Vetern bassing pro Shaw Grigsby lead all competitors at the Bass Fishing qualifying event and will be joined Saturday by five finalists for the medal round.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.— The focus of Shaw Grigsby's occupation as a professional angler is to catch bass, but this Floridian's true fishing passion revolves around the variety of fish swimming in the sea.

And for that reason alone, Grigsby has found himself right at home on the Saranac Chain of Lakes, site of the ESPN Great Outdoor Games' Bass Fishing championship here.

Grigsby, one of the top bass pros in the sport, today caught five bass weighing a day's best 11 pounds, 9 ounces to advance from the qualifier to tomorrow's medal round on the Adirondack fishery.

Finishing just 2 ounces behind Grigsby was fellow Floridian Peter Thliveros, the defending gold medalist and winner of the debut event held in 2000. Ken Christ, the only amateur in the competition, placed third with 9 pounds, 14 ounces.

In this elimination-style competition, the top six anglers of the 10 who started Friday's qualifyine and advance to the medal round. The medal contenders have their scores zeroed and they start from scratch in Saturday's final.

Joining Grigsby and Thliveros are top pros Gary Klein, Clark Wendlandt and Kevin VanDam, who on Wednesday won an ESPY Award as the Best Outdoor Sports Athlete.

To Grigsby's delight, the same kind of variety he favors in saltwater is swimming in the Saranac lakes.

	“	Largemouths are easier to catch than the smallmouths. But the consolation is the smallmouths are much more aggressive, like saltwater fish. They are just amazing. I get out of hand just catching them. ”
		— Shaw Grigsby

"That's what I like the most about fishing up here since you can catch both smallmouth and largemouth bass," he said. "Different species of fish, bass included, behave and bite differently. So you have more options and that's what I like about having the variety."

"Largemouths are easier to catch than the smallmouths," he added. "But the consolation is the smallmouths are much more aggressive, like saltwater fish. They are just amazing. I get out of hand just catching them."

Grigsby's sweet spot is a rocky underwater peak that rises from 16 feet on all sides up to a depth of eight feet at its point. Surrounding the top of the peak is a patch of aquatic grass that provides shelter for the fish as they move up and down the sloping sides of the point to feed on baitfish.

"There are a few other formations like it out there but the key to this particular spot is the sharp depth contour," he noted. "Smallmouths like to move up and down vertical depths and this is the attraction to this particular spot."

Grigsby is using eighth-ounce weighted jigs that are designed to fall slowly down the vertical contours of the point to entice the fish into biting. He is fishing around the edges of the rocky formation with the bites coming from the edges of the grassline.

Thliveros is poised to make a run at a third gold medal.

"My stomach was tied in knots all day long," he said. "I just couldn't eat anything. It's really getting to me that I could potentially do it a third time."

	Two-time defending champ Pete Thliveros holds up his bounty Friday.

Like Grigsby, Thliveros is fishing a rocky peak structure but was expanding on his choice of lures. In addition to a jig, Thliveros used a Carolina-rigged fluke and a topwater lure to fill his five-bass limit.

"I'm fishing the same areas as I have for the past two years," Thliveros noted. "In the past the fish have been positioned inside the grass. This time they are on the outside edges.

"There are only three or four areas like this on the entire chain of lakes. I'm on one of them and Shaw is on another."

Thliveros and Grigsby are true competitors, although both are longtime friends having come up through the ranks of the CITGO BASSMASTERS Tournament Trail. Thliveros, from Jacksonsville, and Grigsby, from nearby Gainesville, started their pro careers in 1983.

Both have enjoyed success along the way. Thliveros has qualified eight times for the CITGO BASSMASTERS Classic, the sport's world championship, and so has Grigsby.