Benton starting slower

Drew Benton has been pictured in the blog with some big smallmouth bass again this morning, but not like he was yesterday, when he finished in eighth place with 20-5, which included a 5-9. At 9 a.m., BASSTrakk showed Benton with four fish weighing 12-12. That’s not bad, just not as spectacular as Day 1.

“Everything I weighed-in I caught before 7 o’clock,” Benton said Thursday. “That 5-9 is the biggest smallmouth I’ve ever weighed-in at a tournament. And that’s the biggest bag of smallmouth I’ve ever weighed-in. We don’t get to do it that much in Florida,” added the Panama City resident.

Benton knew he’d found some big smallmouth bass on spawning beds during practice. He didn’t know just how big they were.

“They’re so deep, you really can’t tell how big they are,” Benton said. “They’re in 8-, 9 feet of water. When it looks like they’re about 15, 16 inches long, it means they’re four or five pounds.”

Benton is leading the Elite Series Rookie of the Year race. Entering this event, he had 435 Angler of the Year points to second place Adrian Avena’s 394. Benton is 18th overall in the AOY standings.

Today will be a test of what the Elite Series rookie has learned. He opened the season with a second-place Day 1 bag of 22-15 while sight-fishing for largemouth bass at the St. Johns River. But he dropped down to 24th place with only 9-14 on Day 2.

“I tried to stay in the same areas and keep doing what I was doing,” Benton said. “I didn’t run new water. I’m going to go catch a couple I’ve already got marked (Friday), then run new water. I’m going to burn up everything I’ve got, then I’m going to just go fishing.”

From the looks of BASSTrakk, Benton is now in the “just go fishing” mode.