We’ve gathered a lot of data through BassTrakk the last three days. But, before we dive into the numbers from Day 3, let’s first point out the variables that have changed. All 103 Elite pros fished on Days 1 and 2. On Day 3, only the Top 50 anglers set sail on the Sabine. So, we can expect to see the numbers cut in half, roughly. But it’s also worth noting that the 50 anglers that were catching bass the best this week were still on the water yesterday.
All this being said, the Day 3 numbers should be a little better than half of the comparable numbers from Days 1 and 2, if the fishing was stable. Let’s take that into consideration and see what we can see.
There were 305 fish caught on Day 3. If we double that number to get 610 and put it beside the total fish caught on Day 1 (684) and Day 2 (558), we can see that the fishing was a little better than Day 2.
The numbers weren’t as high as Day 1, but that’s understandable when you think about how many resident fish were caught the first day and taken out of the areas where anglers were fishing. Let’s look at the breakdown of those 103 fish catches by time of day, to see when the best bites windows came.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m. | 42 | 57 | 34 |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 121 | 86 | 51 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 125 | 89 | 49 |
| 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 91 | 60 | 42 |
| 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 88 | 61 | 36 |
| 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 66 | 67 | 38 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 48 | 42 | 29 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 50 | 47 | 19 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 28 | 33 | 7 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 21 | 13 | N/A |
| 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. | 4 | 3 | N/A |
| Total | 684 | 558 | 305 |
The tide has moved forward about 45 minutes each day, delaying high tide until about 10 o’clock yesterday, when gauging it by the Rainbow Bridge at the mouth of the Neches River. With over 200 miles of fisheries open to the anglers, there’s no way to calculate what the tides are doing everywhere the catches are coming in from. But, from day to day, this at least makes for even comparisons.
Days 1 and 2, the best bite came while the tide was low and incoming, between 7 and 10 a.m. The bite was again strongest in this time frame on Day 3. To make this a little easier to see, we’ll look at the percentage of fish caught in this window each day. Of the bass caught on Day 1, 49% came between 7 and 10 a.m. On Day 2, 42% came in this three-hour window. And yesterday, 47% of the bites came here.
So, each day, close to half the bites came in a window that represented around 33% of the time allowed to fish. As the tide topped out and the water went slack, the bite for the field as a whole slowed dramatically each and every day. Let’s take a look now at the bass over 2- pounds caught each day.
| | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
| 2-pounders | 63 | 35 | 28 |
| 3-pounders | 12 | 15 | 6 |
| 4-pounders | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 5-pounders | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 78 | 51 | 38 |
We had 38 bass over 2-pounds entered into BassTrakk on Saturday. Doubling the Day 3 number again to compare apples to oranges, we get 76, a comparable number to Day 1 and a big uptick from Day 2. The fishing definitely seemed far better on Day 3 when watching the LIVE broadcast, and this is the best indicator we’ve see of that show up in the numbers so far. Here’s the breakdown of those 38 2-pounders by time of day.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m. | 0 | 4 | 5 |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 6 | 8 | 7 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 14 | 6 | 6 |
| 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 12 | 3 | 3 |
| 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 14 | 3 | 2 |
| 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 7 | 7 | 5 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 11 | 4 | 5 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 5 | 10 | 3 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 5 | 5 | 2 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 2 | 1 | N/A |
| 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. | 2 | 0 | N/A |
What’s been interesting to see this week is, even though the majority of the fish have been caught in the morning, the big bite has been a little more evenly spread out throughout the day. Day 1, most of the big bites came before noon. But on Day 2, the best hours for production were the 8, 11 and 1 0’clock hours. On Day 3, the best hours were 7 to 8, 8 to 9, 11 to 12, 12 to 1, and 6 to 7. These numbers are relatively flat all day, as compared to the first two days.
This trend mirrors what many anglers were saying, that may of their better bites came later in the day. Most would scramble to do all they could to catch a limit early, and then lock a big-bite-producing bait in their hands the remainder of the day. So far, the fishing has been steady again during this early period of lower tide. The grind is coming, so the anglers are doing all they can to catch them while the catching is good.
