The sun wasn’t visible as it rose on Day 3 of competition for the 2023 SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Lake Okeechobee. The predicted cold snap set in, clouds covered South Florida and the north wind blew. And the fishing definitely fell off. On Day 1, 11 bags over 20- pounds were brought to weigh in. Day 2 saw 20 of these 20-pound-plus bags, including Brandon Cobb’s VMC Monster Bag of the tournament so far, weighing 32 pounds, 10 ounces.
That was the crescendo, however. It stands to reason that, had we been given steady conditions, we’d have seen around 10 to 15 of these big bags over 20 pounds weighed on Day 3 again. We saw only 5 however, and those were all impressive feats given the brutal conditions.
Though only 50 of the 103 Elite anglers advanced to Day 3, you have to consider that these 50 were performing way better than the 53 that went home. And the 50 anglers that went out on Day 3 accounted for all 31 bags over 20- pounds weighed on the first two days. So going from 15 big bags per day to 5 is a significant drop-off.
That’s how quickly Lake Okeechobee can make a turn for the worst. A 10-degree drop in air temps, a little cloud coverage, and a north wind and she shut down. But, with a little sunshine and a south wind, the Big O can turn right back on. And that’s the weather we’re seeing on Championship Sunday. So big bags may very well abound again.
For now, let’s take a look at how the data stacks up through the first three days. There were 335 bass logged into BassTrack on Day 3. For easy figuring, we can simply double that to compare it to Days 1 and 2. The 670 we get isn’t too far off from the 718 and 719 we saw the first two days. But again taking into consideration that the anglers who had been performing the best on Okeechobee were still on the water, this is a pretty significant drop as well and shows that the fishing was in fact a good bit tougher.
We saw another strong bite window though in the morning on Day 3, with over half the fish that were logged into BassTrakk coming between 8 and 11AM. But the late bite fizzled to all but nothing by the end of competition on Day 3.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 12 | 15 | 11 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 92 | 132 | 62 |
| 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 116 | 131 | 63 |
| 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 121 | 97 | 67 |
| 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 83 | 93 | 44 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 89 | 82 | 43 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 97 | 69 | 28 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 54 | 63 | 15 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 45 | 25 | 2 |
| 4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | 9 | 12 | N/A |
| Totals: | 718 | 719 | 335 |
Let’s take a look now at the bass over 4 pounds that were logged into BassTrakk the last three days to get a better gauge of how the story went. Day 1 saw 74 fish over 4 pounds weighed. Day 2 the big fish really went to biting, with 105 over 4 pounds caught. And then again looking at the total of only 37 bass over 4 pounds being caught on Day 3, we can see that the big bite fell off drastically from Day 2 to Day 3. Again feel free to double Day 3’s number of 37 to account for half the field being on the water, and even then you’re looking at 105 to 74.
| Fish over 4-pounds | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
| 4-pounders | 29 | 44 | 14 |
| 5-pounders | 28 | 35 | 16 |
| 6-pounders | 9 | 15 | 4 |
| 7-pounders | 7 | 9 | 1 |
| 8-pounders | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Totals: | 74 | 105 | 37 |
Looking at when these bites came, we can see there has been a very consistent big bite window from 9 to 11 AM. There were 27 over 4 pounds caught in this window on Day 1, 29 on Day 2, and 17 (34 if doubled) on Day 3. So, surprisingly the best 2-hour big bite window of the week came on Day 3 between 9 and 11 AM, relative to the number of anglers on the water. The 11 AM to 1 PM and 12 to 2 PM windows on Day 2 are the only comparable time frames all week for producing as many big bites per angler as we saw between 9 and 11 AM on Day 3.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 6 | 9 | 5 |
| 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 10 | 12 | 10 |
| 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 17 | 17 | 7 |
| 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 8 | 15 | 4 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 6 | 19 | 3 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 11 | 15 | 4 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 11 | 6 | 3 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 4 | 7 | 0 |
| 4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | 1 | 3 | N/A |
What does this mean for Championship Sunday? Well, there should be another strong big fish-feeding window between 9 and 11 AM. And the fishing should pick up quite a bit throughout the day, with the conditions stabilizing by the minute.
Look for another late-day flurry as we saw on Day 1, since new fish will likely move into areas as the competition begins to wind down. With only 9 pounds separating 1st and 7th, a couple of key bites can equate to a monster bag, which could send one of the anglers from the back of the pack all the way into the lead.
Consider this. If Marc Frazier who sits in 10th matches the biggest bag caught in the tournament so far (Cobb’s 32 pounds, 15 ounces), it would give Frazier 89 pounds, 5 ounces. And even Day 3 leader Steve Kennedy would have to catch 19 pounds, 4 ounces to hold him off. As has been illustrated this week by Scott Martin, Bernie Sultz, Bill Lowen, and several others, 19 pounds is far from guaranteed on Lake Okeechobee, no matter what you caught the day before. This blue trophy is still anyone’s to win.
