40
Anglers Advance to Saturday
Knockout Round in Kissimmee
BPT
PRESS RELEASE
All in for Top 40 from both Groups for first BPT Knockout Round! (Photo: BPT) |
Now that the field of 80
has been reduced to 40 at the MLF Bass Pro Tour B&W Trailer Hitches Stage
One Presented By Power-Pole, the "what happens next?" questions can
begin in earnest.
Question 1: Will
Central Florida's warming trend kick in quickly enough to bring some of the
Kissimmee Chain's pre-spawn largemouth into play on Saturday when the Knockout
Round is contested?
Question 2: How
will the game of "practice cat-and-mouse" play out on Lake Toho and
Lake Kissimmee?
First, the things we do
know: Anthony Gagliardi carried his roll from the Shotgun Round
into today's second Elimination Round, adding 29 pounds, 10 ounces to his
previous 41-14, finishing as the Phoenix Boats Daily Leader with 71-8 over two
days. And not surprisingly, Marty Robinson, Jacob Powroznik, Greg Hackney,
Fletcher Shryock and Jason Christie also stayed in the Top 10.
But the storylines that
intrigue the most are playing out a little deeper inside the SCORETRACKER
numbers.
Still waiting on the weather
The biggest X-factor of
the week has been the mercurial central Florida weather, which has kept the
Kissimmee Chain's pre-spawn females locked down and unwilling to bite. Water
temperatures have slowly - too slowly, if you ask the anglers - crept up into
the high 50s through the first four days of competition, but they're still shy
of that magical 63-plus-degree mark that will make Toho, Kissimmee and Cypress
a big-fish fest.
Practice time & the numbers game
That said, most of the
anglers who entered the morning in the Top 10 and comfortably above the
elimination line spent the majority of the day looking for new spots (as did
their Elimination Round 1 counterparts). But regardless, many of the anglers
who advanced out of both Elimination Rounds are surviving just fine by playing
the numbers game on aggressive schools of smaller offshore fish.
Terry Scroggins, who has
one of the field's most prolific big-fish histories on the Kissimmee Chain,
racked up 21 fish for 41-7 today. Gagliardi switched up from a jerkbait to a
small Berkley Power Swimmer, adding 20 more fish to his SCORETRACKER total.
"I don't know who
else from Group A might be fishing in the area I've been fishing, but there are
more than enough fish to go around," Gagliardi said. "I know that
nobody is going to hold anything back tomorrow - we'll see everybody's best
(spots)."
Brandon Palaniuk was the
clear exception to the numbers game. The Idaho pro connected with only six
scorable largemouth today, but they were the right size: five of Palaniuk's six
fish were 3 pounds or better (3-5, 3-9, 3-10, 3-11 and 3-14). Palaniuk junk-fished
his way around the upper end of Lake Toho for most of the day, but finished in
a spot that he hopes will kick-start his Knockout Round.
"I found one little
deal in the third period that I'll probably start on tomorrow," Palaniuk
said. "I caught the 3-11 and 3-14 on it, and I feel like it just has good
fish in it. And I think it's a place that could reload with more fish."
Knockout format
Weights zero for the
Knockout Round, which means that Saturday is a single-day shootout to make it
into the Top 10. The Championship Round will move to Lake Garcia, which was one
of the venues for the 2018 General Tire World Championship.
Where &
how to watch
Live, official scoring
via SCORETRACKER begins Saturday morning with lines in at 7:30 a.m. EST. The
MLF NOW! live stream begins at 10 a.m., continuing through the day until lines
out at 3:30 p.m. The Berkley Postgame Show starts at 5 p.m. daily.
No comments:
Post a Comment