark, burning place in a hand basket.

Hite could do it again tomorrow and it would mean the same thing, although it would show (again) a ton of people what Bays de Noc has to offer the rest of us.

The real winners and losers in this contest are scattered around the standings, all of them competing for a personal goal of either winning the Bassmaster Toyota Angler of the Year title or gaining a spot in the Bassmaster Classic.

In an ordinary event, these guys would be sitting down tonight and trying to figure out how to catch Hite. In this one most of them are sitting down and trying to figure out how not to get caught by someone behind them or catching someone ahead of them nowhere near the lead.

That is what makes this event so compelling and actually fun to watch.

To give you an idea, let’s look at some of the real winners.

– Brandon Lester sits in second with 24-2 on the strength of a 6 pound, 4 ounce mammoth with a little old mouth on one end. That alone may have given him the Classic berth he wants. Realistically, barring dozens and dozens of fish like that, he’s skating into the Classic after today.

– The next biggest winner is Andy Montgomery who needed a super strong finish in this event to slip into the Classic, and at the moment, he’s done that. But he also knows he has to stay close to his 7th place current standing. If he drops 10 places or more, he could very well be in the loser column Sunday. That’s just 3 pounds away for him.

– The same goes for Tim Horton. He’s a big winner today, sitting in 9th place with 21 pounds and has moved into the Classic with that total. He’s one point behind Montgomery and just 10 or less from getting squeaked out. Along with …

– Brian Snowden, who is in 8th place in this event, and is tied with Montgomery in the points.

None of the last three guys mentioned will sleep well tonight. Not because of who’s in front of them, but who’s behind them. It’s like they are leading their very own tournament at the moment.

Those kinds of things are prevalent throughout.

Todd Faircloth made a statement today, virtually cutting Greg Hackney’s points lead in half and bypassing Aaron Martens to take over second in the AOY. He’s in 10th place while Hackney is in 17th. Both have a lot of room to climb (adding points) or fall (losing points). But Hackney knows he has to stay within 17 to 18 places to carry home the title. And Martens knows he has to get busy.

That brings us to the losers today, as in those who lost ground.

– Takahiro Omori would lead that list, considering his 41st place finish dropped him from being in the Classic at take off to several places out at the moment. But we’ve seen him pull off last-minute miracles before.

– Kevin Short, who by all rights shouldn’t even be in this event, considering he missed the Toledo Bend Elite taking care of his family after a devastating tornado, dropped a few places. He’s still in the Classic at the moment. But suddenly, he’s the true bubble boy.

– Others who fell and are thinking about gaining 5, 10 or 15 places tomorrow are Bernie Schultz and Alton Jones, both who went from in the Classic to out.

All of this sets up several contests inside this one event, making it an interesting tournament to watch unfold. One fish can and will change lives, or at least livelihoods before the end of the day Sunday.

Deciding who actually wins or loses from that one fish will be the fun part.