Fishing News - 8/4/00

        From BASS

Mark Davis Takes Day One Lead In Louisiana Lowe's W.C.F. 2000

MONROE, La., Aug. 4, 2000 - Former Bass Masters Classic champion Mark Davis took the first-day lead Friday in the Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse World Championship Fishing (W.C.F.) tournament on the Ouachita River with a combined fishing/boating performance score of 76 points.

The popular Arkansas pro has an 11-point lead over last year's inaugural W.C.F. champion, Gary Klein, who finished the half day of fishing, half day of boat handling with 65 points. Dean Rojas of Arizona holds third with 62 points, followed by Texan Jay Yelas in fourth with 54. Brent Chapman and Davy Hite are tied for fourth with 51 points.

Davis out-fished the 16-angler field, bringing five bass weighing 15 pounds, 8 ounces to the scales after six hours of fishing 15,000 acre Lake D'Arbonne, while Klein posted the quickest time, 1:09:49 around the 3,500-foot boating course.

"I caught at least 40 fish this morning," said an obviously excited Davis, who used both a Strike King Series 4 crankbait and a 10-inch Zoom plastic worm along the outside bends of creek channels to make his catch. "The fish were schooling and feeding heavily on shad."

Davis timed the third-quickest time through the boating performance course, behind Klein and Brent Chapman. Klein, one of the fastest in the boating performance practice runs on Thursday, continued his dominance through the buoy-marked course with his single timed run clocking more than half a second faster than Chapman. His catch of 4 pounds, 12 ounces, however, was only sixth best.

"Interestingly, any lessons learned from today's fishing probably won't help much at Caney Lake where we fish tomorrow," noted Davis. "It's a totally different type of lake and the fish aren't relating to the same type of cover at all. It's still anybody's tournament."

The unique Lowe's W.C.F. format calls for three half-days of bass fishing on three different bodies of water, all different, followed by a single timed afternoon run on the boating performance course.

         B.A.S.S. Web site: http://www.bassmaster.com.

More Fishing News