With day one complete in Wisconsin, anglers are right on pace for the predicted winning weight of around 45-pounds. Keith Carson has the only 15-pound bag and maintains a half pound lead over second place angler Sheldon Collings. Collings and three others are in the 14-pound range, with the rest of the top ten anglers at around 13-pounds. Holding the 10th place spot is none other than Nick Prvonozac.
Read about the day one leaders, here!
To start day two, anglers launch into mid 80-degree temperatures with patchy fog around the area. The wind is projected at 10-knots from the Southeast, and waves less than 1-foot. With more wind that day one, look for some smallmouth anglers to have better days. Leader Keith Carson when asked if he fished offshore on day one.
“I wanted to fish some offshore but the wind didn’t blow at all so I opted to fish shallow in the afternoon. If we do get some wind, I would like to try and catch some of those smallmouths.”
With most of the anglers fishing protected areas for largemouth, don’t expect the wind to affect anything other than maybe run time. Anglers like Brandon Perkins who spend the entire practice period fishing for smallmouth, the wind should help his bite as he noted that it keeps the fish and the bait grouped up more than when its flat calm.
Progressive AOY Race
That brings us to a shake up in the Progressive AOY Standings. Prior to the start of the Winnebago event, the top 5 in AOY looked like this.
David Gaston 983
Nick Prvonozac 963
Brandon Perkins 959
Keith Carson 958
John Soukup 956
Aside from Gaston shocking everyone yesterday with zero fish, only a few moving parts remain atop the unofficial AOY. The rest of the top 5 did enough to keep things tight. Soukup is in 34th, respectively. Perkins in 22nd. Prvonozac in 10th. Carson Leading. With two fishing days remaining and some changing weather and winds coming, I expect David Gaston, who held a 20-point lead beginning this event, to make a charge. Gaston is too good and has been too consistent to not make up some serious ground.
Other anglers in the top ten in points before this event did keep things interesting. Bryant Smith find himself in 3rd place after day one and Marc Schilling sits right behind Prvonozac in 11th. A lot of anglers are quietly making moves and within striking distance as we sit right now.
Gaston has never been focused on the AOY race. His goal is to catch 5 a day and dial in his areas as the event goes on. With a slow start, he does have work to do, but he can still make up a lot of ground with 2 of the 3 days remaining.
How to Watch
Tune in daily August 19th through the 21st to thenationalprofessionalfishingleague.com to watch daily LIVE Coverage, the LIVE Leaderboard, LIVE Blog, and daily on the water photo galleries of the anglers on Lake Winnebago.
