Based on Keith Combs catching a 20-pound limit in less than 30 minutes this morning and the number of fish catches recorded on the BASSTrakk Twitter feed, it may appear that the Elite Series pro were sand-bagging in their pre-tournament comments about Lake Mille Lacs being “off” from last year.
At least for now, I believe what I heard from them yesterday. But the facts at the end of the day will speak for themselves. Keep this in mind, however: Mille Lacs is still one of the premier bass fisheries in the country, even if it doesn’t match the superlatives of a year ago, when out of 150 angler days on the water, there were 139 limits caught and the average fish brought to the scales weighed 3.95 pounds.
“There’s still a lot of big ones,” said Brandon Palaniuk. “I think the weights will look equivalent to last year, but guys aren’t going to catch a 22-pound bag and cull out an 18 and a 20 to get to it. There will be less fish caught, but there will still be a lot of big ones caught.”
Brent Ehrler, who finished second with 69-13 last year, had the big bass of the tournament – a 6-pound, 10-ounce smallmouth.