Well as far as predictions go, I definitely didn’t see the cancelation of Day 3 of this event coming due to inclement weather. Looking at the long-range radar yesterday, it appeared as though the majority of the rain was going to break up and miss the Santee Cooper Lakes on Saturday. But the wind on the backside of that line of storms is what likely concerned B.A.S.S. officials the most and led to the cancelation of Day 3.
With forecasted winds sustained between 10- and 20- miles per hour and gusts in the 30s, Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie would be extremely rough. Add to that the already high difficulty level of navigating the standing timber in the Santee Cooper Lakes and you have a recipe for disaster. And the 50% chance of severe thunderstorms only ups the risk factor. So, Day 3 is canceled and all 47 competitors that made the Day 3 cut will now fish on Championship Sunday and the originally scheduled 4-day event will be cut to 3 days.
So where does that leave us on predicting some patterns? Well weight-wise, unless Drew Cook goes out tomorrow and dumps a near record-setting 43- pounds, 7- ounces on the scale tomorrow, seeing the 100- pound mark hit this week is pretty much toast. Surprisingly, that might even be possible here under perfect conditions. But with all the wind we’re seeing today, the Santee Cooper Lakes are going to be a far cry from perfect conditions tomorrow.
Many of the shallow spawning flats where anglers have been fishing will no doubt be stained up at best from the wind and the rain, making it harder for the anglers to see the fish. And this weather isn’t exactly conducive for a big wave of fish to move up. But that being said, Sunday is predicted to be sunny which will help, though still pretty windy with 10- to 15- mile per hour winds in the forecast.
We’ll be back shortly with predictions on weights for the final day of the event, as well as a look back through some of the data collected on Day 2 through BassTrakk. We’ll even compare the Day 1 and 2 numbers a bit, which show some interesting correlations. So stay tuned.