LIVE BLOG: Stage Two Knockout Round is Set

OKEECHOBEE, Fla. – The 40 anglers fishing Group B now have five hours of competition time left to advance to the Knockout Round of the Favorite Fishing Stage Two Presented by Bass Cat. After a slow morning – interrupted by a flurry of 4-pounders by (surprise, surprise) Jordan Lee – the field looks forward to a continuing warming trend to stimulate a few more post-frontal largemouth.

4:00 p.m. EST – Lines are out for Group B’s final Qualifying Round. Jordan Lee is today’s winner and will advance straight to Wednesday’s Championship Round. The top 19 anglers from today’s competition will meet the top 19 from Group A in tomorrow’s Knockout Round.

3:39 p.m. EST – Two late 6-pounders just showed up. Scott Suggs caught a 6-10 (he had a 6-11 on Saturday) and Timmy Horton just landed a 6-5.

3:17 p.m. EST – We have a Stephen Browning sighting inside of the Top 20 thanks to his late-day rally. He joins Brent Ehrler, Jeff Sprague and Jordan Lee as anglers who started the day with zero and are now currently inside of the Top 20.

3:00 p.m. EST – Body Duckett is now inside the Top 20. He’s only landed two fish today, but they were good ones. He has 8-11 for the day and sits in 16th.

2:37 p.m. EST – Alton Jones just bumped his son, Alton Jones, Jr. out of the Top 20 with a 4-1. They sit 20th and 21st on SCORETRACKER® at the moment. 

2:30 p.m. EST – Greg Hackney’s day is heating up. He just landed a 2-6 and 3-12 back to back and he’s now in the top 10. He currently sits in ninth place after catching 13-14 so far today.

2:04 p.m. EST – Jordan Lee just caught a “straight pig” as he called it, a 6-7 that gave him some more breathing room at the top of SCORETRACKER®.

1:45 p.m. EST – “It’s going to happen,” Jordan Lee just said as he pulled in another scorable bass. It did happen. He’s gone from last place to first with his seventh bass of the day.

1:14 p.m. EST – Greg Hackney just flipped himself into temporary safety with a 3-12 that bumped him into 17th. He started the day in 18th, then fellow below the cut, and is now back inside the Top 20. 

12:38 p.m. EST – Jeff Sprague is another one who started with nothing and finds himself in good shape today. He’s now landed six bass for 15-13 and is in eighth. It’s been like a roller-coaster ride following the standings today.

12:28 p.m. EST – Paul Elias had gone four full periods without scoring a bass here on Lake Okeechobee. Now, in just over a minute, he’s landed two scorable bass. As tough as it is here this week, he’s in 28th and just over 4 pounds away from being inside the Elimination Line

12:15 p.m. EST – Jordan Lee is now in 3rd, he just landed his fifth bass of the day and has a total of 20-10. He’s on a roll and is closing in on the leaders. He’s one big fish from taking over the lead.

12:02 p.m. EST – As we saw yesterday with Michael Neal going from leading the event to coming in empty-handed, it is happening again. Dean Rojas and Britt Myers started the day 1st and 2nd and both have nothing so far today. They’ve fallen to 2nd and 5th respectively.

11:22 a.m. EST – Brent Ehrler is following Jordan Lee’s lead and turning his tournament around after a zero on Saturday. He’s now in 10th after catching three bass for 12-12. That total was helped immensely by a 6-10 just moments ago.

11:17 a.m. EST – Chris Lane just caught his fourth bass since we’ve been following him, and it’s his fourth non-scorable. After releasing the fish back into the patch of reeds where he caught it, Lane shouted to us, “They need to get bigger!” Lane still sits in the Top 20 but could really use a couple of scorable bass so he can feel more comfortable above the Elimination Line.

11:00 a.m. EST – Jordan Lee continues to rise. Just like Zach Birge yesterday, he’s going from “zero to hero” and is now in 6th with four bass for 16-10.

10:42 a.m. EST – During the period break, Chis Lane summed up what the field of 40 is counting on: “The water is finally clearing up. The opportunity to catch big ones exists, I feel like we’re starting to get it dialed in a little bit. It really should be lights out today. The sun’s out, the water’s warming up. You could see some giants today.”

10:35 a.m. EST – Greg Vinson and Gary Klein shared an area in the first period, both focused on flipping isolated, thick patches of reeds. Both took their time really picking those patches apart one at a time.

10:05 a.m. EST – Jordan Lee is making a move. He started the day as one of nine anglers who posted a zero during Group B’s first day of fishing. He’s currently in 11th thanks to two solid bass, a 4-3 and 4-15. 

9:50 a.m. EST – Our on-the-water reporter Rob Newell is predicting a wave of fish starting to bite after just witnessing the Brents (Ehrler and Chapman) both catch one in the same vicinity. Looks like Okeechobee may be starting to wake from the post-cold front slumber.

9:38 a.m. EST – The bite is noticeably slower this morning than it was yesterday: as of this point on Day 3, 29 fish had made their way to SCORETRACKER®. Today, just 12 scorable fish have been caught to the 9:38 a.m. mark.

9:23 a.m. EST — Two anglers on SCORETRACKER® who went fishless their first day: Jeff Sprague has a 2-1, Brent Ehrler has a 3-5.

9:00 a.m. EST – … and they’re starting to chew on Okeechobee. We just saw Aaron Martens weigh a 4-13 to start off his day, which shot him up to seventh place. Martens believes he’s in the right place: He says he caught a handful of fish he’d estimate at 7 pounds in the same area in practice.

8:44 a.m. EST – Rojas is pitching and casting to isolated clumps of lily pads and reeds, looking for spawning bass. So far, no scorable fish.

8:28 a.m. EST – Day 2 leader Dean Rojas just offered a great observation about the conditions early here in Qualifying Round 4: “These Florida largemouth after a cold front, they don’t really want to chase anything. My first day I was throwing moving baits a lot, but we’ll see how they respond today.”