Day 1 on Lake Champlain was phenomenal; Day 2 was even better. Ninety-five anglers of the 102 competing brought in a five-fish limit on Day 1, 98 did so on Day 2. There were 493 fish brought to the scales on Day 1, 502 on Day 2. And the 1702 pounds, 12 ounces laid on the scales on Day 1 was eclipsed slightly by 1798 pounds, 10 ounces on Day 2. Lastly, 17 anglers brought in more than 20 pounds on Day 1, 23 on Day 2. All this in spite of what most thought would be tougher conditions for the second day of competition.
Those were the actual numbers from yesterday’s weigh-in. Let’s look now at the data we gathered through BassTrakk so we can see the time of day of some of these catches and identify some of the better bite windows. There were 498 bass entered into BassTrakk on Day 1 and 535 on Day 2.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 41 | 53 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 101 | 106 |
| 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 100 | 105 |
| 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 75 | 62 |
| 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 53 | 59 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 42 | 46 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 43 | 56 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 31 | 31 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 12 | 17 |
| Total | 498 | 535 |
We can quickly see extremely steady stats from Day 1 to Day 2, with slight upticks in production throughout much of the day. There was one slight drop in the 10 o’clock hour, the biggest jumps from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. But the difference in these numbers is almost negligible in the grand scheme. Let’s look at the big bites to see if we can get a clearer picture. Here are the fish over 3 pounds logged into BassTrakk Days 1 and 2.
There were 353 fish over 3 pounds entered on Day 2, compared to 308 on Day 1. Here’s the breakdown by size.
| | Day 1 | Day 2 |
| 3-pounders | 224 | 259 |
| 4-pounders | 82 | 92 |
| 5-pounders | 2 | 2 |
And here’s the breakdown of those better fish by time of day.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |
| 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | 22 | 21 |
| 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. | 54 | 61 |
| 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | 48 | 67 |
| 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | 50 | 39 |
| 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | 35 | 43 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 32 | 35 |
| 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | 32 | 42 |
| 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | 25 | 28 |
| 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 10 | 17 |
| Total | 308 | 353 |
Again, strong numbers throughout the day. But the biggest differences came between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. One hour saw better big bite production on Day 2, the other worse. The best big bite window of Day 2 came between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., with that better morning bite being a little more spread out and lingering a little longer on Day 1.
