2006 Elite Series – Santee Cooper Showdown: Back-seat

The overcast sky and slight wind seemed to play a vital role in the amateur's 43 limits brought to the scales as opposed to Day One's 18 limits.

MANNING, S.C. — The pros were still sight-fishing and the co-anglers were still in the back of the boat. That scenario remained unchanged, but what did alter were the number of limits caught and the amount of weight caught by the co-anglers.

The overcast sky and slight wind seemed to play a vital role in the amateur's 43 limits brought to the scales as opposed to Day One's 18 limits. The total weight caught also increased drastically from 307 pounds, 4 ounces on Day One to 479 pounds, 10 ounces during Day Two of competition.

Another thing also remains unchanged, the co-angler leader.

Tom Frink, fresh off military duties with the Air Force, has enjoyed his time back on the water. His two-day total of six fish weighing 26 pounds even is posted atop the leaderboard.

Frink's lead is not a comfortable one though. Chasing close behind, only 1 pound, 5 ounces out of the lead, is Charlie Raia from Alabama with 24 pounds, 12 ounces. After that, the weights drop off a little bit with John Proctor of South Carolina with a total of 20 pounds, 10 ounces. Jason Wilson remains in the top five after Day Two amassing a two-day weight of 19 pounds, 13 ounces. A tie puts Kevin Cunningham and Jeffrey Prisza both in fifth place with a respectable weight of 17 pounds, 9 ounces.

The Purolator Big Bass of the day went to Richard Harris from Pittsgrove, N.J., with a toad slapping the scales at 7 pounds, 12 ounces.

Frink admitted that his second day of fishing was tougher than his first.

"I was with a sight-fisherman of course, but we were moving a lot quicker today," Frink stated. "I was just casting out a Senko to lily pads and got lucky on a couple of bites."

The leader caught all three of his fish within the span of an hour, and those were the only fish he caught all day.

The second place co-angler, Charlie Raia, received a little help from his pro partner, Steve Daniel, today.

"I'm not a very good sight-fisherman and really didn't do that well yesterday," said Daniel. "I saw that my co-angler was in third place so I decided not to go looking for them to give him a chance to stay at the top."

An admirable move from an admirable angler.

Daniel said that he also witnessed more moments of class when Mike Iaconelli let his co-angler sit on a fish for ten minutes when he really should have been moving to another spot for himself.

The top 50 co-angler entrants will be randomly matched with the top 50 Elite anglers, and will compete on Saturday for over $115,000 in merchandise and cash, with $45,000 going to the winner in a Triton Boat and Mercury Motor package. The weigh-in excitement begins at 3:00 PM at the John C. Land III Landing in Summerton on Grenall Road.