With Day 1 winding down, let’s look at the leaderboard and see if we can tell how things will shakeout when the fish hit the scales and weights become official in an hour or so.
At 2:15 central, we have seven anglers reporting they’re within a couple ounces of 15-pounds or better. The likelihood that all seven of these anglers are underestimating their weights it better than the chance that even one is big eyeing his fish.
A 3-pounder is solid gold here on the Mississippi River this week. This fact isn’t lost on the 90 anglers competing. The last thing anyone of these guys wants to do, is believe all day that they had 15- pounds in the boat, and come in to find they only have 13 or 14.
Unless they’re weighing each fish, it’s inevitable that the guys will underestimate each fish by a 1/4- pound or so. This isn’t to sandbag, like we often see anglers do. This is simply a defense mechanism here on the Mississippi, setting themselves up to be pleasantly surprised instead of let down.
If a bag full of estimated 2- and 1/2- pounders actually end up being five 2- and 3/4s, you go from 12- and 1/2- pounds to right at 14 real quick.
This is why I believe the leaders are a little light across the board. I think we’ll see a couple 17- pound bags at least come out of the seven anglers that are currently estimating weights closer to 15- pounds. And I would not be surprised at all to see an 18-plus bag in the mix.
