After what he’d seen over the previous two days at Lake Ray Roberts, Hank Cherry thought today was going to be difficult – for everyone. It appears he was correct. His unofficial BassTrakk totals show him with a 1-pound, 9-ounce lead over Matt Arey, but those numbers can be wildly inaccurate. If you were watching “Bassmaster LIVE” you saw how tough it was. Cherry’s unofficial total of five keepers weighing 11 pounds, 12 ounces, came without the benefit of a single cull. Eight hours on Lake Ray Roberts – 5 bass, period.
“It’s getting tough, and it’s going to get worse (Sunday),” Cherry said last night. “You saw the weights and how they plummeted (Saturday). It’s not going to get any better. The storm had something to do with it, knocking out the shad spawn. But I think the shad spawn is going away very fast. The water was 81 degrees around those trees today. When we first got here, when the bite was so good, it was 73.”
Cherry recalled how he qualified for the Elite Series back in Oct. 2012 with a victory margin of one ounce in a Bassmaster Open at Alabama’s Smith Lake. This Bassmaster Classic could be decided by ounces today.
“It doesn’t matter. An ounce is all I need,” he said last night. But he also claimed he’d be fine if he doesn’t win the Classic for the second year in a row.
“If I lose, I’m not going to cry,” Cherry said. “I’ve got my trophy. I will pass it on to the next guy and see what he can do with it.”