The reason everyone has a chance in today’s Top 10 championship round is twofold: 1) the relatively narrow margin between 1st and 10th place – 5 pounds, 13 ounces; and 2) the potential swimming in Pickwick Lake. Keith Combs tapped that potential last Monday on the first practice day when he had a best five that would have pushed 32 pounds.
“I figured out a little deal throwing a 3/4-ounce Strike King Thunder Cricket,” Combs recalled. “It was like fishing at home on Rayburn or Toledo Bend. They were in these little drains that developed into a current break. I had a 10, a 7, three more in the 5-pound class and I don’t know how many 4s.”
Combs couldn’t find those fish after the flood hit the Tennessee River. But he realized that Chad Pipkens found some of them, based on the area where Pipkens was catching them in the tournament. Pipkens acknowledged that was probably the case. Cory Johnston is in that area too, where the bass have slid behind an island in a current break. There is a lot of hydrilla in the area.
“I think just figuring it out as the tournament has gone on was a big part of it,” Johnston said of his rise from 22nd place on Day 2 to 3rd place yesterday. “There are 30-pound bags everywhere in this place. But you’d have to spend days out there to figure out where they are.”
Can someone figure it out today? There have been 55 five-bass limits topping 20 pounds weighed during the first three days of the tournament. Two have topped 25 pounds – Koby Kreiger’s 25-12 on Day 1 and Johnston’s 25-5 on Day 2.