The fact that Brandon Palaniuk has almost 24 pounds today isn’t surprising. He’s done stuff like this repeatedly in his stellar career. But if you talked to him at the Day 3 weigh-in, you got a clue that it might happen again today. Palaniuk finished with 18 pounds, which left him in 35th place. However, he easily could have missed the top 50 cut, as he was 59th after Day 1.
“I had planned to catch pre-spawn fish out off the bank, and it was just not happening,” Palaniuk said. “I had five pounds at 12 o’clock. I just said, well, I’m going to have to go looking somewhere. I found two 6-pluses side-by-side on two different beds within maybe 10 feet of each other. I caught both the males, caught one of the females and had the other female all the way to the boat and the hook came out. If I had caught all four I would have had about 22 or 23 pounds.
“That was the only two beds I saw. I went through the whole rest of the area and that was it.”
Palaniuk has apparently found more spawning beds today. While he already has 23-13, according to BassTrakk, his best five include a 2-0, a 2-4 and a 3-5. With a 7-pounder and a 9-4 in the bag, he’s got the foundation for one of the 30-pound bags that the St. Johns River is noted for.
“They live here,” Palaniuk said. “You just never know when you’re going to come around the corner and see what I saw (Friday). It can happen very quick. You just have to be in those right places, and it’s hard to do.”