PIERRE, S.D. — Caleb Sumrall is on track to make the Top 12 in the Bassmaster Elite tournament at Lake Oahe, a 370,000-acre lake that was whipped by 70 mph winds and heavy rain overnight Friday.

Sumrall’s knack for putting smallmouth bass in the boat helped him Saturday, the second day of the tournament, despite the conditions that delayed the start of action for 1 1/2 hours. The 31-year-old New Iberia bass angler went into the second day of fishing in eighth place in the 107-angler field and came out of it in 12th place.

However, Sumrall came up one keeper bass shy of a five-fish limit. His four bass weighed  11 pounds, 6 ounces, to give him a two-day total of 28 pounds, 1 ounce.

The New Iberian made the Top 50 cut for the second straight tournament, an accomplishment worth $10,000. He did it last week in the Bassmaster Elite stop on the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Sumrall and the rest of the Top 50 return to the lake today for the semifinal round of competition, which is scheduled to get underway at 6 a.m. out of Spring Creek Resort & Marina. Weigh-in will start at 3:45 p.m. here at Steamboat Park.

Alabama’s Mark Daniels Jr., who was sitting in second place after the opening round Friday, vaulted to the lead on the strength of a monster 20-pound, 4-ounce limit Saturday.

“Smallmouth are random. I fish randomly. Sometimes we just intersect,” Daniels, whose 20-4 worth of smallmouth gave him a two-day total of 39 pounds to take the event lead, said after the weigh-in. 

“I’m fishing transition areas where these big females are leaving spawning flats and chilling out before going deep,” the Alabama pro said. 

North Carolina pro David Fritts proved that his impressive first-day limit of Oahe smallmouth (19-7) was no fluke by bringing in an 18-pound, 1-ounce bag for Round 2. 

This gives the 1993 Bassmaster Classic champion a two-day total of 37-8, good enough for second place heading into Day 3.

“I’m proud of what I caught today, because where I was fishing, the wind was brutal. I had waves crashing over the bow of my boat all morning,” Fritts said. 

South Carolina’s Casey Ashley, a self-labeled smallmouth hater, rolled across the weigh-in stage with the day’s heaviest limit of smallmouth, pushing the scales to 20 pounds, 6 ounces, putting him in third place with a two-day total of 37-6.

Rounding out the Top 6 for Day 2 are Boyd Duckett, 33-11; Josh Bertrand, 33-3; and Justin Lucas, 32-14.