Jordan Lee’s three and more of the same

Yesterday Jordan Lee caught his personal best with a largemouth weighing 9 pounds, 4 ounces. Lee, who honed his mat punching skills on Lake Guntersville, applied the technique on several occasions last season for Top 5 finishes on the Bassmaster Elite Series. He’s pitching and punching on the Harris Chain, but instead in lily pads.

Lee caught the monster bass randomly pitching the jig. Today he is waiting for another near-double digit bite or better, having only 3 bass in the livewell as of about 9:33 a.m. That’s the report from B.A.S.S. photographer James Overstreet, who is not surprisingly following the young pro from Alabama.

The wind is about the same as yesterday, blowing from the south at 7 mph. That’s not too much by Florida standards, considering the two types of patterns underway here. One is sight fishing for bass in calm, clear water in the canals and far reaches of the lake. Yesterday Shaw Grigsby, a master of the technique, reported seeing 28 females on beds, although catching those was a bust. So it stands to reason that pattern isn’t as reliable as the other.

That one is a classic set-up for pre-spawn largemouth, which stage on the outside edges of vegetation ranging from stemmed grass to lily pads growing in the main lake. Such a place exists in Little Lake Harris, where a field about one acre in size is seeing lots of pressure from the anglers. Males are moving in and the occasional female, as caught yesterday by Lee.

Some wind is good in this situation. Too much is bad since it creates turbid water unfavorable to the migration by the bass. So begins another day of hide and seek by the bass and the anglers.