The three grand divisions of Tennessee are represented in the top nine of the Walmart FLW Tour bass tournament on Lake Chickamauga as the top 20 pros go out again this morning from the Dayton Boat Dock.
The leader is Michael Wooley from Collierville, near Memphis, who traded places from Thursday with now second-place Billy McDonald of Greenwood, Ind. Wooley's five keepers Friday totaled 23 pounces, 5 ounces, giving him a two-day total of 49-7, and McDonald is at 45-5 with David Dudley of Lynchburg, Va., rising to third at 42-2.
Dayton's Michael Neal, the official operator of the host dock, remained fourth at 41-11, and Charlie Ingram of Centerville, Tenn., is ninth at 39-4 after weighing 19-2 Friday. The winner will collect up to $125,000.
Soddy-Daisy's Cody Frazier finished second as the co-angler division concluded. His two-day total of 29-7 earned him $7,291. Paul LaFleur of Benton, Ark., won $25,000 for his 31-4 - with 17-2 on day two.
Louisiana anglers Bronk McDaniel and Stephen Crawley were third and fourth with 28-4 and 27-15, including the 8-15 big bass of the day for McDaniel, and Cecil Wolfe from Ontario, Canada, was fifth with 27-12. First-day co-angler leader Zachary Francis of Abingdon, Va., wound up sixth with a 26-14 total.
Thomas Helton of Charleston, Tenn., finished 20th among the co-anglers with 22-14, and Gary Runyon of Decatur, Tenn., was 32nd with 20-2.
Richard Peek of Centre, Ala., is 16th in the pro division and among today's semifinalists with his two-day 37-10, counting a 20-11 bag Friday.
Marshall Deakins of Dunlap finished 72nd at 27-6, and Wesley Strader of Spring City, the tour's points leader coming into the event on his home lake, totaled 26-14 for 77th place - four spots and nine ounces ahead of 2013 and 2014 points champion Andy Morgan of Dayton.
John Cox of DeBary, Fla., who came into this tournament in third place in season points, is seventh with at least one day to go. Second-place Bryan Thrift of Shelby, N.C., is 19th on Chickamauga, and seventh- and 10th-place points holders Scott Martin and Darrell Davis from Florida are 12th and 11th. The top 10 after today will fish in Sunday's final round.
Weigh-ins today and Sunday will begin at 4 p.m. at the Wal-Mart store in Dayton, which also will host an FLW Expo beginning at noon each day.
Wooley said he has caught "around 20" potential keepers each day.
"My main area isn't holding huge numbers of fish, but they are the right quality. The fish that I have been catching are solid fish," the second-year Walmart Tour pro said in an FLW Outdoors release.
That main area, he related, is a bar in the middle of a creek with mussel beds where gizzard shad have been feeding in the morning, according to the release. He said he was not getting the "reaction bite" he wanted but was catching fish by "dragging" in 12 to 13 feet of water.
He said he spent the afternoon Friday looking for other good areas for the weekend.
"I'm hoping that my area will hold up, but I really don't have a whole lot of experience here, so I don't really know," Wooley added. "Hopefully tomorrow (with 126 fewer boats) some of those big schools will open up. I'm just going to go out and try to catch as much as I can and try to keep the lead."