Guntersville Classic Warm-Up?

You can trust that 2008 Bassmaster Classic Champion Alton
 Jones is prepared for whatever the weather delivers for this year's
Classic, which begins one week from today.

32 Degrees.

That's the current temperature at Guntersville, Ala., with the first day of Bassmaster Classic pre-practice only hours away. It's supposed to rain later today, adding snow-melt to already cold water, and then drop into the mid-20s overnight.

The immediate forecast and the conditions the pros will find today and tomorrow line up well with this winter, which has been among the coldest most folks in the South can remember and has brought a couple of major snow and ice storms. Looking at the rest of the week, though, a substantial warm-up is supposedly on the way. Forecast highs Saturday, Sunday and Monday are 41, 54 and 63 respectively, with a peak high of 70 and a low of 53 on Thursday, the day before the Bassmaster Classic begins. The current forecast calls for highs in the 60s all three competition days.

So is that good because a warm-up opens more option for patterns and should trigger a better bite, or is it bad because what the pros find today may have little in common with what is happening a week from now, when the competition begins? I suppose the answer would vary considerably from one pro to the next. And I don't suppose good or bad really matters. The pros simply have to figure out what to do with the conditions they are served.

Of course, the week's forecast and the weather that actually occurs aren't always one in the same. Neither big snowfall was in most local forecasts more than a couple of days out and outlooks change in a hurry this time of year. We'll just have to keep watching!