Coveted catch serious matter
Anglers go to great lengths to win Bassmaster Classic.
Brent Ehrler landed five Lake Conroe largemouth bass weighing 20 pounds, 1 ounce, to hold on to the top spot in the Geico Bassmaster Classic heading into Sunday’s final round of the 47th edition of the world championship of professional bass fishing.
Ehrler, of California, has a two-day total of 43 pounds, 4 ounces and goes into Sunday’s final round with a 2-pound, 3-ounce lead over Pennsylvania angler Dave Lefebre.
Lefebre jumped from sixth place to second heading into the final day of competition when he hauled a five-bass limit weighing 20 pounds, 11 ounces to the weigh-in stage on the field of Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston.
Oklahoma angler Edwin Evers, who won the 2016 Bassmaster Classic, is in third place with a total of 39 pounds after weighing a 20-pound, 13-ounce string of five fish, the heaviest taken Saturday by the 52 anglers competing for the tournament’s $300,000 first-place prize.
Fellow Oklahoma resident James Elam is in fourth place with 37 pounds, 13 ounces, and Bradley Roy of Kentucky is fifth with a total of 37 pounds, 10 ounces.
The heaviest bass of the day was a 9-pound, 1-ounce largemouth landed by Tennessee angler Skylar Hamilton.
Lake Conroe’s largemouth bass proved a challenge for a tournament field that consists of some of the nation’s most successful professional bass fishermen.
Only 17 anglers managed to land a five-bass limit on the contest’s second day after only half of the field boxed limits on the first day of the competition.
Only one of five Texans in the tournament, Jasper’s Todd Faircloth, made the second-day cut that whittles the final-day field to the top 25 anglers who will compete Sunday.
Faircloth was in 22nd place after the second day of the threeday tournament. shannon.tompkins@chron.com twitter.com/chronoutdoors