Brandon Palaniuk got on the board at 9 a.m. with a 5-pounder. And he caught it a long way from where he caught that 6 1/2-pounder yesterday. That’s both a blessing and a curse in this event: There’s so much water available, in addition to the 430 square miles of Lake St. Clair, if you don’t like it there, you can move to Lake Erie, Lake Huron or the St. Clair and Detroit rivers in between. Palaniuk hasn’t gone back to St. Clair today.
Before the tournament began, Palaniuk predicted his vulnerability in St. Clair, saying, “I could catch 25 pounds or I could catch 7 pounds. They move a lot, and I’ve only got one area that I feel like are the right ones and they’re grouped up.”
Palaniuk said he caught 23 pounds in one pass of that area during practice. And it’s where he caught the 6 1/2-pound big bass of the day Thursday. But he couldn’t find another big one there. That’s the curse of St. Clair – nothing stays the same.
“It’s like trying to catch a smallmouth bass in Florida,” Palaniuk said. “I love smallmouth bass and I hate Florida.”
That was a veiled reference to the Palaniuk’s 105th-place finish at Lake Okeechobee this season.