Harris Chain BASSMASTER

Day 2 - Paul Elias
Friday, January 10, 2003

(Editor's note: After day 1 Elias was 28th with a 6-14 limit.) I made the last check. I had my limit yesterday by about 10:00, but caught nothing today -- just a 11 1/2-incher. Yesterday the wind didn't start blowing until about 1:00, and today it started blowing when we got to the lake. (When he got to his spot) water was blowing over the bow of the boat where I was.

I was fishing a Carolina rig with a Mann's Dragon Finesse Worm (red shad) on the outside of the Kissimmee grass and eelgrass. I had about a 100-yard stretch to myself, and I thought I'd make the cut no problem. But the wind blew on it all night, churned it up and thy wouldn't bite. Jay Yelas told me he had 9 keepers by 9:00 yesterday and none today. Maybe you just couldn't repeat on the same fish.

Day 2 - John Crews
Friday, January 10, 2003

It was terrible. I never boated a bass. My partner lost a 2-pounder and that was all the excitement we had. I fished some of the same areas and some new areas, and fished a lot of different baits a lot of different ways. I kept going through different baits and never could find anything that was working.

I feel like crap -- confused, more than anything. It's like -- you work your butt off and think you have a little something going on. You figure you'll go out there and fish as hard as you can for 8-9 hours and at least come up with something, and you come up with nothing. It's confusing and frustrating at the same time.

It'll take me a day or so to get over it. I'll ready to go by Monday. I'll be fired up (at Okeechobee), especially when I go out there with my flipping stick. Then I'll really be ready.

Day 1 - John Crews
Thursday, January 9, 2003

(Editor's note: This is John Crews' first year fishing the BASSMASTER Tour.) I had no keepers. It's ridiculously tough. Everyone I talked to today had just 1-2 fish. I did catch one, but it wasn't long enough.

It's a parking lot. We can't fish Apopka, we can't fish Griffin. That eliminates 40,000 acres right there. It was ridiculous. I've never fished around so many people in my life. Everywhere you went there were people. Every canal was slam-full of boats. Every good-looking bank that had something that might hold a fish on it was a merry-go-round: one boat would leave, and another would come in.

I honestly don't know what I'll do tomorrow. I saw people catch 6-7 fish in areas I wanted to fish or areas right next to where I was fishing. It just wasn't my turn to catch one. I was fishing a 20-foot hole with a spring in this one canal, and this guy pulls up, takes out an 8-inch swim bait, lets it sink to the bottom and caught about a 4-pounder. Talk about a Hail Mary.

Today I was boat 166, and by the time I got out there 4 boats were on the bank I wanted to start on, Maybe tomorrow I'll get first dibs on something.