I don’t know exactly how he’s doing it, but Glenn Browne is putting on a little clinic at Smith so far. Apparently, not very many others know how he’s doing it, either, because he only garnered picks on 4 percent of all the fantasy teams created for Smith Lake. Browne’s supposed to be a dirty-water, thick-grass-flipping specialist, which makes his success on the deep, clear waters of Smith the last two days all the more mystifying. Even more baffling, I actually ran into Browne at dinner two days before the tournament, and he acted like he had no clue how to catch fish in this lake. Kudos to him for figuring it out and proving us all wrong.
As for the rest of the top 10, all the Greg Pugh, Koby Kreiger and Luke Clausen fantasy fans are happy today. Pugh bounced back huge with a whopping 17 1/2 pounds today, Kreiger stayed sight-steady with another 11, and Clausen just edged into the cut in 10th place (by virtue of a tiebreaker, no less. Sorry, Mark Pack fans.)
That takes care of the obvious favorites. A couple more big names made the cut in Darrel Robertson and Michael Bennett, which should satisfy more than a few fantasy players, as well. That Bennett pick is an example where it pays to watch those videos we post during practice. He told me in no uncertain terms that people should pick him, and he obviously wasn’t lying. Bennett’s a pretty straight shooter, so when he says he’s on fish, he’s on fish. Robertson, too, had that Oklahoma gleam in his eye when I asked him about the fishing at the beginning of the week, though he was a little more elusive about it than Bennett.
As for the rest, some serious dark horses – at least from a fantasy perspective – cracked the top 10 today. Scott Canterbury, Brandon Coulter, Danny Pierce and Jason Christie all made their first cut on the FLW Tour today. That makes them tough picks for fantasy players at any event. Still, the 3 percent of players who know Alabama fishing and picked the local Canterbury are happy, and Christie has a long enough fishing resume out of Oklahoma that 5 percent of players picked him. As for Coulter and Pierce, consider yourself a fantasy-fishing genius if you have either of them on your roster. Coulter earned only picks on 1 percent of all teams and Pierce had exactly zero picks.
So don’t feel bad about missing out on those four. They’re pretty much equalizers. Now the game comes down to who can match Pugh, Clausen, Bennett, Robertson and Kreiger on the exactas come Sunday. It took three exactas to win at Toho, and I’m guessing it will take just as many here, if not one more. If you have any combination of these guys on your roster, you’re sitting pretty for the $100,000 Smith Lake prize.
And if you picked Glenn Browne to win, I’m calling you to pick the numbers on my next lottery ticket.
Here are your full day-two results.