Don’t take this the wrong way because I’m a big fan of BASSTrakk. I appreciate the way it provides a minute-by-minute picture of how each day on the water unfolds. But it’s a fuzzy picture. Day 1 of the Bassmaster Classic provided a perfect example of just how fuzzy.
James Elam was listed at the top of the BASSTrakk leaderboard with 17 pounds, 12 ounces. Elam’s official weight was 16-7. He “big-eyed” his bag to the tune of 1 pound, 5 ounces, and 16-7 put him in sixth place officially.
Jason Christie, on the other hand, was listed in second place on BASSTrakk with 17-4 at the end of the day. Christie’s official weight was 20-14, which put him in first place. He “sand-bagged” to the tune of 3 pounds, 10 ounces.
Every daily comparison of BASSTrakk and the official standings includes varying degrees of sand-baggers, who underestimate their weight; big-eyers, who overestimate their weight; and straight-shooters, who are within a pound of their official weight.
But mostly these guys are a bunch of sand-baggers. Overall, the 52-angler field underestimated their weight by 65 pounds, 12 ounces, for an average of about 1 1/4 pounds per man.
The king of the sand-baggers yesterday was Jacob Powroznik, who had a BASSTrakk weight of 10-7, which had him in 39th place, and an official weight of 15-4, which put him in 13th place. Casey Ashley took the second spot among the sand-baggers with 11-0 on BASSTrakk and 15-0 officially.
To be fair, sometimes the discrepancies are the result of input errors by marshals. Some of the time. However, if you’ve been following BASSTrakk since the beginning, you know that Edwin Evers will consistently have a couple pounds more officially than his BASSTrakk weight, and Mike Iaconelli will consistently have less than his BASSTrakk weight. It happened again yesterday when Evers sand-bagged 3 pounds, 5 ounces, and Iaconelli big-eyed 1 pound, 6 ounces.
Only one angler’s BASSTrakk and official weights matched to the ounce. Matt Lee had 14-1 on both, which put him in 13th place on the final BASSTrakk standings, but dropped him to 18th in the official standings. Well, Skeet Reese’s BASSTrakk and official totals were spot-on too. But that’s another story.