The U.S. squad is in second place after Friday's initial round of competition at the Black Bass World Championship in Portugal, trailing Germany by five points with one day remaining in the 17th edition of the event that's been shortened from three days to two due to weather.
Scoring is based on a points system that combines all three angler pairs representing each of the 14 nations, with lower being better. German duos ended the day in the first, ninth and 14th positions, with those numbers adding up to 24. The American teams are in fourth, fifth and 20th (29 points). From there, it's a big drop to third-place Spain with 47 points.
Jacob Wheeler and Dustin Connell (pictured) led the American contingent with a 15.56-pound stringer from Lake Sabor that put them in fourth place in the pairs standings. David Fritts and Fred Roumbanis were one slot further back with 15.26. U.S. captain Scott Martin and Scott Canterbury managed just under nine pounds and are in 20th place in the 42-boat field.
Germany's Lukas Riplinger and Anton Vogt caught what was easily the day's top stringer (19.15 pounds). They were followed by Pieter Espag and Reed Eastman of South Africa (16.74) and Italy's Luca Vittorio Della Ciana and Jimmy Ashlock (16.51).
"We had a crazy weather day – it was sunny, it was cloudy, it rained, the wind blew 30 miles an hour and then it wouldn't blow at all for 10 minutes," Martin said. "Canterbury and I had kind of a tough time; we should've easily had 13 or 14 pounds, but we had some good fish that didn't make it to the boat. I think we can catch them better tomorrow.
"It boils down to a little luck on a fishery like this. This lake is only maybe eight years old, but the fish are very finicky for it being a new lake. I don't think the bass get a great deal of pressure, but they're still a little bit unpredictable."
Wheeler said he and Connell employed topwater baits to compile their bag. Those included popper-type offerings and a Rapala pencil bait that's sold in Europe.
"It was a hodge-podge of walking-style stuff," he said. "To me, these fish act like (bass that feed on blueback herring in some lakes in the southeastern U.S.), but they don't have herring here. Sometimes they'll bite the heck out of whatever you throw at them and then the next moment they won't bite anything.
"I'm a little bit disappointed because I actually thought we'd catch a much bigger bag. The wind was blowing pretty good today and hopefully tomorrow will be better. We had some missed opportunities, but I'm sure everybody did. Just catching bass in Portugal is an amazing opportunity in itself."
Only three of the 42 pairs failed to weigh a five-fish limit. One of those was Josip Pecigos and Filip Pecigos of Croatia, who are nonetheless in seventh place as their four-fish haul weighed just under 13 pounds.
