ORANGE — Day one of the Bassmaster Elite Series Sabine River Tournament wrapped up in Orange on Thursday, and now 108 anglers are one step closer to the grand prize of $100,000.
“There’s a lot of fish in here you can get a lot of bite catch a lot of bass, but catching the ones that are over two pounds is a challenge,” said Todd Faircloth.
Faircloth is a Jasper native, and career angler. He appreciates a large scale tournament like this in Southeast Texas, and thinks it’s good for the city of Orange after the devastation that Harvey caused to the area.
“This is a resilient group of people down here and they’ll be back bigger, stronger, and better than ever.” said Faircloth.
This tournament could go a long way to helping with that recovery. Tournament coordinators with the Orange chamber of commerce estimate that the tournament could have an overall economic impact of 3 million dollars. A large sum for a city recovering.
“We put people in beds, people are filling up their trucks, their boats,” said David Jones, Tournament Co-Chairman. “People are eating out. Staying in hotels. So outside of what’s going on here for economic development, this thing is watched by millions of people on Bassmaster live.”
The 108 anglers have Friday to try to make it into the top 50 anglers for Saturday. Their place is determined by the cumulative weight of the bass they catch. Those 50 will be whittled down to 12 by Sunday. Faircloth, likes his chances to keep moving up.
“You know I’m going to have to catch around eight or nine pounds, and that should safely get me into the top 50,” said Faircloth. “I would hope to catch more than that to try and position myself for the third and fourth day.”