Hite And Morris Tied for First

Davy Hite and Virginia's Rick Morris are tied for 1st after day 1 of the Eufaula BASSMASTER. Both caught limits weighing 19-01.

Morris' position is big news for an angler who has been struggling this season. But the even bigger news is Hite -- he seems to thrive on pressure like the rest of us thrive on air.

Hite has led the B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year (AOY) race from the first tournament of the season. He knows four of the best anglers on the planet are breathing down his neck. ESPN TV cameras are trained on him like he's breaking into the CIA.

And under all that pressure he appears to feel nothing -- which is good, because if anything he has more pressure now: being in 2nd means he has to maintain that lead for the next 3 days, while Larry Nixon, Mark Davis, Kevin VanDam and Tim Horton do everything in their power to beat him.

"It's great to get off to a good start," Hite said. "I'm catching them well. I quit fishing pretty early today after catching them good this morning.

"But this is a humbling sport. It can be good one day and the total opposite the next day. So I'm just going to go fishing tomorrow."

Hite vs. Nixon for AOY?

Though anything can happen, at this point it looks like a two-man race for the AOY title. Nixon is in 14th place, a little less than 5 pounds (or one-third of his weight today) behind Hite.

"I'm just kind of hanging around," Nixon said, adding that he feels good about his chances. "I think I can catch a decent string of fish every day. It just depends on how bad the fish have been hammered in the area I'm fishing."

Most of the field is fishing shallow all day, Nixon included, and he said he had "a lot of boats" around him. "I have no deep stuff at all," he said. "I never got on any deep fish in practice, and I figured that as long as the water is coming up, it would be foolish for me to go out there."

What makes Nixon's catch a little better is that he only had 4 bass. "I lost 2-3 keepers today," he said. "One of them felt big."

Nixon On AOY Race

"Davy caught 19 pounds," Nixon said. "Everyone else I needed to falter, did, except for Davy. If I can catch 14 tomorrow and the third day, who knows what could happen. Davy could have a bad day.

"I'm just going to do the best I can do. If it works out, great. If not, hopefully there will be another time."

Two Jersey Guys: Iaconelli

It seems like when New Jersey's Mike Iaconelli is on fish, he's on them big-time. This time he's on them. Iaconelli caught 15-XX today, is 9th in the standings and thinks he can catch them better tomorrow. The reason: he lost a bunch of bass today.

"My performance was very poor today as far as mechanics goes," he said. "I was losing fish and missing hooksets, and still caught over 15 pounds of fish. I'm very excited about tomorrow. I have to get act my act together as far as performance goes, and I think I'll have a better day tomorrow."

Iaconelli is fishing shallow and deep. His shallow-water mechanical mistake was that he chose the wrong style of hook for his flipping pattern. "I had the wrong hook on and it cost me a lot of fish early," he said. When he figured out his error, he "started catching them.

"Out deep I just didn't put fish in the boat," he said. "I had some cranking fish on, and in a tournament like this, you can't mess up.

"These are fixable mistakes. If I don't lose any, I could have a 17-18 pound day tomorrow."

Two Jersey Guys: Gluszek

In contrast to his compadre, Pete Gluszek had a miserable day on the water: he weighed-in one 2-pound keeper. "The fishing's tough," he said. "This time of the year the fish are supposed to be deep, but the water level keeps going up."

Gluszek noted that the Atlanta area had heavy rain that is now starting to show up in Eufaula. "The water is going up every day," he said. "That's helping the shallow bite, but the shallow bite isn't that strong.

"I had a strong shallow-water bite going in practice that fizzled on me today. I didn't catch them, but I was fishing around guys who were catching them. I think I failed to adjust," Gluszek said. "I was fishing too big, too bulky, too powerful. The fish were chomping it in practice, but not anymore.

"The guys who make the Top 10 probably will have versatility on their side -- some shallow and some deep. So many guys are frothing the shallow water, you have to be able to get a few bites doing something different.

Classic Pressure

Like many other anglers, if Iaconelli and Gluszek do well they're in the BASS Masters Classic.

Going into Eufaula, Gluszek was in. But "as of today I've fallen out of the Classic. I have to adjust and do well," he said.

"A lot of guys who had big weights today did it with just 4 fish," he noted. "It's difficult to get a lot of keepers. You really have to execute. The guys who don't are in trouble.

"Ask all those BassFans out there to send me some fish vibes," he said. "I need all the help I can get."

Iaconelli said: "My whole mentality for this tournament was to make the Classic. By going out and catching what I caught today, it puts me in the driver's seat. Even if I have two bad days, I'll probably still make it. So from here on out, everything's a bonus for me."

Notable

> Denny Brauer is in 4th and Gary Klein is tied for 6th.

> Weight Predictions -- Right now it looks like 14-15 pounds per day will make the Top 10, and 9-11 pounds per day will put an angler in the money.

> Like Iaconelli and others in the Top 10, day 1 leader Morris also has shallow pattern and deep patterns.

Weather Forecast

Here's the forecast for the remaining competition days, according to the Weather Channel. Note the near-identical conditions.

> Thurs., May 9 -- Partly Cloudy -- high 93°F, low 65°F
- Wind: From the S/SW to SW to W/SW up to 9 mph

> Fri, May 10 -- Partly Cloudy -- high 88°F, low 65°F
- Wind: from the W and W/SW up to 4 mph

> Sat, May 11 -- Partly Cloudy -- high 88°F, low 65°F

For full day 1 standings click here.