The way things shook out Friday and Saturday, it’s going to be some rough going for most fantasy players, I imagine. Not a lot of historically big Beaver Lake sticks have held on through the cut, so hitting on those top-10 bonus and exactas could be more difficult at this one.

Mike Hawkes is a solid, proficient angler, but he’s never top-10ed at Beaver before. Sam Newby, too, is in the same boat: great angler, but a sketchy record at Beaver. Sprinkle in a few new names to the top 10 like Kyle Mabrey, Matt Arey and Richard Strother, and you have a recipe for some seriously missed picks.

A few previously known factors at Beaver Lake like Mark Pack, Dan Morehead and Alvin Shaw, as well as locals George Cochran and Greg Bohannon will help boost a few fantasy players’ point totals, but not as many as if, say, Clark Wendlandt, Shin Fukae or Andy Morgan had made the cut. Plus, these guys were all sitting in the bottom half of the final-round field after Saturday, which could make it harder to hit them on the exactas.

Still, exactas are the key to winning this game, and in that respect this one’s still way up in the air. The weight difference separating first place from eighth is just a little more than 2 pounds – the weight of one average bass. Anyone can take this thing. So if you’ve got a Morehead, Cochran or Pack listed high in your lineup, you’re still in it to win it.

Today’s a big day for the exacta-hunters. Stay tuned.