Elite

Friday frenzy with Schultz, Kennedy and Hamilton

Catch up with Day 1 leader Bernie Schultz, Steve Kennedy and Skylar Hamilton as they take on the second day of the 2023 SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Lake Okeechobee!

Posted on
Photography by
Dalton Tumblin
Photography by
Will Flowers
Catch up with Day 1 leader Bernie Schultz, Steve Kennedy and Skylar Hamilton as they take on the second day of the 2023 SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Lake Okeechobee!
Catch up with your Day 1 leader, Bernie Schultz, as he fights to keep his spot at the top coming into Day 2.
We caught up with Schultz first thing this morning as he started out in the same area as yesterday.
He immediately picked up a stick worm and started pitching into the massive grass/lily pad mats that surround this area.
It doesn’t take long to start getting some action, just not the fish quality he’s looking for.
As other local and Elite anglers start to move in and move around this area, Shultz takes a different approach by basically sitting in one spot. He stays power poled down in the middle of this mat, making long fan casts in all directions.
Other familiar pros, such as Brandon Lester, continue to move in on this massive area.
After a breif amount of time passing, Schultz hooks into another.
Still not the size he is looking for, but, the weight is increasing.
Schultz has another one hooked up.
It’s in the boat and the fish quality continues to get better.
Hours into the morning and still sitting in the same grass mat, he finds another.
And it’s in the boat!
A large handful of anglers continue to move around this area like an ant hill, keeping the pressure high. For the most part, everyone is either fishing a frog or a stick worm.
Midway through the day, Steve Kennedy begins to approach. Kennedy came into day two sitting in 4th.
Immediately on his approach, he hooks into a fish.
And it’s a good one!
It’s in the boat and Kennedy is begining to make large jumps on the BASSTrakk leaderboard.
Schultz is still close by, and finds himself another on. Being around the same size as his previous fish, this one may not help his cause.
Unlike Schultz, Kennedy’s approach includes covering as lot of water, moving around to different mats, and throwing a frog the majority of the time.
A couple mats over from the previous fish, he finds another on the frog.
He gets it in the boat and it’s another stud! The quality is there and he is putting the pressure on.
Up close look at the top water frog.
Upon leaving, I decided to count how many boats are sharing this area. My final count was 38 boats and that was only the ones I could see. There were certainly more tucked behind the reeds and out of eyesite.
Stay tuned to see how day two shakes out at the SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Lake Okeechobee.

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