$1 million-dollar Sunday arrives
50 teams face tough fishing, TV cameras and anyone-can-win odds on Table Rock
RIDGEDALE, MO – The full slate is wiped clean, scores are zeroed, and angler’s nerves will be pushed to the limit today on Missouri’s Table Rock Lake.
Two-thousand amateurs took their shots in eight regional qualifying tournaments the past eight months, 350 made it to the final championship this weekend, and now, by day’s end, one team out of 50 left on the water will walk away with $1 million, two new Toyota trucks, and two new Nitro Z-21 boats.
Four teams in the running are from Oklahoma.
The chance to land that Bass Pro Shops U.S. Open National Bass Fishing Amateur Team Championships top prize—and a trophy the size of a mini-fridge—won’t come easy. Not a typical fishing derby from the start, this final day brings it all to a head with cameras focused on these 100 anglers for an international audience.
A live NBC Sports broadcast will cover the final awards ceremony 3-5 p.m., and cameras all day will capture the action for the big wrap-up and for a special broadcast scheduled for NBC television on Dec. 5.
The anglers arrived at Long Creek Marina before 4:30 a.m. today so their boats could be outfitted with a GPS tracker and GoPro cameras. The teams are instructed to weigh and report their catches as each is boated so TV crews roaming the lake can swoop in on the leaders as the tournament plays out.
And of course, the biggest challenge still remains; the one where the winners have to catch a heavier bag of fish than the other 49 teams. A cold front rolled in overnight, and Table Rock is known to get “finicky.” The win could come down to a matter of pounds measured down to two decimal points.
To a person, the Oklahoma anglers said it’s not the $1 million that has them on edge, at least not yet. What was at the top of their minds, what would keep them awake for what few nighttime hours they could grab, is figuring out the fish better than the folks in the next boat.
Justin Barbour of Tulsa and Ronnie Allen of Chouteau made the cut, but they dropped from sixth place after the first day to a spot smack in the middle of the pack. With scores zeroed, their 25th place qualifying finish only indicated they struggled—but still managed to catch a five-fish limit—on the second day.
“It was tough today,” Allen said as they approached the weigh-in Saturday. A strategy that worked for them in earlier practices and on the tournament’s first day seemed to have vanished.
Their chance secured and on equal footing with the others, Barbour summed up their basic $1 million strategies.
“We’re just going to go fishing,” he said.
The nearest Oklahoma qualifying teams behind them were Alex Torkleson and Randy Anderson of Sand Springs and Mannford, who qualified in 34th place, and Lance Rainbow and Lloyd Guthrie of Noble in 35th.
“It’s been terribly tough today,” said Torkleson said after Saturday’s weigh-in.
“We only had one fish at Noon and we drove 112 miles to get that,” Anderson added.
They caught four more, all spotted bass, as they worked their way back toward the weigh-in at Long Creek marina. They said they weighed in every fish they caught.
Rainbow and Guthrie said they hoped for mistake-free fishing on this final tournament day. Any mistake could be costly. The first day they weighed only four fish because three jumped off the hook at the boat.
“It’s been a whole new ballgame for us,” Guthrie said. “We’ve never fished the way we’re catching them so we’re learning something new every day. We’re just not used to fishing deep, clear water like this in Oklahoma.”
A requirement to weigh each fish and alert TV crews might play into the anglers’ performances, but everyone faces the same challenges, Rainbow said.
“It all just depends on the fish,” he said. “It’s not really about the guys you fish against because if you can’t figure out the fish then it doesn’t matter if you’re fishing against a seasoned pro or a little kid. If you don’t catch fish you can’t win.”
One team already had about all the stress they could handle Saturday.
Tyler Latty of Ramona and Samuel Walker of Skiatook made the 50-team cutoff in 49th place, with just .06 of a pound to spare. In fact, the last four qualifying spots fell between 19.46 and 19.53 pounds.
“Our biggest pressure has been to see if we made it in or not,” Latty said. “We were watching the scoreboard and looking around the back to see how many teams were left to weigh in.”
With $1 million on the line Sunday they will simply do their best, Walker said.
“We’re pretty competitive fishermen and we don’t like to lose, even if it’s just for bragging rights,” Walker said. “A million dollars and a truck and boat? I don’t know, maybe we just haven’t comprehended that yet.”
