There will be two more days in this tournament after today, but for 58 anglers in this 108-man field, there will be no “after today.” Only the top 50 will have a tomorrow at Lake St. Clair. And the implications of that are enormous. While it’s the last regular season event of the 2017 Bassmaster Elite Series, it’s essentially the fourth quarter of a playoff game.
The repurcussions are almost endless – for Toyota Angler of the Year, Bassmaster Classic berths, qualifications for the top 50 AOY Championship event at Lake Mille Lacs in September and re-qualification for the 2018 Elite Series.
But the spotlight is on AOY, and the main question today is can Brandon Palaniuk repeat the rally he staged at the St. Lawrence River. Palaniuk saw his 40-point AOY lead vanish yesterday when he placed 47th and Jacob Wheeler finished 6th. If those were the final standings, Wheeler would have a one-point lead over Palaniuk, and Jason Christie, 4th on Day 1, would be in third (he’d actually be tied in points with Palaniuk, but the tiebreaker goes to the angler with most weight in full field days. In this case Palaniuk has had more weight).
But Palaniuk was in worse shape – 72nd place – after Day 1 a month ago at the St. Lawrence River. He rallied with 25-0 on Day 2, vaulted into 9th place and finished 3rd in the tournament.
St. Clair is a volatile fishery. The nomadic nature of smallmouth bass is heightened here in a relatively flat, predominantly sandy, shallow bowl of a 430-square-mile lake. There will be dozens of ups-and-downs in the standings at the end of the day. Who goes up and who goes down has massive implications. This is far from a typical Day 2 on the Bassmaster Elite Series.