Day 1 of the Strike King Bassmaster College Series Wildcard on Logan Martin Lake saw second-place Baylor University’s Parker Greer and Andrew Shadle come in 1 pound, 4 ounces behind University of North Georgia’s Jonathon Garbacz and Kevin Dunahoo. That’s well within striking distance and the Texas teammates are banking on a handful of key scenarios that they hope can propel them to victory.
One of these spots is a sunken boat in the middle of a cove. Sounds like a good place to find a hefty largemouth treating the spot like a big brush pile, but the Baylor team caught a 3 1/2-pound spotted bass there on a dropshot.
Most encouraging was the crowd of Coosa river hooligans their electronics revealed.
“It sounds crazy, but there’s 20 pounds of spots on this boat,” Greer said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Suffice it to say, if they can trigger that school, the feeding competition will give them a good shot at filling out a fat limit.
Also, Greer and Shadle caught two of their keepers in the shallow reaches of a creek. Throwing glide baits, they caught the fish in less-than-ideal conditions, but they’re optimistic that today might yield a better complexion.
“That spot’s really interesting — it’s like rapids; we’re going up through boulders and getting into calm pools,” Greer said. “We had a 4-pound spot in there in practice.
“The rain (Thursday night) kinda blew it out, but we’re hoping it will be cleared up for Day 2.”
Day 1 saw Greer and Shadle catch a good keeper on a ledge. As Greer noted, that fish was not lonely.
“There are a lot of 5- and 6-pounders on that ledge,” he said. “If we can get that school to fire, it could get ugly.”
Rounding out their options, Greer and Shadle found another solid fish in a small cut that was loaded with gizzard shad. A pile of food rarely goes unnoticed by big bass, so they’ll definitely give that spot another look.
Along with Greer and Shadle’s story, the field of talented college anglers will surely write plenty of their own. After another hot day on Logan Martin, someone’s tale will bring a happy ending by way of the first place trophies.
