The saying goes in the Elite Redfish Series: “You can’t win the tournament on day one, but you sure can lose it on day one.”

Those catching better than 20 pounds of fish Thursday at least have a good chance of fishing Saturday’s final round of the Challenge on the Coast on Sabine Lake. But each of the 36 anglers faced some tough conditions to start the tournament.

“It was beautiful this morning, but it’s only going to get worse,” angler Nicky Savoie said. “Saw seven fish, caught one. Had a lot of refusals this morning.”

As of 10:03 a.m. Thursday, the tide at the Sabine Pass North measuring station was 1.7 feet above sea level. By the afternoon, clouds heavily covered the sky above Pleasure Island.

That didn’t stop Texans Ray Malone and Shane Dubose from catching big bags.

Dubose’s bag weighed 26.22 pounds to take the lead, shortly after Malone’s fish weighed in at 25.06. Both caught the daily limit of three fish.

“We’ve been doing this for so many years, so you get things in your mind of seasons and the conditions that we’re under,” Malone said. “Last night, I got in my mind thinking what could we do, so we made a gameplan change and did something I’ve done good on, and fortunately they were there.”

Part of that plan was finding the big fish within the 8 a.m. hour. Malone scored big, 20 miles away from Pleasure Island.

Dubose, of Tomball, needed until about noon to surpass Malone’s total.

“Just out there fishing, the conditions weren’t fantastic, but the winds were down, so we were able to fish the fish that we were on,” Dubose said. “It’s a blind casting spot, so we’re not relying on any sight casting at all. It’s just a good school [of fish] that we’re on.”

Conditions were similar to the series’ opening event in Orange earlier this month with high water and overcast skies. Flooding had struck Orange County just two weeks earlier.

“The south winds for the last 10 days have blown in real hard,” 12^th-place Todd McKellar of Lake Charles said. “It’s blown in a lot of water, and we’ve had a lot of floodwater come down the river, so we’ve made it a lot tougher with the wind.

“Where there’s land, sometimes I’ve run my boat across the last couple of days. I caught probably seven in 2 feet of clean water. They eat a lot of stuff when they’re up on the bank.”

As if Thursday’s weather wasn’t tough enough, Friday’s forecast calls for a stray afternoon thunderstorm with some severe strikes on Saturday.

“It was beautiful this morning, but it’s only going to get worse,” Lockport, Louisiana, fisherman Nicky Savoie said. “Saw seven fish, caught one. Had a lot of refusals this morning.”

Only the top seven anglers through Friday’s round will fish Saturday for a $50,000 first-prize package that includes a Yellowfin Boat with a Yamaha engine and custom Ameratrail trailers.

Freddy Frederick jumped Malone for second place with a 25.99 bag. Bo Favre is fourth at 22.31, followed by Kevin Akin at 21.94, Dwayne Eschete at 21.16 and Jamie Hough at 20.58.

Weigh-ins are held at 3:30 p.m. each day through Saturday at the Pleasure Island Marina.