By KELLY BOSTIAN Outdoors Writer on Jun 24, 2012, at 2:32 PM Updated on 6/24 at 2:32 PM
THE OUTDOORS
Sitting in the sun, sitting in the rain, sitting through the thunder and lightning, wind, calm, night, dawn and … sitting.
Incubating ...
When I imagine what I might do if I were caught outdoors during a bad storm my mind tends to jump to ideas to shelter myself ...
Our bluebirds marked Mothers Day with the beginning of a new clutch of eggs.
Nest building began May 6 and egg number one ...
Terry Butcher raises a pair of bass this week at the Mississippi River Rumble at LaCrosse, Wisc.
COURTESY/BASS Serio Saito
Sundays – especially ones when I’m waiting for a Bassmaster weigh-in – are my days to think ahead to the Bassmaster Classic and who will be qualifying to fish the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees contest in February.
Today Talala’s Terry Butcher is in the mix for the lead in the Mississippi River Rumble out of LaCrosse, Wisc. BASStrak shows him in the lead late in the day, but it’s going to be a close one. An Elite win puts you in, so best of luck to him today.
Even if he doesn’t win it will help his Angler of the Year points standing, as three-quarters of the way through the regular season those points are vital for everyone in the Elite series. The top 28-ish (depending on double-qualifiers) AOY points holders qualify for the Classic.
If my amateur prognosticating on the somewhat complicated Classic qualification process is halfway accurate – fair warning, it may not be – it looks like Talala brothers-in-law Butcher and Edwin Evers are in good shape as is Ardmore’s Jeff Kriet. Evers is in 9th, Kriet is in 20th and Butcher is in 23rd, according to current standings posted at bassmaster.com. It’s a fair bet they all will make it to Grand.
Other Elite Okies are pretty well out of the points race: Oklahoma City’s David Smith is in 97th; Norman’s Kenyon Hill is 94th; Jared Miller, also of Norman is 92nd, and Choctaw’s Kevin Ledoux is 81st.
Bixby’s Fred Roumbanis and Wagoner’s Tommy Biffle are ranked in the 50-ish range and each needs a miracle at this point. Both also are fishing the Opens this year so they have a chance there as well. Although if Tommy Biffle wins the Open set for Fort Gibson Lake Sept. 9 it might be considered something less than a miracle. He’s won both major BASS tournaments, an Elite and an Open, held in his home range the past two years – one on Fort Gibson, one on the river out of Muskogee. He’ll be the guy to watch come September.
Today, though, the guy I’m watching is Butcher. You can catch the live weigh-in at 3:30 p.m. by going to the Bassmaster web site, or just click
HERE
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