GROVE, Okla. — The best of what the Elite anglers had to say on Day Three of the Sooner Run presented by Longhorn Tobacco.“You really had a situation where you had fish leaving the willow trees instead of the other way around.”
—Denny Brauer
“I don’t call that a slip. I call it a crash.”
—Jim Murray on his four pound three ounce bag on Day Three
“I was going to make a big change today and then I saw all of those clouds and rain this morning and went right back to those willow trees. I figured that’d be the last time I got to do something like that for a while.”
— Greg Hackney on his decision not to go for the deep fish
“I really thought that rain would help me. I got the bites today but they were small.”
— Boyd Duckett on the lack of any big fish in his fifteen pound seven ounce bag, still good enough for seventh place going into Day Four“I just didn’t execute today. I haven’t lost any fish all week and she just jumped off. I had another big one on for a few minutes and it came off. You add two more big bites to my bag and I’d have a good bag.”
— Mike McClelland, who squeaked into the top twelve with a thirteen pound five ounce bag on Day Three
“I had three five pound bites yesterday and didn’t get any today.”
— Marty Robinson, who still managed 17-12 today and sits just a pound and three quarters off of the lead
“He wanted to stay and get me a limit. I saw those white rings on those fish’s eyes and told him ‘My wife’s got money. Let’s go in.”
— “Dirty” Harry Potts, manager of the Dirty Dozen group of co-anglers on the end of his day with Sooner Run Day Three leader Jeff Kriet
“It’s gonna be a shootout. It’s gonna be fun.”
— Kevin VanDam on Sunday’s final day
Editor’s note: ESPNOutdoors.com invited the University of Oklahoma bass fishing team to join coverage of the Sooner Run. The collegiate anglers will post a regular blog and appear on Hooked Up, the live Internet shows that air at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET on Sunday in advance of the live weigh-in. Bob Cobb, creator of Bassmaster Magazine and Bassmaster television, will be the special guest on Hooked Up.
Daily live weigh-ins and a realtime leaderboard will be at 4 p.m. ET. Please feel free to post comments to this blog via the ESPN Conversation feature at the bottom of this and every news page on this site.