With a 14.39-pound bag topped by a 4 1/2-pound fish, 72-year-old Guy Eaker bolted to the day 1 lead at the Arkansas River PAA Tournament Series. He had a lead of about a quarter-pound over 2nd-place Tommy Biffle, who weighed 14.12.
"I actually thought I had a better practice than what I did today," he said. "I think the storm coming in might've changed things because I'd been seeing big balls of baitfish where I've been catching these fish, and I didn't see those today. I still caught them, but I thought it was a little tougher than it had been in practice.
"I'm not catching them deep, I'll say that. I'm fishing points and logs and stumps and things like that, throwing stuff I like to fish. I've got five or six places I can go and hopefully they'll be there again tomorrow."
Here's a look at the Top 10 with 2 days left to fish:
1. Guy Eaker: 14.39
2. Tommy Biffle: 14.12
3. Chris Jones: 12.73
4. Mark Rose: 12.37
5. Chad Morgenthaler: 12.25
6. Mark Tyler: 12.22
7. Billy McCaghren: 11.87
8. Harold Allen: 11.86
9. Jason Christie: 11.31
10. Greg Vinson: 11.22
Morgenthaler weighed only four fish, but one was a 5-pounder. Dale Hightower had his day-1 weight disqualified for inadvertently fishing in an off-limits area (he weighed an 8.27 bag and would've been in 30th place in the 42-angler field).
