OKEECHOBEE, Fla. — The temperature fell 30 degrees overnight at Lake Okeechobee, but the fortune of Emmanuel University’s Peyton Dunn and Luke Mcguffin was climbing Wednesday on Day 1 of the Strike King Bassmaster College Series presented by Bass Pro Shops.
The duo caught a five-bass limit weighing 20 pounds, 9 ounces, to jump atop the leaderboard in this two-day tournament in south Florida. That gave them a 1-5 edge over Tennessee Tech’s Cole Petroff and Noah Loxley, who are in second place after weighing a 19-4 limit.
In all, 219 tandems are competing in the derby on Okeechobee, which at a staggering 730 square miles is the second largest freshwater lake in the lower 48 states.
The storied Okeechobee was a bit of a puzzle for Dunn and Mcguffin early on Day 1, and that’s not unexpected when they practiced in 65-degree weather but hit the water Wednesday morning with the thermometer sitting at 35 degrees. The duo started out on the LiveScope, but their bites were infrequent. By noon, they only had two bass totaling about eight pounds in the livewell.
But as quickly as the cold crept in overnight, the weather warmed just as rapidly Wednesday afternoon. That led the Emmanuel anglers to change tactics.
“We stuck with the ’Scoping for a good while because we thought the fish would push off the banks in this colder weather,” Dunn said. “But as we started taking layers off when the sun came out, we decided to get to the bank.”
Mcguffin caught a 6-pounder along the bank to anchor their bag and get momentum in their favor. They boated a pair of 3- to 4-pounders in the final minutes to vault into the lead.
“I was stressing at about noon, I’m not gonna lie,” said Mcguffin, a 19-year-old freshman from Seneca, S.C. “You’re just fishing and not talking to one another because you’re both stressed. But hey, it’s Florida. You can turn things around quick here. We proved it today.”
The pair didn’t divulge the lures they used to mount their late rally, but they acknowledged the bites were coming from 4 feet deep or less. And with winds gusting as high as 20 mph at times on Day 1, they were looking for the calmest water they could find — a comfort not only to them, but to the Okeechobee bass they figured might be staging to spawn.
“The water was pretty muddy, and it was hard to see much of anything,” said Dunn. “I think the 6-pounder was spawning, but I’m not sure on the others.”
Regardless, bass like that capped Day 1 on a high note. Now the young aces from Emmanuel, located in Franklin Springs, Ga., will try to duplicate their production on the second and final day of the tournament.
“It was a magical day,” Mcguffin said. “You pray for miracles and sometimes you get them … Having the lead won’t help me sleep any easier, but I feel a bit better because we didn’t find a lucky place. We found a good place. It has fish and there should be fish there tomorrow.”
Rounding out the Top 5 teams on Day 1 at Okeechobee are third, Noah Haas and Jace French, of Purdue University, 16-12; fourth, Brycen Williamson and Reed Rooke, Erskine College (S.C.), 16-7; and fifth, Lane Clark and Tallis Morrison, Erskine College (S.C.), 14-15.
The Top 22 teams in the tournament (10% of the field) will earn a spot in the Strike King Bassmaster College Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops later this year. This was the first of three tournaments on the Lunkers Trail this year. B.A.S.S. has a two-division format (both the Legends and Lunkers trails each have three tournaments) which is designed to give college anglers additional opportunities to compete.
The Top 10 teams at Okeechobee will split a cash purse of $23,069 that will be awarded to their respective college bass fishing programs.
The second and final day of the Strike King Bassmaster College Series at Lake Okeechobee presented by Bass Pro Shops will begin Thursday with a 7 a.m. ET takeoff from C. Scott Driver Park. Weigh-in is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET. Fans can follow the action on Bassmaster.com.
Okeechobee County Tourist Development Center is hosting this event.
