The final score was 23-0 for Randy Howell/Alabama over David Walker/Tennessee. A few corrections are in order, Howell did catch 2 smallmouths and 1 largemouth today, not a small pike, as I reported earlier. And Walker's fish was a small pumpkinseed, not a gizzard shad. Those reporting mistakes were hazards of staying out of the TV camera range.
Howell's 0.39-pound largemouth took both big bass and first bass honors, worth a total of 14 points. The other 9 points were accumulated with the 3 fish catches.
Both anglers had an interesting take on the day, and how they could have built on these two hours to produce some bigger fish catches later in the day. The little ones did provide some clues. And both guys had interesting takes on tactics, when sharing the front deck of a bass boat, something neither had done since the early days of Bassmaster Opens.
As Howell said, "It was fun fishing with a guy like David who didn't want to trash talk all morning."
I'll have all the details in a story later today.