OK, so maybe this T-H Marine Pick Em Challenge isn’t as easy as I thought! I blame Bassmaster.com Executive Editor Kyle Jessie for that, since he is the one coming up with these insanely difficult pairings. After back to back 3-4 weeks, I have fallen to the 95th percentile, still trailing only 5% of the contestants, but in danger of falling out of the Top 1000! This week will be a meat-fest at Fork, so let’s dive in and see if I can get back on the winning track.
In the 1st Match, we get the 2 guys atop the AOY standings, Jay Przekurat and Will Davis, Jr. I’m not going to make the same mistake I made last week, when I went against Davis! I’ll take the Alabama hammer in this one to eke out the win!
In Match 2, we get the kid who burst on the scene last year at Fork in Trey McKinney, against the guy who is a Fork legend and guide, in Lee Livesay. No reason to believe McKinney can’t find the motherlode once again, but Livesay is on a first name basis with the motherlode at Fork. The smart move here is to go with Livesay, and dare McKinney to do it again.
Match 3 pits a couple of Texas sticks with 1st year Elite Dakota Ebare taking on grizzled vet Kieth Combs. Ebare, who had a tremendous run with FLW and in then in the Opens to qualify for the Elites, is off to a tough start this season, while Combs has a Top 5 finish to his credit two events ago. Combs also has tremendous history at Fork, winning fests of all sorts…he’ll win this this match up as well.
In Match 4 we get the ultimate flow match up, with apologies to Seth Fieder. It’s Ben Milliken and his giant swimbaits against Kentucky’s Matt Robertson and his giant soft plastic swimbaits. This one would be fun with both guys mic’d up the entire time, as long as there was a solid 10 second delay, and someone on the dump button! Neither of these guys have had the type of year you’d expect from them, to this point, although Robertson does have a 3rd at the St. Croix Bassmaster Open on Kentucky Lake, while Milliken had his best event 2 weeks ago finishing 25th at Hartwell. This COULD be Ben’s week, I’ll take him in this match-up.
Match 5 features a couple of guys who are rolling, Easton Fothergill and Luke Palmer. Classic Champ Fothergill has dug himself out of an awful Florida swing, while Palmer is coming off a 3rd place finish at Hartwell and is solidly in the Top 20 now in the Progressive Bassmaster AOY race. This is a tough one to handicap, but I like Fothergill returning to Texas, where he found glory in March!
In Match 6, the Arkansans Stetson Blaylock and Joey Cifuentes III tangle and both of the these guys have been wildly inconsistent this year! Joey has gone 23, 83, 23, 79…so the math says this ought to be a good one for him. On the other hand, his one Fork experience with B.A.S.S. resulted in a 85th place finish, so there’s that. In that same 2024 event, Blaylock was 6th, so Blaylock is the pick here.
And in our final Match, it’s a Red River Shootout between Sooner Jason Christie and Longhorn transplant Chris Zaldain. Christie is sitting just below the Classic cutline in the AOY race, and Zaldain is only ahead of five guys in the season long standing right now, and two of those guys are not fishing the series anymore. Having said that, the big bait specialist has had some great success in the past at Fork, and I like him to have his best event of the year so far! Christie is more apt to shine next week at the Sabine, a body of water that fits his style perfectly. Zaldain is the pick this week!
We’re bouncing back this week! Good luck everyone!
