With the clock winding down here on Day 1 of the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite on Lake Oahe, let’s take a look at the top of BassTrakk and see what the unofficial leaders have done with their first 7 hours on the lake.
Brandon Card sits atop the leaderboard with an estimated 21- pounds even. That’s a good bit more than Day 1 leader David Fritz had here in 2018, with 19-7. And Card, like many of our anglers are prone to do, may very well have underestimated his weight here on Day 1 as well. Card has his largest bass plugged in at 4-12 and his smallest at 3-12, with two 4-2s and a 4-4 in his bag as well. Very solid across the board.
Bryan New and Drew Cook are in a virtual tie for second, with the duo estimating their weights at 19-0 and 18-4 respectively.
Chris Johnston, Josh Douglas, Caleb Sumrall, Jay Przekurat and Jeff Gustafson occupy the stretch from 4th back to 8th place. The commonality among all those anglers above 8th is that not one of those anglers has a fish under 3-pounds in his bag, but none have one over 5- pounds either.
Oahe isn’t currently producing an abundance of giants in the 5- to 6- pound range like we see on some smallmouth fisheries. Instead it’s those 3-1/2 to 4-pound bass that really elevate anglers to the top of the leaderboard here.
