Former Auburn University angler Connor Jacob schooled the Grand Lake bass on Day 2 of the 2024 Mercury B.A.S.S. Nation Championship presented by Lowrance.
Jacob, 24, caught a limit of five bass on Thursday totaling 16 pounds, 2 ounces. That was the third-heaviest bag of the tournament, and it gave him 29-6 overall heading into the third and final day of fishing on Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees in the northeast corner of the Sooner State.
Jacob climbed from a tie for 16th on Day 1 to the pole position a day later. He’s focusing on brush piles and stumps off the banks of this fabled, 41,000-acre reservoir.
“I finished third at Lake Eufaula (in the St. Croix Bassmaster Open presented by SEVIIN), and I’d never seen Grand Lake,” Jacob said. “So, I kind of tried to lean on what I did there. The first couple days of practice here, that didn’t work out at all … On the first day of the tournament, I caught a bunch of 2-pounders down by the dam.
“But in the last 20 minutes, I stopped in one spot and caught a 4-pounder off a stump. I thought, ‘I probably should do more of that.’”
And so, he did.
After catching an early limit on Day 2, he dissected another Grand Lake stump to pull a 4 ½-pounder into his boat. He picked up a similarly sized bass under a dock later in the day to climb above the 16-pound threshold.
The only bigger bags weighed this week both came on Day 2 — Indiana’s Jeremy Knepp (seventh place, 16-5 on Day 2, 27-3 overall) and Tennessee’s Sam Hanggi (ninth place, 18-3 on Day 2, 26-5 overall).
Jacob and Hanggi are rooming together during the Nation Championship, so it’s clear they’ve figured something out on what’s been a grind on Grand this week. For his part, Jacob said he’s throwing a drop shot in about 12 to 20 feet of water.
“The whole house is doing well,” Jacob said. “The winner may come down to which one of us does better tomorrow.”
Will Davis Jr., the two-time defending B.A.S.S. Nation Championship winner, might have something to say about that, however. Davis, a 32-year-old Alabamian, has a 29-3 total, a mere three ounces behind Jacob. He’s battle-tested after two years on the Bassmaster Elite Series (the spoils for winning the previous B.A.S.S. Nation titles) and he’s got a win on that circuit, too (on Alabama’s Lay Lake in 2023).
“I like fishing from behind,” Davis said. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about the possibility of winning this tournament three years in a row. But I try to put it behind me, way in the back of my mind. It’s been so tough fishing here this week. You have to execute perfectly because you’re getting only about six keeper bites a day if you’re lucky. It’s crucial to land every one of them.”
Day 1 leader Alex Goff, of West Virginia, is currently in third place with 28-5. He said a missed 3-pounder kept him from having a bigger bag on Thursday.
“I had five keepers and about six or seven shorts,” Goff said. “I thought I could do a little bit better given how I ended yesterday. I’m covering a lot of water still, but I’ve started to focus on one spot where I’ve caught a big one both days. It’s a bluff wall in about 5 feet that drops to about 20 feet. The bigger fish are swimming through there. I just have to make them eat.”
Goff said he’s burning a crankbait and slow rolling a spinnerbait over that drop to trigger his best bites.
Oklahoma’s Blake Capps, second after Day 1, fell to fourth overall with a two-day total of 28 pounds. Wisconsin’s Nick Trim is fifth with 27-11.
Carson Orellana, who’s in 10th place overall among boaters, still has the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Tournament — a 6-3 largemouth he hooked on Wednesday. Ohio’s Corey Lindsey caught the heaviest bass among boaters on Thursday (5-9), and that propelled him into 14th place (24-5 overall)
The Top 20 of the 243 anglers in the boater division advanced to fish on Championship Friday. They’ll be joined by Jose Munoz, who won the non-boater division on Thursday with a two-day total of 18-10. Munoz, of Illinois, won $10,000 cash for finishing first among the 239 non-boaters competing on Grand Lake.
Mark Moran, of West Virginia, finished second among non-boaters with 18-8 overall. Robb Cody II, of Georgia, also had 18-8 and placed third overall after tiebreaking rules were applied. South Carolina’s Emery Gray caught the Phoenix Boats Big Bass among non-boaters — a 5-3 on Day 1 of the derby.
The 21 anglers to survive Thursday’s cut will take off from Wolf Creek Park in Grove at 6:30 a.m. CT on Friday. Weigh-in will start at the park beginning at 2:15 p.m.
The Top 3 anglers after the day is complete will earn berths into the 2025 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic to be held March 21-23 on Lake Ray Roberts in Fort Worth, Texas. The overall winner also will collect $50,000, an invitation to compete in the 2025 Bassmaster Elite Series and a Nation’s Best boat and truck combo to use for the year.
In addition, the second- and third-place boaters in the tournament will receive paid entry into the Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers field for 2025, circumventing the need to qualify via one of the two new divisions the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens presented by SEVIIN will debut in the 2025 season.
The Grove Convention and Tourism Bureau is hosting this week’s events.