Whitney Stephens got to his spot with no issues this morning. He was boat 37 and had a fish in the boat before boat 100 went by. It was a good start as well. It looked to be at least a 4 pounder. His co-angler Scott Quackenbush also has one in the livewell that goes 3-4 pounds as well.
Stephens is fishing offshore grass in Lake Eustis with a variety of baits. He has two boats nearby (Alex Wetherall and Austin Schroeder), but they aren’t on top of each other. Each has a few cast lengths from each other in different directions.
Word is that Bryan Schmitt has 15-16 pounds already with an 8-pound kicker. The 8-4 he weighed yesterday was a Florida Trophy Catch and was also the big bass of the day on the pro side. Hard to duplicate 8-pounders but it seems like Schmitt has.
We have two Opens champions dueling it out for another title right now. Stephens won in 2015 on Lake Erie and Schmitt won on Lake Champlain in 2016.
Stephens started the day with a 5-2 lead over Schmitt (32-12 vs 27-10) so Stephens has some padding but since it’s Florida, you have to catch another good bad if you want to win