After Day 1, the cut weight for Day 3 (47th place) wound up at 15 – pounds, 13 – ounces, better than a 3- pound average per fish. Conventional wisdom says to double that weight and add or take a little off to try to predict the weight it will take on Day 2 to advance into Day 3 and make the cut.
Going off of the conditions we have here at the Santee Cooper Lakes this week as well as the caliber of angler, I’m predicting the cutline for Day 3 will be somewhere close to 32 – pounds, 10 – ounces, a little better than twice the Day 1 weight. After Day 2, I’m predicting the leader will have around 56 – pounds, with one of the Top 3 backing up their stellar Day 1 weight with a 25 – to 28 – pound bag.
Taku Ito sat in 10th after Day 1 with 21 – pounds, 10 – ounces. To make the Top 10 cut to fish on Championship Sunday, I’m predicting that an angler will need 59 – pounds, a little less than 20 – pounds per day after 3 days of competition.
And the final prediction when it comes to weight, I do believe someone will break the century mark here this week. There are 6 anglers well on their way, all with over 26 – pounds on Day 1, and a handful more who could get back on pace quickly with a big bag on Day 2 or 3. So I’m calling for a winning weight of 103 – pounds for 4 days of competition, and for two anglers to actually break 100 – pounds.
We’ll see if these predictions hold. One thing for certain, you don’t want to miss any of the action as this week unfolds. There are big ones being caught and caught regularly. This has been and will be a fun one to watch play out.