Collegiate Weigh-In Will Settle All Bets

The first round of the FLW Collegiate Bass National Championship is waning, and the 25 two-man teams are working their way back toward the take-out ramp at Knoxville. Who's ahead? We'll find out at 4 p.m. or thereabouts when the opening weigh-in starts on the campus of the University of Tennessee. Though a few boats report good sacks of bass, Fort Loudon Lake hasn't been altogether kind to everyone. The team from Eastern Kentucky University, for example, caught more than three dozen bass by mid-afternoon, but only a couple of them were keepers. Ditto for the University of Oregon, which hauled in enough small fries to stock a good-size pond.

Although it's anybody's game now, Auburn, Ohio State and Texas State seem to be emerging as the early favorites. A member of the Texas State team from San Marcos boated a 5-pounder and it was the largest reported. Those guys were culling by 1 p.m., as was the Auburn team of Shaye Baker and David Parker. Of course, many of the boats are out of range or just keeping mum about their catches. All will be revealed starting at 4, and set up the competition heading into the next two days.