The anglers are still leaving the dock now. At the start of writing this blog, there have been no fish catches logged on BassTrakk yet this morning. With the shad spawn involved, I venture to say before I can finish writing this post, a good one will be caught by someone. It’s 6:37 at the moment.
The Day 1 weigh-in revealed what we believed we’d see. Brandon Palaniuk sat in the lead when the scales settled, with an impressive 19-7. Bryan New had 18-12 for second. A few 16- and 17-pound bags, then it dropped to 14 by 10th. The 50 cut sat at 11-6 after Day 1. The weights were fairly low and tight, especially compared to what we’ve seen through the first four Elites. Leader Brandon Palaniuk said multiple times yesterday, that he felt it was highly unlikely he could repeat his Day 1 performance, “Possible, but not probable.”
An interesting note on how tight the weights are here. Luke Palmer won by a massive margin at Santee Cooper two weeks ago, 14 pounds, 3 ounces. Granted, this was the 6th largest margin of victory in B.A.S.S. history. But after Day 1, only 14-2 separated 4th place Jason Christie from David Fritts, who sat in 104th. Seventeen anglers near the cutline to fish tomorrow are separated by less than 1 pound. This is going to be a tight race to watch, as the anglers fight for the Top 50 cut.
It’s 6:47 now. Boats are still leaving the dock and many anglers are still running to their starting spots. There are four fish on BassTrakk already. The largest a 3-pounder, belonging to Austin Felix.
