California's Greg Gutierrez has missed the Top 50 cut in three of the last four Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments, and that's put him in a precarious position going into this week's tour finale at Table Rock: He must move up five places in the standings, or he won't qualify for this third straight Bassmaster Classic.
"I think I'm going to need at least a Top 20," he said. "The way this Series is, it's easy to move down, but it's tough to move up."
There are two tournaments he can point to where he should have made the cut, but didn't.
"The first one was at Amistad – I didn't make adjustments on the first day when I knew I should have. The second one was at Guntersville, where I lost a big fish on the first day, then I inadvertently let my non-boater catch that same fish on the second day.
"I also had one die on me at the ramp there, and that dead one cost me the cut."
He finished 51st at Guntersville, just 3 ounces out of the cut. He was 74th at Amistad and caught 21-01 on day 2 after making the adjustments he spoke of, but that couldn't offset an 11-02 bag on day 1.
He'll go into Table Rock with some confidence because it reminds him of two lakes in his home region – Shasta and Oroville. He finished 60th at the Rock last year (that was good enough for a check at the time).
"I didn't do too bad, and I had a lot more opportunities than what I brought to the scale. I feel good about the lake."
