COLUMBIA, S.C. — One of the oldest and most revered angling axioms states: “Don’t leave fish to find fish.”
Honoring that timeless truth, Bryant Smith of Roseville, Calif., sacked up a fiv-bass limit of 24 pounds, 7 ounces and improved to first place at the Tedy’s Team Bassmaster Elite at Lake Murray with a two-day total of 46-6.
Smith, who placed 13th on Day 1 with 21-15, heads into Semifinal Saturday with a lead of 1-9 over Paul Marks.
“It was just an amazing day,” Smith said. “I’ve been really fortunate to get the right bites at the right time.”
Days 1 and 2 saw Smith starting on the blueback herring spawn, which typically lasts only an hour or two past daybreak. The first day saw the dimmer lighting of cloudy, rainy conditions extending that activity longer, but with Day 2’s sunnier start, the baitfish congregations concluded as normal.
Knowing that the bass would remain in the general area and continue feeding whenever more herring crossed their radar, Smith committed his day to a focused strategy.
“I’ve been starting in the same spot both mornings and, between two points, I can usually get a limit with a couple good ones,” Smith said. “I know where they’re sitting and that’s the whole key. I’m using my Lowrance ActiveTarget to see if they’re up there.
“You have to be patient. I probably sat and Power-Poled down for an hour, then I’d rotate around, come back and sit there again.”
Smith said he’s been able to identify particular hard spots on the points where the bass sit and wait for passing meals.
“The herring fish are all over the points, but you want the ones that have a home base,” he said. “I can catch one, pull the school off and they always go back.”
Maximizing his spots, Smith said, has required diversity. He’s using an assortment of what he called traditional herring baits, but changing up his presentations has kept the deal going.
“I’m approaching them from different angles and just trying to mix it up,” Smith said. “Playing the wind is super important. We didn’t have much wind today, but it was enough to get them chasing.
“I had my weight around noon today. The bite lasts for quite a while, but they just get super finicky when the sun comes up and the wind dies.”
Notwithstanding his ongoing effort to find the right presentation for a particular time of day, Smith called patience his biggest asset. Increased fishing pressure has made this lake’s fish extremely wary, so success required him to capitalize on the brief windows of opportunity.
“You just never know, so you have to cycle through all your baits and just be there for the opportunity when it presents itself. It’s not like years past when they come up schooling a lot, but they do come up once or twice a day, so you gotta be ready to throw right at ’em.
“That’s the whole deal; you gotta be in the right place at the right time.”
Considering his Day 3 game plan, Smith said he’ll return to the key spots he’s fished since the start, but if those locations fail to produce, he has options.
“I have six or seven points where I know exactly where the fish sit,” he said. “I haven’t really milked anything else, because by the time I’ve gotten to everything else, I had a good bag yesterday and today, I felt like I had a great bag.
“I’m not gonna cull out a 4 1/4-pound fish for a 4 1/2, so I’ve saved my other spots in case I need them later in the tournament.”
Hailing from Cumming, Ga., Marks is in second place with 44-13. A noted herring expert, he placed 14th on Day 1 with 21-14 and rose a dozen spots on the strength of his second-round limit of 22-15.
As Marks explained, seasonal patterns are working in his favor. Specifically, the fish are transitioning to deeper structure — a scenario that fits squarely in his wheelhouse.
“The fish are definitely moving out to some cane piles and some longer points, and drop-offs out there in 15 to 20 feet,” he said. “I really like seeing that. I feel like I’m pretty good at fishing like that from my home waters of Lake Lanier. That’s what I’d fish nine months out of the year.
“I’m ready to get back out there tomorrow. We have some nasty weather coming and they’re gonna chew.”
Marks said he fished a Zoom Super Fluke on a 5/0 Gamakatsu offset worm hook and caught about 20 fish, with his bites spread throughout the day. His biggest was about 6 1/2 pounds.
Jordan Lee of Cullman, Ala., is in third place with 44-8. After placing 49th with a Day 1 limit of 18-3, the two-time Bassmaster Classic champion (2017–2018) rocketed up the leaderboard with a Day 2 limit of 26-5 — the event’s biggest catch.
Anchoring his limit with a 7-7 that bit around 10 o’clock, Lee said the day’s different weather, particularly a different wind direction, spurred his fish to change locations. Moving around and watching for fish on his Lowrance ActiveTarget 2 was his best strategy.
“Catching that 7-7 helped the cause, because this lake is full of 3- and high 4-pounders, but to trick one of those giants is hard to do,” Lee said. “I used the Anchor Lock on my Lowrance Ghost trolling motor and had my boat facing into the wind and I was blind casting to where I knew they were sitting and I caught several of my fish doing that.
“I was being stealthy and not running the trolling motor around a lot. That could have been a key to catching that big one.”
Lee said he caught most of his fish, including the big one on a jig head minnow.
Lee holds the Phoenix Boats Big Bass lead with his 7-7.
Trey McKinney of Carbondale, Ill., leads the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings with 448 points. Caleb Hudson of Lincolnton, Ga., is second with 410, followed by Brandon Cobb of Greenwood, S.C., with 389, Cory Johnston of Otonabee, Canada with 385 and Justin Atkins of Florence, Ala., with 382.
Saturday’s takeoff is scheduled for 6:30 a.m. ET at Dreher Island State Park. The weigh-in will be held at the park at 3 p.m.
Follow along with the morning action of Bassmaster LIVE on FS1 May 9 and 10 from 8-11:30 a.m. ET before heading to Bassmaster.com for afternoon coverage. All weigh-ins will be available live on Bassmaster.com starting at 3 p.m. ET.
This event is being hosted by Capital City/Lake Murray Country.