Clear Lake Midday Update – Day 2
Multiple techniques in play for all three stages of spawn
With sunny, often windy conditions draping Clear Lake, day two of the Costa FLW Series Western Division event presented by Evinrude is shaping up to be a contrast of styles between the top two pros from day one.
Top five patterns from day one
Wayne Breazeale, who lead day one with 23 pounds, 10 ounces, took a targeted approach and picked off a limit with one fish here, one there — all on drop-shot. Conversely, Joe Uribe Jr., who started the day in second, got off to a blazing start by capitalizing on an early reaction bite that yielded a quick limit and about 17 pounds by mid-morning.
When we left Breazeale around 9 a.m., he had about 12 pounds, but it could have been better for him. Two good fish, a 4-pounder and a 3 jumped and shook his hook. With Clear Lake’s current state of inconsistency, you don’t get many of those chances, so Breazeale needs to tap into any luck he has remaining.
Elsewhere, we found fifth-place Jason Borofka, who benefited from a big bed fish yesterday, but as of 10 a.m., he had only a small limit with no big bites. He spent much of his morning looking for spawners in a shallow creek, but he says he needed the sun to get a little higher so he could see the fish better.
Fourth-place pro Sunny Hawk was enduring a fishless morning of flipping, but around 10:55 he switched to a Duo Realis jerkbait and caught a fat prespawner that looked to go around 2 3/4 pounds. A slump-killer like this can fuel a big comeback, so we’ll be watching to see how the Utah pro fares.
As far as action from the rest of the field goes, Jon Strelic was targeting prespawners in front of tules. He was looking to upgrade his small limit. We also saw Lester Hawkins throwing a 6-inch swimbait, which had earlier produced two good keepers, including a 4-pounder. Using a small Keitech swimbait, Bruce Harris caught a couple of small keepers in front of the camera. Noy Vilaysane was throwing a Carolina rig along a shallow ridge. He had a small limit by late afternoon and culled once during our visit.
So far today anglers have been evenly split between the upper and lower ends today. Primary patterns included early shad spawn flurries, sight-fishing and finesse work around docks, tules, etc.
Essential for many will be the afternoon bite. Those with limits could be in position to upgrade and surge ahead, while those short of a limit could pull themselves back into a competitive position.
Check back at 2:30 p.m. PT to watch the weigh-in live, see some big fish and find out who will make the cut to fish the final day.