The anglers were met this morning with cloudy skies and light wind for the start of Day 3 of the Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite at Lake Seminole. The fishing world is holding its collective breath this morning, as it remains to be seen what will happen here. There’s more than the normal suspense that accompanies the midway point of an Elite event. No, there’s far more at stake in this one.
Is fishing the way we know it, over and done with for good? Three and a 1/2 of the last 4 Elite Series events held in Florida have been dominated by an angler using forward-facing sonar. Events that should have been won in less than 5 feet of water fell to anglers out deep using this new tech.
John Crews Jr nabbed the season opener in 2022 on the St Johns River, using forward-facing sonar to target bass along creek channel drops. Buddy Gross won shallow on the Harris chain the next week. Then Tyler Rivet won last week on Okeechobee with forward-facing sonar and now Joey Cifuentes III is far outpacing all but Mike Iaconelli, using FFS to target big bass in standing timber.
Will Ike be able to run Cifuentes down shallow from 3- pounds back? Or will the hard-charging Greg Hackney, one of the best bank beaters of all time, be able to back up his Day 2 bag of 24 pounds, 7ounces to make a run at this one shallow? Even if he did duplicate his stellar performance from Day 2 twice more, and Cifuentes did the same, the latter would beat Hackney by 11 pounds or so.
In a strange turn of events, somehow deep down inside, a lot of fans are rooting for the seasoned vets who have had plenty of days in the sun to chase down the hot-handed rookie. The underdog banner has somehow shifted onto the shoulders of two Bassmaster Angler of Year title holders. This is an odd world we live in as we try to hold on to the way things were, and back in my day becomes a way of referring to 2020.
Forward-facing sonar is the greatest equalizer we have ever seen come along in bass fishing. Anglers who are unfamiliar with a body of water can now come in and figure something out that can contend for the win in a matter of hours. Florida fishing is the thorn in the side of many professional bass anglers. But now, they can target suspended fish that have never even been fished for before. It’s an odd, odd era of bass fishing.
No one is rooting against the rookie Cifuentes, but several are hoping to hold onto a way of life that has gone from slipping through our sport’s fingers, to being snatched right out of its hands. Will Cifuentes be able to hold on to this one out deep? Or will Ike, Hackney, or another angler be able to chase him down shallow? Knowing what we know now, Crews’s victory last year on the St. Johns was far from an anomaly. Rivet woke us back up from out shallow water dreams last week. It’s suddenly very hard to imagine Cifuentes not pulling this one off as well.
