This may have been the hardest tournament to pick the anglers in all the years I have been playing this. 

Should be a good one here’s who I’m rolling with 

My crew for Hartwell:

 

Cobb

Arey

Cherry

Williamson

Whitaker

 

I hate taking all locals, but all of these guys are STUDS on this lake. 

Patrick Walters

Matt Arey

Keith Combs

Jeff Gustafson

Jake Whitaker

Really stacked weights today. 2 pounds separates 10th and 30th. 5 pounds separating 10th and 50th. 

Pirch

Cory Johnston

Cherry

Williamson

Hartman

Cobb (1st)

Auten (6th)

Lowen (8th)

Gustafson (15th)

Hartman (31st)

 

So far so good.  Tomorrow will be completely different conditions, weights are close enough that it could help me or hurt me.  Just need my top 3 to keep it up , Gusty to improve and Hartman to pretend it is his rookie year.

 

As an aside, I read that last year, 6 of the event winners in the Fantasy Fishing were not BASS members, meaning they won $2500 BPS card instead of a $3000 BPS gift card.  I find it odd that so many folks who like bass fishing enough to play Fantasy Fishing (& know enough to win) are not BASS members.

Doing pretty good so far. 

In our group, Fishballer (S. Duffy) is leading this event with 1359 points.  I looked a little closer and realized that his picks in Buckets A, B, C, D are the top point-getter in each group.  Tyler Rivet is the top in group E, but he only has 0.3% ownership, so the odds of someone having those top 4 & Mr. Rivet are pretty slim.  The only thing this doesn't take into account is the possible 40 additional points if Brock Mosley's big bass holds up.  Otherwise, although it is early, it is cool that most likely Fishballer is tied with the top score.  I looked down the leader board and saw 2 other folks in the top 500 that had his same choices, so it would come down to the tie breaker.

 

If my choices came through as the winning selections, I would be in a tie with Odell15 (P.Odell), who is also leading in the season points in our group.  Odell15 & I have the same choices, his tie breaker is 67.0 lbs while I have 70.7 lbs.  

 

With 30 less anglers in the Elites, it seems as if people having the same selections is a less rare thing.

I picked Tyler Rivet .

13 hours ago, OCdockskipper said:

In our group, Fishballer (S. Duffy) is leading this event with 1359 points.  I looked a little closer and realized that his picks in Buckets A, B, C, D are the top point-getter in each group.  Tyler Rivet is the top in group E, but he only has 0.3% ownership, so the odds of someone having those top 4 & Mr. Rivet are pretty slim.  The only thing this doesn't take into account is the possible 40 additional points if Brock Mosley's big bass holds up.  Otherwise, although it is early, it is cool that most likely Fishballer is tied with the top score.  I looked down the leader board and saw 2 other folks in the top 500 that had his same choices, so it would come down to the tie breaker.

 

If my choices came through as the winning selections, I would be in a tie with Odell15 (P.Odell), who is also leading in the season points in our group.  Odell15 & I have the same choices, his tie breaker is 67.0 lbs while I have 70.7 lbs. 

 

You did some major research last night! 

 

It's about time I have a solid event. I think I was in the bottom 10 guys in our group prior to this event. 

4 out of 5 Bucket leaders is more than solid, it is outstanding.  I obviously am rooting for a few different guys than you have, but if I fall out of contention, I'll jump on your bandwagon & cheer for you to pull off a victory.

 

After all, do we really want the winner of the BPS gift card to spend that money on women's clothing and snacks?  No, the bait monkey needs to be fed with rods, reels & lures and nothing helps satisfy him like a Bass resource member with a $3K BPS card in his hand.

Wow, this is getting interesting.

 

Fishballer06's team (and the other folks with the same picks) pretty much held serve at todays weigh-in, dropping ever so slightly to 1350 points.  However, my & Odell015's choices rode a Jamie Hartman comeback to close in to 1348 points.  We have the top point getters (before big bass & big bag) in buckets A, C, D & E, a slight flip from yesterday when Fishballers choices held that distinction.  The biggest monkey wrench for all of our choices is Drew Cook, who if his big bag holds up and he stays in the top 4, would be the top point getter in Bucket A, even if Cobb goes wire to wire.  Chris Groh actually did us a favor by bumping Brandon Lester out of Big Bass, for Lester is the Bucket B leader and an extra 40 points for Big bass might have sealed the deal for someone else.

 

This is cool, having multiple Bass resource members with a legitimate shot at the BPS card.

 

Both Fishballer, Odell015 & I have Cobb in the A bucket.  Our choices differ in the other 4:
 

B - Arey (8th) vs Auten (21st)

C - Cherry (5th) vs Lowen (4th)

D - Williamson (11th) vs (Gustafson) (7th)
E - Whitaker (20th) vs Hartman (14th)

 

I will be on the water all day tomorrow and at a gathering after that, so I may not see Saturdays results until Sunday morning.  I would really love to see Cobb stay on top and those 8 anglers above make the top 10.  It would make for a nailbiting Sunday for all 3 of us.

Oh my gosh, I didn't even see Gundog has shot into the lead with 1373.  With Cobb, Lester, Cherry & Gustafson, he has 4 of the top 7 and then Whitaker in 20th place.  If Lester had hung on to big bass, that would have been huge, although if they are sight fishing the next 2 days, it won't be a stretch to imagine a 6 lb fish hitting the scales.

 

So another Bass resource member is staking a claim for the event win.  Good Luck!!

Woo hoo! Finally got lucky on my picks.

I had 4 anlgers in the top 20 and only finished 25 in this group . Thats some tough competition . Heres my Wynah Bay lineup .

 

Great tournament! I switched Lowen in at the last minute and it paid off. It’s SO hard to win these games, it’s a lot of luck honestly.... good luck everyone! Winyah will be tough. 

Congrats to Brandon Cobb for finally getting his first Elite W. I was really happy to see him go wire to wire (partly because I had him in Fantasy). Our group also was pretty impressive. We had 6 guys over the 1250 mark, 4 of which were over 1300!

 

Just a heads up guys, we have a quick turnaround for this next one. Winyah Bay starts Thursday morning, so get your picks in for that event by Wednesday night. 

Basstrac wont be worth a hoot today . I just watched the takeoff and a whole bunch of boats didnt have marshals . It looks like half the field dont have  them .

Good to know. Thanks for letting us know. 

 

I really felt lost picking for this event. Here's who I've got. 

 

Canterbury

Benton

Williamson

Mosley

Hudnall

19 minutes ago, fishballer06 said:

I really felt lost picking for this event.

Seems they don't frequent Winyah every year, last results I could find were 2016. Hite was the last to win it.

 

Here's my shots in the dark.. I mean picks:

 

 

1 hour ago, Dangerfield said:

Seems they don't frequent Winyah every year, last results I could find were 2016. Hite was the last to win it.

 

Actually, Britt Meyer won it the last (only) time they were there.  Hite & Kelly Jordan were second & third.

6 minutes ago, OCdockskipper said:

Actually, Britt Meyer won it the last (only) time they were there.  Hite & Kelly Jordan were second & third.

It seems I got my Brent's and Britt's confused haha.

I hate tidal fisheries. They're always a crap shoot. 

I definitely felt like this one was a crap shoot to pick.

 

Patrick Walters

Clark Wendlandt

Keith Combs

Garrett Paquette

Derek Hudnall