BUTLER TWP — For Dan Gray, going for broke meant going for a boat ride.

A long boat ride.

Gray, 42, of Butler Township wound up catching nine pounds worth of bass on the final day of the BASS Federation Mid-Atlantic Divisional Tournament earlier this month on the Nanticoke River in Delaware.

The 32-mile trip he took to achieve that amount enabled Gray's total weigh-in for the three-day tournament to reach 18 pounds, 13 ounces — 13 ounces more than Pennsylvania runner-up Mike Moran of Ruffsdale.

Gray weighed in 12 fish, Moran weighed in 14.

The victory means Gray will represent Pennsylvania at the BASS Federation World Championship, a three-day event Oct. 27-29 on the Red River in Shreveport, La.

"You could only weigh in five fish per day, and it's weight over volume," Gray said. "I was behind entering Day 3 and felt like I had to go for broke."

The Mid-Atlantic Regional featured the 12 top anglers from each of six states, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, as well as Zimbabwe.

Each state winner at the regional earned a berth in the world championship.

"There are a series of district tournaments BASS anglers have to go through in Pennsylvania because our state has so many fishermen," Gray said. "It's a two-year process to weed them all out.

"The top 100 competed in the state championship last October on the upper Chesapeake Bay. The top 12 finishers there would comprise the Pennsylvania team for this (Mid-Atlantic) regional," he added.

Gray, a chiropractor in Butler who has been competing in BASS tournaments since 1997, wound up third in the state event. The top six finishers from each state championship became boaters for the regional while the next six finishers became riders.

"Each boater got a different rider from a different state each day," Gray said. "I had a rider from Virginia, New Jersey and Maryland.

"The river we fished on isn't known for big fish. On that first day, I worked my boat back into a creek where there was a logjam and did pretty well there," he added. "I was leading our state team after that first day."

The second day was a different story. Gray tried going back to that same spot, but low tide that day meant the fish weren't biting and Gray's boat got stuck trying to maneuver back to his spot.

"I was staring at that spot from 50 yards away and couldn't get there," he said.

He turned in only two fish on Day 2, weighing just 2Z\x pounds, and he fell into second place among Pennsylvania anglers.

So he decided to "go for broke" on Day 3.

Each boat was sent out by flight and was allowed eight hours on the water.

"I took my boat 20 miles down the river, then another 12 miles into the Chesapeake Bay," Gray said. "It was legal waters, just so far out that no other tournament boat tried it.

"It took me two hours to get there. But I caught nine pounds worth of fish."

Gray got back to the weigh-in area in 1 hour, 6 minutes, beating the clock by two minutes.

But he's headed to Shreveport next month. It will be his second appearance in the world championship. He finished third among Pennsylvania anglers there in 2006.

Gray will be competing against the other five Mid-Atlantic regional state champions and the Zimbabwe champion for the right to compete in the BASSMASTER Classic in February.