GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. — As Day Two of the Synergy Southern Challenge got underway Friday, the common sentiment was that the key for catching another good bag would be continued current and low pressure from local anglers.
With the number of recreational boats on the lake, the latter has been hard to come across, but Denny Brauer was fortunate to have one small spot all to himself on Day One.
"The key for me today will be not having locals sitting on my spot that were watching me yesterday," Brauer said. "It's a really tiny place and every fish I weighed in yesterday came off of it."
While some of the anglers left their best spots after catching a good limit early, Brauer stayed and continued catching fish for most of the day. He culled up here and there to 24 pounds, 9 ounces and sits in ninth place.
"I don't even know if they will still be there when I go back," Brauer said. "But I've got four or five schools located within half a mile I can go to. Another angler is fishing one of them and he had a big bag, but I should have the other areas to myself."
The current definitely helps make those areas better, and despite the heavy rains from last week, Brauer noticed they were not pulling as much water as they had during practice.
"If you were there when the current isn't flowing, you are not catching them," Brauer said. "Then the water started moving around 11:00 and lasted until around 2:00, which really surprised me because they have been running a lot more."
Pete Ponds, seventh place with 26 pounds, also noticed the uneven flows of water on Day One, but found in his area that the current seemed to decrease throughout the day.
"They ran water early in the morning and it decreased through the day," Ponds said. "It will start today as low as it finished yesterday, if that makes sense. I still feel good about it, because usually, to do well in these tournaments you have multiple patterns going and I have three."
Like many of the other anglers, Ponds has been catching many fish before one of better size bites and he left his area early in the hopes it would pay off again Friday.
"I don't have anyone on the one place I'm starting and I caught 23 pounds there before I left," Ponds said. "I'm going to start there and give it an hour or two before I go to fresh water. I haven't experienced it with no current yet because of those heavy rains so I'm not sure what to expect."
Current is key for Gary Klein as well, who found himself in second place after Thursday with 28 pounds, 4 ounces.
For Klein, the current is positioning his fish on the perfect transition spot between the main river channel and the spawning flats the fish are moving off of.
"I'm on a spot where whatever current there is, I'll get movement on my spot," Klein said. "With stronger current, I think this is a four-day place. I stayed all day yesterday and once I had my weight, I stayed on top of it with my trolling motor."
If the current continues, it is a spot that should keep replenishing big fish, but there are a lot of little ones to go through to find them.
"I need the big ones to keep moving out," Klein said. "I had 100 fish and only caught eight big ones. What that's telling me is that I'm fishing the place where the fish are moving out. It has deep water access and it's a migration spot with all the right ingredients."
Sunny skies and another warm day Friday has conditions looking like a mirror to Day One. Follow along with BASSCast and see if Pete Ponds and Stephen Browning can catch another big stringer and then tune in for the weigh-in from Lake Guntersville State Park at 4:30 p.m. ET.