Sumrall takes early lead, finishes day 1 in 25th place at Bassmaster Classic

Published 12:00 am Saturday, March 5, 2022

GREENVILLE, South Carolina – Going into the second day of the 52nd annual Bassmaster Classic, Caleb Sumrall of New Iberia finds himself barely on the positive side of the bubble at Lake Hartwell.

With a Super Bowl-type “watch party” following his every cast, every hookset, from a vantage point of a nearby sloping hill on Friday, Sumrall busted the bass’ chops early Saturday on Day 1. He reeled in an early limit, even owned the top spot for some of the first few hours, before the hour of reckoning at the Bon Secours Center.

Sumrall’s five bass weighed 14 pounds, 11 ounces, which left him in 25th place in the 55-angler field fishing the 87,000-acre fishery in South Carolina. After today, the Top 25 advance to Championship Sunday.

“I feel like I survived today,” Sumrall told Bassmaster emcee Dave Mercer after his fish were weighed on the big stage Friday.

He was lacking a “big bite” or two on the first day, Sumrall said on the big stage.

“I caught the snot out of the fish today,” he said.

Mercer said, chuckling, “How many is ‘catching the snot out of them?’ ”

Sumrall said, “40 to 50.”

The 34-year-old fifth year pro said it was a rewarding day on the water. His wife, Jacie, their children, Clelie and Axel, and 27 or so other family members, friends and sponsors watched him the first few hours from a vantage point on a gently sloping hillside about 300 yards from where he was fishing near the mouth of a cove.

“I got to catch a bunch of fish in front of my family. That got me choked up,” he said.

It was a “decent start,” Sumrall said.

He started culling at 9:29 a.m. with an estimated 2-pound, 12-ounce, fish, and caught his last cull fish, another one estimated at 2-12, at 1:45 p.m.

This is his third Classic. He finished 49th in 2018 at Lake Hartwell and 26th in 2020 at Lake Guntersville in Alabama, where he missed the Top 25 cut by a mere 3 ounces behind Ooltewah, Tennessee, bass pro Hunter Shyrock’s 20 pounds, 13 ounces.

Sumrall and 53 other Bassmaster Elite Series anglers are chasing South Carolina’s Brian New, who is right at home in his home state of South Carolina. The Saluda resident fishing his first Classic leads the field in his first-ever Classic with a limit weighing 20 pounds even.

New is followed closely by Kyle Welcher of Opelika, Alabama, who carried 18 pounds, 13 ounces, to the scale, and Louisiana’s Greg Hackney of Gonzales with 18 pounds, 9 ounces. Steve Kennedy of Auburn, Alabama, also has 18 pounds, 9 ounces.

sundayNew said the five bass he put on the electronic scale all came off boat docks.

“I think there’s a really good chance this tournament could be won fishing boat docks. I probably fished a hundred docks today and really caught them off six or seven,” New said. “Those docks may replenish or they may not, but there are plenty of docks on this lake, so it’s not like you’re gonna run out.”

Fans can catch all of the action with streaming coverage on Bassmaster.com. The Classic also features four hours of live coverage on the FOX broadcast network Saturday beginning at 7 a.m., as well as four hours of Championship Sunday coverage on FS1 beginning at 7 a.m.

At stake is a $300,000 first-place prize and the most coveted trophy in competitive bass fishing.