Red Hot at Red River

Looking at my local 10-day forecast this morning, I realized the dates at the tail end were the days of the start of the Forrest Wood Cup. That made the championship event and my travel seem extra real and caused me to hop over to the 10-day for Shreveport, which is hosting the Cup on the Red River. Appears it'll be good and hot, which I suppose is not a huge surprise. Today's high will hit triple digits (a notable contrast from the low to mid-80s we've mostly had for highs in North Georgia this summer). All the highs throughout the Shreveport 10-day are at least in the 90s, without a lot of rain

Of course, the 46 pros who will be battling for title of champion and the $1/2 million top prize are more concerned about finding the Red's hottest big-bass bite than they are about the actual temperatures. That said, the weather, both now and during the tournament, will most likely play an important part in those answers. The color, level and temperature of the water all impact how the bass behave, and all of those are determined mostly by the weather.

When the competitors show up for official practice early next week, it will have been a few weeks since any of them have been allowed on the river, so I'm sure that even now most are thinking about how a period of true summer conditions will likely impact any patterns or fish locations they might have found during pre-practice. Depending when they visited last and how they like to operate, some will begin with what they found and try to see how fish have adjusted. Others likely used early visits only to learn navigation and to look at the river and its extensive backwaters and will begin their search for fish on the first day of practice.

As of now, the forecast for Thursday, August 15, the day the competition actually begins, is for a high of 93 and scattered thunderstorms. That'll shift, I suspect, but I'm pretty confident that it'll be good and hot on the Red River that day.