Brian Maloney of Osage Beach, Mo., took the early lead at the Walmart BFL All-American
presented by Chevy, with five bass that weighed 15 pounds, 4 ounces. He
has a narrow 4-ounce lead over second place angler Mark Snyder of St.
Johns, Miss., in one of the longest-running championships in all of
competitive bass fishing.
Hosted by National
Harbor, the tournament features the top 49 boaters and top 49
co-anglers from across the country casting for top awards of up to
$130,000 in the Boater Division and $60,000 in the Co-angler Division
plus the opportunity to compete in the 2012 Forrest Wood Cup presented by Walmart on Lake Lanier Aug. 11-14.
The top five
anglers all indicated that the early-morning outgoing tide had the fish
biting better than in the afternoon. Keying in on rock and structure
seemed to be the predominate pattern for most of the anglers.
“I really wasn’t
doing anything fancy,” said Maloney, who qualified through the Missouri
TBF chapter. “The fish were moving with the tide and I was just waiting
for them to come to me. I’ll play that game all week. We keyed in on the
outgoing low tide pretty quickly and probably had our limit by 11 a.m.
“I was looking
for ditches and troughs and found a rocky area that had a mud bottom and
just bounced my bait off the rocks. I was using plastics - 3/16- to
¼-inch shaky heads.”
Maloney, who was
fishing on the Potomac River for the first time, said he had seven or
eight keepers all day and that he is hoping for the same type of weather
tomorrow - bluebird skies and warm temperatures.
Rounding out the remaining top-10 boaters at the Potomac are:
2nd: Marc Snyder, St. Johns, Miss, five bass, 15-0
3rd: Dick Shaffer, Rockford, Ohio, five bass, 14-7
4th: Conrad Bolt, Seneca, S.C., five bass, 14-6
5th: Rob Digh, Denver, N.C., five bass, 13-2
6th: Corey Saint, Lexington, Ala., five bass, 12-11
6th: Roger Fitzpatrick, Eldon, Mo., five bass, 12-11
8th: Christopher Jones, Bokoshe, Okla., five bass, 12-10
9th: Dicky Newberry, Houston, Texas, five bass, 12-9
10th: Scott Hamrick, Denver, N.C., five bass, 12-5
Overall
there were 183 bass weighing 447 pounds, 15 ounces caught by 49 boaters
Thursday. The catch included 20 five-bass limits.
Jake Akin of Powder
Springs, Ga., leads the Co-angler Division with five bass weighing 14-3
followed by Robert Hime of Odessa, Mo., in second place with five bass
weighing 13-2.
Rounding out the top 10 co-anglers are:
3rd: Gerald Williams, Maiden, N.C., five bass, 13-1
4th: Tyler Gregory, Pine Knot, Ky., five bass, 12-15
5th: Scott Curvin, Jacksonville, Ala., five bass, 12-12
6th: Dustin Burk, Brookville, Ind., four bass, 12-3
7th: Bobby Drinnon, Rogersville, Tenn., five bass, 11-10
8th: Dennis Spell, Desloge, Mo., five bass, 11-4
9th: Donnie Woody, Marion, N.C., five bass, 11-2
10th: Dylan Duncan, Kansas, Okla., five bass, 10-14
