Brandon Palaniuk stated it best earlier this week when he said, “There’s a very fine line between 6 pounds and 26 pounds on this lake.”
While no one has weighed that entirely-possible 26-pound bag on Lake Travis yet, we’ve seen numerous examples among today’s Top 12 of the fine line between success and failure, like 6th place Ray Hanselman catching 21 pounds, 15 ounces on Day 1 and 8-4 on Day 3, 5th place Bobby Lane catching 21-2 on Day 1 and 9-2 on Day 2, and 9th place Jason Christie catching 21-13 on Day 2 and 8-11 on Day 3.
So who is going to be able to step over that fine line today? Leader Drew Benton has improved his total each of the previous three days, from 13-15 to 16-13 to 20-4. But Benton admitted he didn’t think he could continue that trend.
Jacob Wheeler starts the day in 2nd place, only 2-10 behind Benton. He too has seen those ups and downs of Lake Travis.
“I culled a 3-pounder (Friday),” Wheeler noted. “I didn’t catch a 3-pounder (Saturday).”
But he’ll start the day with a different mindset than the previous three. That’s what making the Top 12 does – it gives everyone the opportunity to go all out with no major repercussions when the worst you can finish in this tournament is 12th.
“I’m not looking to finish second,” Wheeler said. “(Saturday) I was in that mode to try and maintain. (Sunday) it’s 100 percent you become the hunter. I love that feeling.”