This is the biggest tournament a lot of anglers have ever fished - and you can feel it

This is the biggest tournament a lot of anglers here at Oneida Lake have ever fished. I mean, it’s a huge tournament, and you can literally feel it.

At the top, a couple of guys - KVD and Todd Faircloth - are trying to be the angler-of-the-year and there’s prestige and money on the line. Then there are about 15 or 20 anglers right together on the cut line to make the Bassmaster Classic. That’s big. And the really tough one is that about 20 or so anglers are down around No. 80 in the standings, and they’re trying to make the Elite Series cut. Their careers could be on the line. As the old saying goes, some guys are so tight right now it would be tough to drive a nail.

Last week just before we started the tournament at Lake Erie, I said on this blog that it was the ninth inning. Well, the more I think about it, if we’re going to use a baseball analogy, I said it wrong. Last week was the eighth inning and I did what I had to do. I stayed in the game, even improved my position nearly 10 places. But now - Thursday, Friday and hopefully Saturday - it’s the sure-enough ninth inning and I’m still down by a couple of runs.

I’ve not yet qualified for the Classic, in other words, and I’ve got one tournament to make it happen. I’m 42nd right now, and I need to get in the top 37. Based on a little bit of math and knowing the history of these tournaments, it looks like I need to finish 35th or better to move up enough to get in the Classic. Obviously, 30th would be better than 35th, and 25th or 20th or first would ease my anxiety completely.

Overall, it’s not been a great year. In 2007, I had two wins and six top 12 finishes. Last year I won the Classic. This year I haven’t won anything and I’m in a fight to qualify for a place in the Classic. These’s no exemption for winning it in 2007.

But as I said, I’m not alone. There are a lot of great anglers right there where I am. And what makes it even tougher is that everybody’s having trouble finding fish. There aren’t a whole lot of fish to catch here, and there certainly aren’t a bunch of big ones.

 The good thing is my confidence is high coming off Lake Erie. I fished conservatively, or I should say I fished the way I had to fish to stay in the game. And it worked. If points weren’t imporant, I would have fished differently. But I needed to points, so I had to be careful.

Here at Oneida, everybody seems to think that 8 pounds a day will make the cut. Ten to 12 pounds will put you in real good shape. And I think I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve got a super hole, chock full of 4-pounders, but the problem with that is that the hole’s small and I don’t know who else has found it. So I’m trying to prepare myself psychologically for the possibility that I’ll get there tomorrow and somebody else will be on it. If that happens and I get run, then I’ve got enough small areas that might be able to get me about 10 pounds a day.

As I said, we’re definitely in the ninth inning now. I don’t want to miss the Classic.