The bass bit again on Day 3 of the Marathon Bassmaster Elite at Lake Murray. Only the Top 50 anglers made the cut to fish on Saturday, so the raw numbers will look drastically smaller. But taking this into account, we’ll use some percentages and ratios to compare Days 1 and 2 to Day 3.
A total of 882 pounds and 4 ounces came across the scales at weigh-in, as compared to the 1,710 pounds, 5 ounces on Day 1 and 1,679 pounds, 2 ounces on Day 2. Looking at this on a per angler basis, that’s 16.6 pounds on Day 1, 16.3 on Day 2 and 17.6 pounds caught per angler on average on Day 3. Forty-eight of the 50 anglers brought in a five-fish limit. That is absolutely fantastic fishing.
Looking at the data collected through BassTrakk, there 357 bass logged into the system on Day 3. For quick math, we can simply double that and compare the 714 we get to the 782 we saw on Day 1 and the 691 on Day 2. These are essentially even numbers when factoring in all the variables that come with BassTrakk reporting.
Here’s the breakdown of those catches by hour.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 82 | 66 | 59 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 107 | 113 | 57 |
| 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 125 | 111 | 61 |
| 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 109 | 103 | 47 |
| 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 122 | 91 | 44 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 87 | 65 | 36 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 66 | 66 | 37 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 50 | 51 | 16 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 34 | 25 | N/A |
| Total: | 782 | 691 | 357 |
There were 155 fish over 3 pounds logged into BassTrakk on Day 3. To get a good comparison between Day 1, 2 and 3, we’ll look at how many bass weighing 3 pounds or more were caught per angler. Day 1 saw 2.92 bass in this range caught per angler. Day 2, that number dropped to 2.26 per angler. On Day 3, when there were only 50 boats on the water, the number jumped back up to the best we’ve seen all week, 3.1 fish over 3 pounds per angler. This uptick can easily be explained by the better fishing conditions and the fact that the 50 anglers who had been catching them the best on Days 1 and 2 were the only anglers left on the water on Day 3.
Let’s take a look at the fish caught over 4 pounds to see what time of day generated the best big bite.
Here’s the breakdown of fish over 4 pounds based on size.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 4-pounders | 64 | 55 | 43 |
| 5-pounders | 12 | 15 | 11 |
| 6-pounders | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 7-pounders | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Total: | 80 | 74 | 58 |
And here’s the time of day when those over 4 pounds were caught.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 6 | 2 | 5 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 4 | 8 | 7 |
| 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 9 | 9 | 11 |
| 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 12 | 11 | 10 |
| 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 17 | 7 | 6 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 10 | 8 | 9 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 7 | 15 | 8 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 8 | 11 | 2 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 7 | 3 | N/A |
Looking at this timeline, we can see that the best big bite window came in the midmorning, between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. A strong bite did linger into the afternoon, as we saw no Day 2. Projecting this data out, we should expect to see the big ones go to biting soon, and the action to be steady throughout the remainder of the day.
