And just like that, Brandon Palaniuk moves into the lead with 23-0… two hours into the day.
Palaniuk made a slight but critical move about 30 minutes ago. A fellow Elite Series competitor sat down in the same general area around that time, and though Palaniuk was catching fish, he made the remark that he was going to slide over a bit to another pod of fish a short distance away.
As he began to troll in that direction, he stated that this other group of fish he found in practice was a little bigger than the ones he had previously been targeting, and he didn’t want one of the other guys in the area to hop over to them before he got the chance.
We’ll often see an angler manage fish this way, trying to keep distance between himself and other anglers in the area, while being sure to catch whatever he can along the way as long as he’s not being pushed. This strategy has worked flawlessly for Palaniuk so far this morning, as he picked off a 4-8 and a 5-0 from the school of not-so-big ones on his way to the wad of magnums he found, where he inevitably put another 4-8 and a 5-4 in the boat. His smallest now is a 3-12.
A 5-12 will put Palaniuk at 25-pounds, and he’s got nearly 6 hours to find it.
