Boater Dustin Lippe of Lampe, Mo. took the early lead Wednesday at the 37th annual BFL All-American on South Carolina's Lake Hartwell with a five-bass limit weighing 12 pounds even. Right behind Lippe in 2nd place is Leesburg, Ohio’s Cole Floyd, who brought five bass to the scale good for 11-10.
2020 All-American features a field of the top 55 boaters and 55 co-anglers from across the 24-division Bass Fishing League, The Bass Federation, College Fishing, High School Fishing, all competing for a grand prize of up to $120,000 in the boater division and $50,000 in the co-angler division.
“It was tough out there today,” said Lippe, who qualified through the Bass Fishing League Ozark Division. “Practice seemed to be pretty good – I could catch numbers and the size was better than I anticipated. This morning, that was not the case. I started off with a small limit – like 7 pounds – and I eventually stumbled on to one that weighed close to 3 1/2 (pounds) and that helped.
“It was slow the rest of the day, then in the last 10 minutes I caught one that culled up my weight another pound and a half. I weighed in all spotted bass. I had been catching some largemouth, but I could not get them to bite today.”
Here are the totals for the initial Top 10:
1. Dustin Lippe: 12-00
2. Cole Floyd: 11-10
3. (tie) Todd Goade: 11-07
3. (tie) Bryan Dowdy: 11-07
5. Chris Macy: 11-06
6. Wesley Standifer: 11-04
7. Dennis Berhorst: 11-01
8. Mitch Crane: 10-12
9. Ryan Davidson: 10-10
10. Michael Miller: 10-09
Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.
