http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/l ... -headlines
The Super Bowl of fishing -- and the $500,000 first prize -- might be won by a guy playing in high tops.
He spent much of the first two days at the Classic in the shallowest water, turning off his trolling motor and poling himself manually along the shore.
It's how he caught the record-setting 11-pound, 10-ounce bass Friday, and it's how he caught another 10 pounds, 2 ounces of fish Saturday, leaving him in fourth position going into today's finale.
It was the best way not to spook some very skittish fish.
"They have those nice metal poles you can use, but I don't like the way they go into the water. They are metal,'' Clark said. "I already have a perfect fiberglass pole. You can't beat it.''
It's the kind they use in track and field for the pole vault. He found it when he was doing volunteer work at the St. Augustine School for the Blind and Deaf six years ago, helping to build a new baseball field there.
He left the school that day with a new appreciation for children who fight to overcome handicaps, and he left with a piece of equipment he never will trade in. He took it home, cut off the end and has been using it ever since. It's a technique used more in salt-water flats fishing.
