Who knew that Quitman, Texas was the kite surfing capital of the world?
The wind blew today, and then it blew some more. For some of the Elite Series field, today’s gusty conditions carried the fish to them or kept the schools activated, but for many of the world’s best anglers, the wind brought nothing but frustration.
“One of the places where I caught them yesterday I couldn’t even fish today,” said Greg Hackney, who punted, fished shallow and added 16-10 to his first-day catch of 28-07. As a result, he slid from 4th to 15th.
Lee Livesay caught his weight before 10 o’clock. Normally, that would be an opportunity to spend the day looking for more fish, but the wind might’ve made idling and looking tough. Fortunately for him, the lanky Texan knows Fork like the back of his hand and doesn’t appear to have been hindered by the missed opportunity to prefish for tomorrow. Still, it’s anything but a done deal. His lead over all-everything Brandon Palaniuk is 4 pounds, which is one bite, or a fraction of one bite, on this pond. While BP wasn’t necessarily mentioned a lot in Fantasy Fishing circles prior to this tournament, like Livesay he’s a closer, and probably the last angler you want on your heels anywhere, at any time.
Seven of yesterday’s Top Ten remained in that rarified air, with Livesay, Palaniuk, Swindle, and Shane LeHew moving up. The difference between first and 10th is 14 pounds, and the difference between 10th and 47th is just about 12. It’s still a wide-open race.
Dirty Thirty – Years ago, 30-pound, five-fish bags were exceptionally rare. As fisheries have thrived, and anglers have improved, however, we’ve become desensitized to them. It’s been over two decades since Dean Rojas weighed 45-plus at Toho. That’s why it was hard for me to believe that Palaniuk, one of the sport’s brightest and winningest stars had never hit that mark before today.
20/20 Club – Seventeen anglers have caught 20 or more pounds each of the first two days, including eight of the top 10. Last year, only Brandon Card and Seth Feider managed 20 a day for all four days. They finished 4th and 6th, respectively.
Not Enough – How often is it that you can catch 20-plus on Day Two and not find yourself fishing on Saturday? Drew Cook, Kyle Welcher, a rebounding Mike Iaconelli, and Justin Hamner found out today that even once is too often for comfort.
Lee Livesay, underachiever? – Despite being on pace to beat last year’s winning weight of 112-05 by over 8 pounds, the miraculous news is that tournament leader Lee Livesay hasn’t mustered a single 8-pounder yet this week. Then again, that may be a sign of how absolutely dangerous he is right now. He’s not relying on a final day charge or a couple of giants to carry him. He’s feasting on a steady diet of 5-plus pound bass and there seems to be a lot of them for him to weed through. Last year he did the incredible on Day Four and weighed in 42-03, but other than that he topped out at 26-14, which is lighter than either of the weights he’s tallied so far this week. Last year, he didn’t even hit 20 on Day Two.
Century Belts – With the notable exception of Keith Combs here in 2014, an angler typically needs four days to join the Century Club. That means that we are all but certain to have no more than 10 belts given out this week, which means the field won’t match the 12 awarded at Falcon in 2008. In that tournament there were three catches over 130 pounds, meaning that they’re the top three in Elite Series history. Twelfth place that week was 108-07 from Rick Morris. Mike Iaconelli and Jason Williamson are the only two Century Club members from that week who were fishing this week. Both missed today’s cut.
Clean plate club – Today Livesay explained that even though he’s fishing specific areas with trees, it’s not the trees that hold the fish, but rather the bare spots in between them. “They want a dinner table,” he explained.
For only pennies a day… — Chris Zaldain made two very expensive casts today, losing two Tater Hog swimbaits. “There’s two $250 swimbaits swimming around out there,” he said onstage. I seem to recall that he lost one last year here as well. We don’t need to take up a collection quite yet, as his big bait penchant kept him in the check line, moving up from 44th to 42nd.
Cut weight math – After Day 1, the last man inside the cut, Brandon Card, had 17-04, which meant that the traditional (2X+1) cut weight formula would’ve put the cut at 35-08. Instead, Matt Herren squeaked in at 34-05, just a few ounces away from double yesterday’s weight.
We kinda figured this one – “I hope we come back here every year for the rest of my life,” tournament leader Lee Livesay.
Random Elite fact we learned today – David Mullins does not know all of the lyrics to the theme from “The Jeffersons.”
