Based on what he’d seen in practice, Bill Lowen was surprised that 50th place was 7 pounds after Day 1 of the MAXXAM Tire Bassmaster Elite at the Sabine River. Actually, there were five anglers with 7-0 pounds, occupying places 47 through 51 in the Day 1 standings. Lowen was expecting 50th place to be closer to 5 pounds.
“They caught them way better than I thought they were gonna catch them,” said Lowen, who is in 21st place with 8-7. “I thought we were fixing to see the lowest weights we’ve ever seen for an Elite Series tournament. But we’re right on course for the same weights we’ve had every time we’ve been here.”
However, this vast coastal waterway is definitely different than it was in the most recent Elite Series events on the Sabine River. The water is higher everywhere and southerly winds have kept high tides from flowing out when low tides arrive. Over half the field is packed into Taylor and Hildebrandt bayous, flipping every piece of visible cover. Those pre-tournament predictions of tougher than usual fishing may prove correct on Day 2.
“That cut weight is probably gonna fall like a rock because those fish are gone,” said Hunter Shryock, who is in 22nd place with 8-6. “This is a pretty big playing field, but with the conditions we have, it has shrunk tremendously. You’re looking at probably 80 or 90 percent of it’s unusable, not ideal conditions to fish whether that be too high water, too much current or just too muddy or too blown out. You’re getting a lot of people in very few areas, we’re splitting all the fish up, and we all know how that ends.”
Chris Zaldain is one of the many anglers in Taylor and Hildebrandt bayous. He finished Day 1 in 12th place with 9-1.
“Everyone is doing the same thing, and it’s just one big, giant circle,” Zaldain said. “That area just can’t sustain this. The weights will drop like a rock. Everyone’s running around, and it’s making the banks muddy. It’s definitely challenging.”
Day 1 leader Pat Schlapper is in this area too. He weighed 12-2, anchored by the big bass of the day, which weighed 4-5. Zaldain said he has a different technique working other than his flipping bite. He knows Schlapper has an extra trick in his bag too. That will be the key in separating yourself from the crowd today.
Carl Jocumsen is in 9th place with 9-4. He’s trying to recover from a bust at Lake Fork last week when he finished 99th. As he noted on stage yesterday, he weighed almost twice as much on the Sabine than he did on his second day at Fork, when he had one 5-4 keeper. Jocumsen was determined to find something away from the crowd this week. He did on Day 1, but he almost missed it. That’s how fine the line can be between success and failure on the Sabine River.
“When you don’t have a good practice, you lock in where you just have hope,” Jocumsen said. “I just had one little creek that I had two bites, and they were better than average fish. I’m like, well, I’m starting there. At 8:30 I had 9 pounds. If I had got bites everywhere, I would’ve been thinking about running here and running there, and you know how that works.
“When I caught the 9 pounds I left. I just went practicing, and I caught another 7-pound limit. I broke a big one off, and I lost a 4-pounder. I almost had like a crazy good day.”
But if not for a subtle change Jocumsen made during his first pass down the creek, he might be well back in the pack.
“It’s actually very specific,” he said. “I went down this creek, and I never got a bite. I got to the end of it, and I made one cast, and I caught a 2 ¼-pounder, and it clued me in. I turned around and I went back out the creek the same way, and I had 9 pounds when I came out. I fished over the top of all these fish. I needed one bite. It’s that specific. It was like a bomb went off. I’m like are you kidding me?”
Jocumsen is another angler who thinks the weights will drop on Day 2.
“It’s gonna be tough,” he said. “I think you’re gonna see one of the biggest weight drops that you’ll see in tournament. The (top 50) cut line is not gonna be 14 pounds. There’s gonna be like a big drop.”
Finally, there’s the fact that there’s always hope on the Sabine River. One bad day doesn’t necessarily make for a bad tournament. In 2018, Brock Mosley was in 97th place after Day 1 when he had four bass totaling 4-8. He zoomed up to 8th place on Day 2 with a limit weighing 15-13.
