“Anybody who was out there today has to love this sport because common sense tells you it’s not a good idea,” said Jacob Nummy, half of the Auburn Universty Montgomery team that won the Southern Regional last season.

Today Nummy fished with new partner Corey Pierce and the duo, beat up by the wind, just kept flippin’.

AUM’s 17 pound, 8 ounce effort landed them in 6th place among 130 teams. This puts them in contention for a repeat victory if they can duplicate their success during Saturday’s final competition round.

They have their work cut out. AUM looks up the leaderboard and sees:

Oliver says the Knights, in 1st place, will go with the “same game plan” tomorrow. Teammate McKamey elaborates, “we left our spot pretty early in the day.” indicating that they expect to pick up where they left off when fishing resumes in the morning.

Oliver and McKamey are a pound and 5 ounces ahead of their UCF club mates Larsen and Peet who also occupy one of the top 5 spots.

A lot of folks are looking forward to tomorrow – if only for the fact that air temperatures are forecast to rise about 15 degrees.

Today’s wind pinned down some anglers while others spoke of wet and wild trips across the rolling lake. Neal Combs of Seminole State College says he and partner Kevin Lucas should have run south – something he talked Lucas out of

Lucas says they’ll make the run tomorrow and try to overcome their 58th-place start. “We’re going to go swing for a big bag tomorrow. It’s all we can do with 8 pounds, 13 ounces today.”

The expected warm up probably won’t impact patterns and techniques much. Today the deal was clearly the flippin’ bite along Okeechobee’s somewhat sheltered, though very crowded North Shore region. Bassmaster.com’s Shaye Baker counted 31 boats in an area that produced for anglers in last month’s Bassmaster Classic Wildcard tourney. Winds should lay, but waters will still be chilly and fish should be tight beneath the mats.