Palaniuk's Plan

Brandon Palaniuk, BASS photo by Gary Tramontina.

Brandon Palaniuk is currently leading the Bassmaster Classic. Well, he's leading based on BASStrakk, which is a live tracking of anglers' estimated catches. That said, he started this morning 7 pounds behind leader Cliff Pace. Palaniuk has a limit already today, while Pace is only showing to have caught two fish. That means Palaniuk, who leads by only a few ounces, can only increase his weight by culling, while Pace gets the full weight of his next three legal fish.

No matter where Palaniuk finishes, his success is largely the product of an cool and ambitious game plan. Palaniuk visited Grand Lake last February, long before he knew if he would even get the opportunity to compete in this classic, to explore February spots and patterns. He said on stage that he has caught fish from all the places where he caught fish last year and that he has spent both days running a pattern that he discovered during his special practice period a year ago. Although he hasn't revealed specifics, he apparently is fishing seven or eight very specific spots, rotating from one to the the next, and throwing two primary lures. The BASS blog revealed this morning that at least two of the fish Palaniuk caught today bit a green Wiggle Wart.

Making Palaniuk's special scouting trip to Grand Lake extra noteworthy, he's no local. He lives in Idaho. His plan definitely worked. We'll find out this afternoon whether it worked well enough to make him the 2013 Bassmaster Classic Champion.