TULSA — Cliff Pace of Petal, Miss., separated himself from the crowd Saturday to take a commanding 7-pound lead after the second round of the Bassmaster Classic on Grand Lake O’ The Cherokees.

Pace caught five bass weighing 21 pounds, 12 ounces Saturday for a combined two day weight of 43-4. He caught five bass weighing 21-8 during Friday’s first round.

Brandon Palaniuk of Rathbun, Idaho, roared from 11th place to second by catching five bass weighing 19-10 on Friday for a two-day total of 36-4. In third place was Mike Iaconelli of Pittsfield, N.J. (5/13-11; 35-3), Hank Cherry of Maiden, N.C., followed in fourth (5/10-13; 31-12). Jason Christie of Park Hill, Okla., was in fifth (5/12-9; 31-5), while Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Mich. (4/11-2; 30-14) was sixth.

The top 25 anglers with the heaviest combined two day weights will fish in today’s final round. They will retain their weights from the first two days. The winner will receive $500,000 and the Bassmaster Classic trophy.

Pace said he is targeting only big fish. This limits him to just six or seven bites per day, but he said they are the kind of bites needed to win a tournament as big as the Classic.

“I just have to stay committed to what I’m doing,” Pace said. “There are ways you can get a lot more bites, but not the kind of bites that can get you 21 pounds. I took a big risk to catch 21 pounds. It’s very difficult. I didn’t catch a bass today until after 10 o’clock.

“The key is to not lose confidence, to believe it can happen and believe you can get it to happen. I’ve not done that in the past and regretted it.”

Pace said his strategy is simple. It involves pitching a football jig with some sort of soft plastic trailer at visible cover. He said the key is more a matter of location than lure.

“Most of the fish are on staging areas,” Pace said. “I watched the weather all through the fall and winter. They had a lot of warm weather here three and four weeks ago. The water got up into the mid-50s.

“The fish might have got spawning on their minds and slid up there [to the bank]. As long as food is on the staging areas, they won’t leave there. You just have to aggravate them into eating.”

Palaniuk, who won the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament last April on Bull Shoals Lake in northern Arkansas, said he got seven bites Saturday. That’s two more than he expected.

He said he’s confident he can equal his Saturday weight in the final round, if not improve it.

“I’ve got seven or eight spots, but each one is maybe 30 yards long,” Palaniuk said. “They are very precise areas. I’ve got to be able to jump around and get the timing right, but I can never say it’s the same each day. What I learned yesterday and applying it to today make a little bit of difference.”

Iaconelli shared the lead with Pace after the first round, but trolling motor problems ruined his concentration Saturday, he said. Equipment problems distracted him during the 2006 Classic in Orlando, Fla., to such a degree that he was eventually disqualified for bad behavior.

“It affected me,” Iaconelli said. “Mechanical problems are uncontrollable elements in this sport. It affected me time-wise because it happened at key times. I’m pretty much a nut case and can’t keep it together. At one point I was yelling at a dog on the bank. Cursing at a dog. The dog didn’t do it.”

VanDam, winner of four Classics, acknowledged that the day he had Saturday was probably enough to keep him from winning, but he warned that he’ll be close behind to pick up anything someone ahead of him might drop.

“I’ve never seen anyone have a bad day and win the Classic, and I had one,” Van-Dam said. “Most of the guys out here are my friends, and everybody wants to win the Classic. Cliff is a great guy, and winning the Classic will change his life. Mike’s been there, too. I don’t want to wish bad luck on anybody, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to win.”

Five of the top six anglers said they hope for strong wind in the final round because it will help them catch big bass on jerkbaits. Palaniuk was the lone dissenter. He said he’s been catching fish regardless of the conditions.

He had the second highest weight Saturday in slack conditions, and he said he’d be happy to finish without wind, as well.

Sports, Pages 30 on 02/24/2013