Day 2 of the SiteOne Bassmaster Elite was the picture of consistency in total catches, with 718 fish logged into BassTrakk on Day 1 and 719 on Day 2.
Looking at the breakdown by hour, we can see that the 8- to 10- o’clock span was the best feeding window of the day with 263 fish of the 719 bass caught here (36% of the total fish logged on Day 2).
The best window came a little earlier on Day 2 than on Day 1, with the window shifting back from 9 to 11, to 8 to 10.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |
| 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 12 | 15 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 92 | 132 |
| 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 116 | 131 |
| 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 121 | 97 |
| 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 83 | 93 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 89 | 82 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 97 | 69 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 54 | 63 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 45 | 25 |
| 4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | 9 | 12 |
| Totals: | 718 | 719 |
Looking at the bass caught that weighed more than 4 pounds, we see that 105 were caught on Day 2, far outpacing Day 1’s 74 fish caught in this weight range. This is the most impressive statistic to illustrate what has happened on the water these last few days.
A warming trend reached its pinnacle on Day 2, and it had big fish on the move heading into spawning areas where the anglers eagerly awaited. Several anglers commented yesterday that the fish were white and fat, clear indications that they are pre-spawn and moving in from the lake.
Here’s the breakdown by weight of those over 4 pounds caught on Day 2. The stat that stands out the most is the increase in catches over 6 pounds, up from 17 on Day 1 to 26 on Day 2.
| Fish over 4-pounds | Day 1 | Day 2 |
| 4-pounders | 29 | 44 |
| 5-pounders | 28 | 35 |
| 6-pounders | 9 | 15 |
| 7-pounders | 7 | 9 |
| 8-pounders | 1 | 2 |
| Totals: | 74 | 105 |
Now let’s look at the breakdown by hour from both Day 1 and Day 2 of those caught over 4 pounds.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |
| 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 0 | 2 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 6 | 9 |
| 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 10 | 12 |
| 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 17 | 17 |
| 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 8 | 15 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 6 | 19 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 11 | 15 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 11 | 6 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 4 | 7 |
| 4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | 1 | 3 |
Where the big bite fell off after 10 on Day 1, it held steady and even improved at times on Day 2, with big ones biting regularly from 9 til 2. There were the two tight windows of big fish action as well, with 12 fish over 4 pounds caught in 13 minutes (10:51 to 11:04) and 11 caught in 14 minutes (12:02 to 12:16). This is 22% of the fish over 4 pounds caught in 23 total minutes (that’s about 3% of the allotted time the anglers were on the water).
These feeding windows are absolutely critical, and where “getting spun out” and running around can ruin an anglers day. Most of the guys that have done well this week have kept their heads down, kept a rod in their hands and settled into a productive area until the big ones started biting.
A slight cold front is moving through today, with a drastic shift in the wind from southwest to northeast. The field has been cut in half here on Day 3, which we’ll take into consideration tomorrow. But count on the numbers to fall off with these conditions.
