ORANGE, Texas — While one Louisiana bass angler took a commanding lead Thursday in the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Elite tournament on the Sabine River, another Louisianian from New Iberia checked in with a five-fish limit that left him in 51st place in the 108-angler field.

Caleb Sumrall, who grew up fishing in and around the Atchafalaya Basin, put five bass on the scale that weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces, on the first day of the Elite event in eastern Texas. 

“It feels like home out there … a lot of cypress trees, a lot of dirty water …,” Sumrall said after his bass were weighed on the stage in front of the crowd, including family, friends and fans from his hometown, at the city of Orange Boat Ramp.

His goal, naturally, is to make the cut after today’s second round. The Top 50 anglers advance to the third day of competition on Saturday.

“It’ll be a tight one. The trick will be to do it again tomorrow,” Sumrall said before leaving the stage to start making a game plan for today.

Daily takeoffs are at 6:05 a.m. from the city of Orange Boat Ramp and weigh-ins are at the ramp each day at 3 p.m. 

Greg Hackney of Gonzales came into this week’s Elite stop on the Sabine River expecting the fishing to be tough. He said he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had caught no more than 5 pounds, 14 ounces, of bass during Thursday’s entire opening round.

So when he landed one fish that weighed 5-14 early Thursday morning, he knew he was on to something — and he built a five-bass limit around that fish that weighed 16-3 to give him the Day 1 lead in an event that pays $100,000 to the winner. 

“When the fishing’s this tough, catching a fish like that is almost like catching a whole limit on one bite,” said Hackney, who has won five events during his career with B.A.S.S. “If you can put four more with it — even four little ones — you’re probably going to be in pretty good shape.” 

Despite suffocating heat and water temperatures that pushed into the low 90s in some places, Hackney said the conditions were actually good on the Sabine River during Thursday’s early-morning hours. That’s when he did the bulk of his good work.

But once the tide started out, the fishing got tougher — and anglers started moving around a lot. That, he said, made things much worse. 

“I had one place where I was waiting for the water to come back, and I was expecting it to come back real clean,” Hackney said. “Typically, that’s what would happen. But with so many people moving around later in the day, it really muddied the water.

“When it came back, it came back dirty.”

As for the rest of the tournament, Hackney is sticking with his original mindset.

“It could be really good, or it could be really bad,” he said. “I’m prepared for it to be tough.”

Hackney’s 5-14 largemouth put him in the lead for the $1,500 Phoenix Boats Big Bass award, and his 16-3 limit helped to a sizeable lead of almost 4 pounds over Alabama angler Matt Herren.

Herren brought five bass to the scales that weighed 12-4 — and he agreed that scattered big bites will be the deciding factor in an event that will likely see a lot of smaller bass caught in the 12- to 14-inch range.

“I had a few quality bites in practice, and I got a couple today,” Herren said. “I don’t know if I’ll get them tomorrow. But that’s what you’ll have to have.”

Herren said boat traffic was not a huge problem for him Thursday.

“I had two or three other boats around me, but it’s a big area I’m fishing,” he said. “None of those other (anglers) were doing what I’m doing.”

After a tough practice, California angler Skeet Reese was thrilled with his third-place weight of 12-2 — and he thinks he might have picked up some knowledge that could help him the rest of the way.

“I thought if I had a great day, I might could catch 9 pounds,” he said. “So to catch 12 … I didn’t see that coming.

“I caught my last good fish of the day on a different bait than I had been catching them on, so I may have learned something.”