All that’s left now is to see just how much a factor the lake’s largemouth population will be in deciding the eventual winner. Given the results of the first day, it’s apparent that they’re, at the very least, a role player in the drama that’s unfolding. How big a part they’ll play is, at this point, anyone’s guess.

One thing is certain at this point in the contest – there’s no holding back. If you’re on the margins of a Classic birth or shooting to be one of the Top 12 who make it to Alabama for the season-ending AOY race, Friday was the day to get it done. And get it done they did.

Without any fog or algae bloom to contend with, 98 anglers left the launch area Friday morning knowing that to survive the afternoon’s cut, somewhere around 26 pounds in two days was the mark to meet. In order to see Sunday, closer to 30 pounds was going to be the line. Anything short of that, well, “Thanks for playing…see you next year!” would be all you could hope to hear.

As it turned out, Friday showed that Thursday’s action was but a preview of things to come. They caught them on Friday, and rookie Chad Griffin lead the way from 13th into first-place. Griffin brought an impressive 18-8 to the scales, shuffling the leader board and pushing his two-day total to 33-11.

Bernie Shultz climbed from the 10th spot into second with 32-3 overall after toting 16-12 to the scales Friday, while Jason Quinn, sharing 10th place at the start of the day, ended up in third with a two-day combined weight of 31-12, thanks largely to his second-day string weighing 16-5.

Day One leader, Randy Howell, dropped to fourth place after weighing a lighter-than-hoped for 13-8 limit Friday bringing his total count to 31-1 in two day’s fishing. Fresh off his FLW Championship win in Pittsburgh, Greg Hackney showed up big on Friday with a stringer going 17-4, which pushed him all the way from 40th place into fifth with 30-1 overall.

Last year’s Champion’s Choice winner, Dean Rojas, made his presence felt Friday and rounded out the Super Six by weighing 15-15 Friday, which gave him 30-7 after two days, and a legitimate shot at Sunday’s top prize. 

Griffin In the Lead 
Elite Series rookie, Chad Griffin, stormed up the lead board to take control of things on Friday by flipping a one-and-a-half-ounce Ezee Bites jig all day long. “I had a really good day,” he said. “I got keyed into this deal pretty early in practice. This week is the first time I’ve seen the lake, but once I got into these areas I felt right at home.”

He pointed out that he’s getting between 20 to 30 bites a day by targeting both species of bass in nine to 11 feet of water around clumps of vegetation. “I’m fishing anything from cabbage to coon tail, or whatever they call it up here,” he said. “I’ll flip the bait out about five feet from the boat and just let it fall. These fish are just knocking the tar out of it as it falls down the water column.” 

Griffin explained that he’s splitting time between five “largemouth-only” areas, and a “handful” of smallmouth holes over the course of the first two days. “I’ve been catching them from the start of the day until I get ready to come in,” he said. “Yesterday I had 12 bites in my smallmouth areas and didn’t weigh in any of them.

“I lost three over four pounds, but then I moved down to a small hook. Today I really caught them in there.”

With the jig as his go-to bait, Griffin explained he also has a rod rigged with a Smallie Beaver. “The Beaver is kind of a back-up thing,” he explained. “Most of the time I go through my areas with the jig, and if I don’t get bit or get a bunch of short strikes I’ll go back through with the Beaver.”

Aside from The Legend’s “On Location” Skeeter, Griffin hasn’t seen another boat in two days. That fact alone gives him confidence, but he’s also certain that he’s around the winning fish. “I really feel like I have a shot at winning this thing,” he said. “If would’ve gone right yesterday I would’ve had around 22 pounds.”

Schultz is Right at Home
Bernie Schultz, like Peter T., has a fondness for Oneida. He explained that it’s largely due to the fact that it fishes so much like his native waters. “I love fishing Oneida because the fish relate so well to the grass, and they’re not real deep,” he said. “I’m fishing to my strengths, and I just really like it. It’s a shallow-water angler’s heaven. That pretty much describes it for me.”

As has been said throughout the week, the changes at Oneida – in particular to the defined grass edges – have lead to a change in approach for much of the field, including Schultz. “We were all talking at dinner the other night about how much this lake has changed,” he said. “There used to be some really defined edges to the grass, but this year the grass has really seemed to spread out.”

As a result, Schultz pointed out that where there are defined edges there’s also a group of competitors gathered around it. “These guys are just so good at finding stuff that they’ll all congregate to the same areas,” he said. “I’ve given up on the good edges and just fishing different stuff.

“I really think that a lot of the guys have fished the same stuff that I’m fishing, it’s just that it takes a long time to get a bite. I have to do it a little while and then do something else. It’s really tedious.”

Catching only “10 or 12 keepers a day,” Schultz explained that he’s running a weak pattern around the lake. “There’s not many fish in the areas that I’m fishing, but fortunately the ones I’m catching are the right quality,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll hold up for tomorrow so that I can make a charge inside the Classic cut-off.

Quinn is Going All Out
Jason Quinn came into the week knowing that he’d need a super-strong finish to have a shot at making February’s Classic. So far, so good – and he’s not showing any signs of letting off the throttle. “Things have gone really well this week,” he said. “I’m around some really good fish, and I’m catching everything that bites.”

Quinn is primarily targeting smallmouth, though he’s weighed in a largemouth each day thus far. “I’ve got several schools of smallmouth located, and two or three of them really have a lot of quality,” he said. “Both of the largemouth came out of 15-feet of water and were just total bonuses.”

While he would like to have a steady procession of three-pounders all day, Quinn revealed that he’s been fortunate in hitting a couple of his spots at the right time each day this week. “It’s all about timing,” he revealed. “I pulled into my first spot this morning, where I didn’t really do that well on yesterday, and had 13 pounds in about 10 minutes. 

“I then ran around for a few hours and never culled a thing. I finally hit a couple of other schools that gave me a few more pounds.”

Having had some moderate success at Oneida in the past, Quinn explained that he threw history at the door when practice started this week intent on finding new horizons. “The places that I’m fishing this week are all areas that I found in practice,” he said. 

“The fish really seem to be moving into them throughout the day, so I just have to keep rotating through the areas.”

Knowing that his only shot at seeing the Classic is to go all out, Quinn plans to make no changes to his routine heading into the weekend. “The game plan is to go back to where I’ve caught my best two bags of fish and just weed them out,” he said. “I’m really just fishing for the day, and I’m not holding anything back.”

Howell Spent Too Much Time on Small Fish
Randy Howell, for the second straight tournament, vaulted into the lead on the first day. On the first day, he worked a stretch alone, but today he had company – something he cites as a possible reason for his slow down. “I just didn’t get ‘em hooked today,” he said. 

“I really let myself get aggravated because I had company all over me. I just got a little rattled and missed like three quality bites in a row.”

Fortunately Randy managed five keeper bites, culling three times, in the last 30 minutes of the day. “It was a slow morning,” he said. “I was able to make up some ground this afternoon, but I had some opportunities that I should’ve capitalized on during the morning bite.” 

In addition to getting rattled early, Howell said that he also spend too much time on small fish during the day. “This morning I ran down the lake and was catching them like crazy, but there wasn’t any size to them,” he explained. “I think I spent too long down there, because when I came back up lake my other fish were biting.”

Howell plans no changes to his run, but will quicken the pace hoping to capitalize on the bite up lake more often. “I’ll come and go more often tomorrow,” he said. “There’s still enough big ones out there to have a good bag, I’ve just got to keep hanging in there.”

Hackney is Fishing Without Worry
Coming from Pittsburgh where he collected a $500,000 paycheck, and well inside the Classic cutoff, Greg Hackney came to Oneida with few worries. With a 38th-place position after the first day, Hackney reversed his rotation and took a quantum leap up the leader board. 

“I rotated a little different on my stuff,” he said. “Instead of waiting to go to my primary spot until later in the day, I started there first thing this morning and rotated backwards.”

Hackney, like most, is targeting both species – in different areas, but with the same technique. “I’ve got one deal that seems to be better early,” he said. “My other stuff is pretty good in the morning too, but seems to be a little more steady so I decided to rotate that into the afternoon.”

Running a program that’s identical to last year’s, Hackney explained that he’s a little more dialed in to where the bigger fish are grouped. “I learned last year that if you miss the exact spot by a foot you’ll only catch two-pounders,” he said. “Doing that, I’m able to get a quality bite everywhere I stop.”

While he likes what he’s doing, Hackney knows that the here-one-day-gone-the-next style of smallmouth can be a curse. Still, he’s not going to hold anything back Saturday needing all that he can to see Alabama in February. “I know how this place is,” he said. 

“You can catch them really good one day, and then the next day come up empty handed. I really like what I’m doing regardless of how it turns out. I’m going to add one more spot to the rotation, but other than that everything is going to be exactly the same.”

Rojas Hoping for Heat
Hoping to back up his 2008 win at Oneida with another one this week, Dean Rojas was able to get dialed into the required weight on the second day of competition. “Yesterday, I just didn’t know how much to catch so I just kind of caught,” he said. “Today I had a much better day.”

Bouncing between some new areas, as well as some old, Rojas explained that about 60% of what he’s fishing was in last year’s game plan. “Today I went to some stuff that I never really practiced on, but I knew that they would be there from past knowledge,” he said. “It’s time to put it in gear and just go.”

Now that he’s zeroed in on the right weight range, Rojas – with a little help from his friend Kermit – hopes that the weatherman’s promise of sun and heat comes true. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” he said. “The hotter the weather gets, the better my fishing is going to be. I hope the sun is up real high and it gets to 90 degrees.”

DAY TWO STANDINGS