Chad Pipkens caught the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of Day 1. It weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces and remains the big bass of the event so far. Pipkens roommate, Clifford Pirch, caught the Phoenix Boats Bog Bass of Day 3, a 5-8. Though Pirch’s bass was a quarter pound lighter than Pipkens’s, the two compared notes last night and believe it was the same fish.
The odds of this happening are slim. But, Pirch did catch his big bass close to Orange late yesterday, where the fish from Day 1 were (presumably) released. And, 5-pounders are few and far between here. So, it is possible. Both anglers noted irregular patterns of bars on their fish, that seemed to them to identify both catches as having been one single bass.
Though this is fun to speculate about, the chances are very slim. Tournament Director Lisa Talmage informed me that the tournament officials are in fact using a release boat and taking the bass miles away from launch to be released each day. So, if it’s the same fish, made quite a trek the last couple days to get back to that area.
