What was billed as a sight fishing slugfest has turned into more of a do-all derby. Some anglers are sight fishing (or at least blind fishing for known bedders) with good success, like local favorite Drew Benton.
But others are casting baits in search of bass that they believe may be bedding, or are just trying to catch fish that are cruising around the shallows looking to bed. We’ve seen Tyler Rivet do this today for some awesome action.
And then there’s the pre-spawn crew, led by Mike Iaconelli who held the Day 1 lead throughout much of the morning. Ike has one spot where bass are staging. It was loaded this morning and he was able to catch all of his weight throwing a vibrating jig around a very small area the size of a bass boat.
With warming weather, will we see a shift to more bed fishing tomorrow? There’s no doubt bed fishing will play a big role throughout this event, but it’s more likely at this point that it will be an accessory to “just fishing”. Many of the bass that anglers found in practice have been caught by now. So tomorrow, most will have to just go fishing, hoping to stumble onto a bed fish or two while casting around known spawning areas. The Elite Pros may very well still catch big and crucial fish sight fishing, but they’ll have to fish to find them.
Seminole is expansive enough too, that there will no doubt be a few schools of big pre-spawn fish staging in places for the duration of this one. These fish are the ones Drew Cook actually believed it would take to win here on Seminole.
We’ll see how it shakes out tomorrow, but expect more of the same. Lots of anglers catching them lots of ways. Tune into the weigh-in shortly to hear more from how things went down on the water for Day 1 of the Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite at Lake Seminole.
