Arkansans angling for Classic cash

Five veteran Arkansas anglers will compete for a $300,000 top prize when the 45th Bassmaster Classic begins today on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

Scott Rook of Little Rock, Kevin Short of Mayflower, Mark Davis of Mount Ida, Stephen Browning of Hot Springs and Mike McClelland of Bella Vista have combined for 50 appearances in the Bassmaster Classic.

Davis has fished in the Classic, the premier championship event of professional bass fishing, 18 times and won it in 1995. Browning and McClelland have 10 appearances each, and Rook has nine. This will be Short's third appearance.

The Classic distinguishes the 56 qualifiers from the rest of the bass fishing world, but winning the tournament can ensure financial security. Besides the prize money, the winner is also more attractive to sponsors and endorsement deals are more lucrative. A Classic champion also commands higher fees for public appearances.

"The Bassmaster Classic is the one tournament I've wanted to win since I start fishing professionally," Rook said. "Angler of the Year is a very prestigious award, but the world championship is what I always wanted to win."

This is the second time the Classic has been held on Lake Hartwell, a 56,000-acre impoundment of the Savannah, Seneca and Tugaloo rivers.

Alton Jones won the 2008 edition in mild, spring-like weather. This year the weather will be cold and windy. Conditions are so severe that BASS announced it would delay takeoff for today's first round.

"The weather is going play a bigger role in this event than any I've ever fished," Rook said. "Dealing with below-freezing temperatures, 20 mile-an-hour winds and still concentrating and staying focused on catching fish, adjusting and finding fish that have moved are going to be challenging.

"To say I'm concerned would be an understatement, and I'm not alone on that."

Short does not share that opinion.

"One reason I like fishing this time of year is that fish by and large don't move a lot," Short said. "It's not like in the spring when the water temperature is in upper 50s and low 60s and they're moving in and moving out. There's none of that."

Fish move vertically in the winter, he said, depending on water temperature and barometric conditions.

"If you find them one day, chances are a week from now they're probably going to be right there," Short said. "That's been my experience this week. It's done nothing since we got here but get colder. It's going to tend to bunch those fish that live out deeper pretty tight."

Short had the hardest path of the Elite Series anglers to make the Classic. He was at an Elite Series tournament at Toledo Bend Reservoir in April when a tornado destroyed his home. He withdrew from that tournament and took a zero for weight and was listed at 107th in the standings.

He followed up by finishing 63rd at Lake Dardanelle in June, and 70th at a BASSfest event in Tennessee. Then, he finished fourth on the Delaware River, ninth on Cayuga Lake in New York, and 27th at Lake Michigan. That last one put him in the Elite Top 50 and into the Classic.

"My whole life, in some ways, has changed," Short said. "Whenever you lose your house and half your stuff in a tornado, that's a life-changing event. It has really made me appreciate this week. Every single day that I've gotten in the boat for our three days of practice, I'm like, ' You know what? This is a good day.'"

Ken Duke, BASS historian and statistician, handicapped the odds to win for each of the 56 qualifiers. Davis has the best odds of the Arkansans at 22-1, followed by Rook (25-1), McClelland (35:1), Short (60:1) and Browning (70:1).

"I don't know how he gets that," Short said. "Last I checked, there just ain't a whole lot of people betting on bass fishing."

The full field will fish today and Saturday. The 25 anglers with the heaviest combined two-day weights after Friday will fish in the final round Sunday. The angler with the heaviest combined three-day weight will win.

Sports on 02/20/2015