COLUMBUS — Day 2 at the Bassmaster Open on the Tombigbee River wrapped up on Thursday, with the day’s weigh-in narrowing the leaderboard to a field of 10 for the final day.
Angler Trey Schroeder took the lead over Russ Lane heading into the final day of the competition, weighing a bag of 14 pounds.
“We’ve been burning our fish to the ground every day,” Schroeder said,” so hopefully we still got some swimming. Made a key move late in the day and caught a 3-pounder. Hoping I can keep making the right decisions and catch another bag tomorrow.”
The field is still tight behind the leading pair, with Grae Buck and Matt Adams both within just a few ounces of the top. Following behind them, Cody Nichols, Byron Kenney Jr., Stephen Browning, John Duvall, Cody Stahl and Bo Thomas will round out the field for the final leg of fishing today.
While some anglers had trouble with the smaller catches, seventh-place angler Browning put the experience plainly after a week on the water.
“Arkansas River, Mississippi River, Tenn-Tom, it doesn’t matter,” he said after the weigh-in. “Just put me on a river.”
Bassmaster Executive Director of Tournaments Hank Weldon was on site to oversee the weigh-in, and spoke highly of the accommodations from Visit Columbus and the Tenn-Tom waterway management.
“It’s been fantastic, man,” Weldon said. “The town has been great, the Corps of Engineers has been great. We’ve got a close tournament making things interesting today and rolling into tomorrow. We’ll cut it down to the Top 10 after today and that’s who’ll go out tomorrow.”
Weldon also took time to compliment the city of Columbus as a whole for the hospitality, as the organization made its first tournament visit to the area in more than 20 years.
“We’re based in Birmingham, so we’re used to Southern hospitality, but we’re not used to Columbus hospitality,” he said. “The community has treated our group, staff and anglers with the utmost southern hospitality and respect. The happiness of us being here is just over the top.”
The Tombigbee River and Columbus Lake area has proved a challenging host site for the 155 anglers competing this week. Less than half of the field weighed a full catch of five on Day 1, while 14 anglers came up empty-handed.
Many Bassmaster tournaments are held at lakes and reservoirs, where the fish grow to a greater size and weight, whereas river systems have proved more challenging to find the biggest catch. That has led to a highly competitive field vying for a Top 10 place going into Friday.
“The river is challenging, and the system at times may not be as high of a weight-producing place as some of the reservoirs that we go to, which also makes things interesting,” Weldon said. “The anglers are enjoying the change of pace and not having to worry about catching 25-lbs, and it kept a lot of the field in the hunt coming into Day 2.”
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