UNION SPRINGS, N.Y. — Yes, there were lofty predictions prior to this tournament. But they were exceeded on the first day of the Busch Beer Bassmaster Elite at Cayuga Lake. That’s exceeded as in topping the first day totals from Florida’s St. Johns River in March, when the 2016 tour began.
To further put it in perspective, a relatively unheralded upstate New York Finger Lake out-produced one of Florida’s acclaimed bass fisheries when matched spawning time vs. spawning time.
Greg Hackney predicted the Cayuga Lake fireworks Wednesday, saying, “I think it’s really going to shock everybody. This is a great lake.”
The numbers from Day 1 from the St. Johns River on March 17 and Cayuga Lake on June 23 confirm Hackney’s words. And maybe the most startling figure of all is the comparison down the leaderboard of 50th place at each place on Day 1: It was 15 pounds, 7 ounces at the St. Johns River, the previous high this season; it was 16 pounds, 15 ounces yesterday at Cayuga Lake.
Below are further comparisons from Day 1 from when the Elite season started in Florida and where it is now in New York:
St. Johns River Cayuga Lake
Anglers/limits 110/109 107/106
Total fish weighed-in 547 534
Total weight 1,656-9 1,755-8
Avg. bass weighed 3.03 lbs. 3.29 lbs.
Big bass 9-13 6-3
Big bag 23-13 23-6
25th place 18-9 18-14
50th place 15-7 16-15
75th place 13-0 14-14
100th place 9-12 11-10
It will be interesting to see if the Day 2 weights at Cayuga continue on this pace. The general feeling was that many of the relatively easy to catch spawning smallmouth bass were caught yesterday, and it might be difficult to match that up-and-down the leaderboard today.
“I would expect the weights to go down today,” said Chris Lane. “But that doesn’t mean they will. These guys will go out and figure another way to catch them.”