The St Lawrence River and Lake Ontario showed out again on Day 2 of the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at the St Lawrence River. There were another 55 bags over 20-pounds, and the cut for two days of competition came in at 41-9… for 47th place. They absolutely stroked them again on Day 2.
We dug into BassTrakk again to pull out some numbers to compare to what we saw from Day 1. There were 570 fish entered into our system on Day 2 compared to 727 on Day 1. Here’s the breakdown by hour.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |
| 7 a.m. – 8 a.m | 66 | 40 |
| 8 a.m. – 9 a.m. | 131 | 105 |
| 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. | 100 | 100 |
| 10. a.m. – 11 a.m. | 141 | 91 |
| 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. | 113 | 56 |
| 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. | 67 | 53 |
| 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. | 56 | 53 |
| 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. | 34 | 50 |
| 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. | 15 | 16 |
| 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. | 4 | 6 |
| Totals | 727 | 570 |
That’s a pretty big drop from 727 to 570. But we have to account for the human element here. The marshals (and some Elite anglers who didn’t have a marshal) were likely a little jaded on Day 2 and didn’t bother with entering many small fish into BassTrakk, after seeing what they saw come across the scales on Day 1. Interestingly though, we saw the bite start to trail off a little earlier on Day 2.
We can get a better view of how the numbers really stack up when we compare 4-plus catches from both days, since this size fish almost always get entered into BassTrakk.
| Over 4-pounds | Day 1 | Day 2 |
| 7 a.m. – 8 a.m | 12 | 12 |
| 8 a.m. – 9 a.m. | 29 | 33 |
| 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. | 26 | 21 |
| 10. a.m. – 11 a.m. | 45 | 22 |
| 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. | 41 | 18 |
| 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. | 23 | 26 |
| 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. | 22 | 26 |
| 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. | 13 | 24 |
| 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. | 9 | 13 |
| 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. | 1 | 3 |
| Totals | 221 | 198 |
Again, there is a drop off from Day 1 to Day 2, but it’s less dramatic at only 11% in 4-pound plus fish versus 22% when comparing the total catch numbers from both days.
The majority of the drop in 4-pounders from Day 1 to Day 2 can be accounted for in the 10 AM to 12 PM window. And the bite picked up a good bit between 1 and 3 PM. It’s a little difficult to explain the midday drop-off since the conditions were very similar from Day 1 to Day 2. But the increase from 12 PM until the end of the day does make a little more sense, as anglers bore down on their fish in an effort to make the cut to fish Day 3.
Several anglers during the Day 2 weigh-in mentioned putting a good bag together early on Day 1 and then letting off the gas a little to conserve their fish. But after what they saw as the scales closed on Day 1, the petal was to the metal all the way on Day 2.
With a little more room to move around today, it’ll be interesting to see if the bite can hold on. The local fishing pressure will no doubt pickup a bit here since it’s the weekend, but having the Elite field cut nearly in half will surely open up a little water to the anglers who had found some of the same stuff.
