Chevy Pro Bryan Thrift rocked the scale with a sack that weighed 18 pounds, 7 ounces. Randall Tharp followed that with 18-8 to take the slightest of leads in an event where ounces will be worth thousands of dollars – five-hundred thousand, to be exact.

Tharp is doing something he suspects nobody else in the field is. and tomorrow he plans to run in the opposite direction when he launches his boat. “I found a little something here in the spring and I think I’m going to that tomorrow.”

The Red River has been stingy with her big fish as summer swelter baked the field during practice rounds. Today’s cooler temperatures brought welcome relief for the anglers, but some pros, including defending Cup champion, Evinrude Pro Jacob Wheeler, noticed the water temps in backwater areas dipped by as much as 10 degrees. Wheeler says that didn’t help him. “I was catching them on topwaters (in practice) and today with the cooler water and no current, nothing was moving. The and wasn’t moving. I couldn’t get those fish to come up so I broke out the flipping rod.”

Wheeler weighed 7-4, a pedestrian limit, but one that keeps him in the game as there is a log jam of weights in the 7-to-10-pound range and one big bite will go a long way toward turning things around.

Larry Nixon is in the game. The General opened the tournament with 5 fish that weighed 13-4, good for 3rd place right now.

Young pro Adrian Avena is also in the game. He sorted through an estimated 50 fish to end up with a weight of 13-2. The New Jersey angler said he has 4 similar spots in Pool 5 but the one he camped on today is far and away his best. He never made a cast on it in practice. But today he caught fish from it on 9 different rods, though most of his weight came on one deal – a crankbait.

Avena noted that a couple other high-placing contestants fished in the same general area, though it sounds like Avena is fishing closer to the main river. He said fish are coming and going so he expects the spot to replenish. Even if the spot reloads with numbers of fish, size remains a huge question mark. However, given the good start, Avena can hang near the top of the leaderboard with a couple more solid, if unremarkable, limits.

Whether Avena’s spot will hold up remains to be seen but he will have it to himself again tomorrow. “I was boat 46 today (last boat out) so I will be boat number 1 tomorrow. I should beat everybody to my spot.”

As did Tharp and Thrift, Avena credited his fast start to a couple of bigger than average bass which surprised him.

Those big bites will make all the difference this week.