There’s been a lot of talk about how tough the fishing is on the Sabine River. But as each angler talks about how hard it has been to get a big bite, there’s almost always a follow-up statement about how many bites the angler is getting. Mike Iaconelli mentioned having 25 bites on the first day of practice, but very few keepers. Looking at BassTrakk, let’s see how many keepers were logged on Day 1 by the 103 Elite anglers.
There were a respectable 684 keepers logged on Day 1, as compared to Lay Lake, where 712 keepers were caught on Day 1. And there were only 520 bass logged into BassTrakk on Day 1 of Santee. So, the numbers of bites are really strong. But size is the challenge here, where 2-pound-plus fish are money and 3-pounders are gold. Here’s the breakdown of all the keeper caught by time of day.
| Day 1 | |
| 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m. | 42 |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 121 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 125 |
| 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 91 |
| 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 88 |
| 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 66 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 48 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 50 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 28 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 25 |
| Total | 684 |
There’s been a lot of talk about the tide here this week too. Comparing the BassTrakk data from Day 1 to the tide chart from yesterday, we can see that the bass bit best during the incoming tide, by far. The two-hour window between 7 and 9 a.m. boasted 246 of the 684 total fish caught. This is more than a third of the fish in less than a quarter of the time. As the tide topped out at 9 yesterday morning, the bite slowed and approached a screeching halt as the water fell throughout the day.
A 2-pound-plus fish is a solid fish here on the Sabine, so we’ll look at the bass over 2 pounds caught on Day 1 to see when the better bites came. There were 78 over 2 pounds registered on BassTrakk on Day 1. Here’s the breakdown by weight.
| | Day 1 |
| 2-pounders | 63 |
| 3-pounders | 12 |
| 4-pounders | 1 |
| 5-pounders | 2 |
Here’s the breakdown by time of day those 78 fish.
| Day 1 | |
| 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m. | 0 |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 6 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 14 |
| 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 12 |
| 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 14 |
| 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 7 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 11 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 5 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 5 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 2 |
| 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. | 2 |
The same incoming tide bite window showed up when looking at the better bites, with more than half the bites over 2-pounds coming between 8 and 11 a.m. There was a surprising window of activity just after noon as well, with 11 fish over 2-pounds caught between 12 and 1 p.m. But with hundreds of miles of water available to the anglers and us simply using the Rainbow Bridge at the mouth of the Neches River to gauge the tide, it’s likely this little window was still relative to a particular tide in some part of this fishery. Or, it could have been an anomaly resulting from an angler not having cell service for his BassTrakk to update during the morning, and all his catches coming through once he got service. This happens sometimes.
But there is no way to explain away that early morning bite window. The incoming tide reigned supreme on Day 1. Will it be the best bite of Day 2? It’s very likely. We’ll know once the anglers come in today.
