Bass Tours Back

Although my current writing priorities don't include much coverage of tour-level professional bass fishing, I'm still a fan of the sport and miss it during the offseason. Adding to that, I have quite a few friends who fish the Bassmaster Elite Series or FLW Tour, and I enjoy tracking their travels and following their seasons.

FLW got things started last week on Lake Guntersville, and the Elites are currently practicing on Tennessee's Cherokee Lake. The competition starts tomorrow. Both tours had unusual season openers simply based on the fact that they did not start in Florida. It's also a bit of a departure from the norm for the Elites to begin before the Bassmaster Classic.

Cherokee in February could have been brutal, weather wise, but it doesn't appear that will be the case. Tomorrow is supposed to be cold, with a fairly strong northwest wind that will make it feel even colder, but highs are supposed to hit the 60s on Saturday and Sunday. It also has been mild enough overall that it shouldn't be a total winter event, pattern wise. Word has it the bite has been tough, but the pros often say that, and someone (sometimes, a bunch of someones) almost invariably figures out something really good.

Double-Barrel Tour Action

Looking forward to gettin the @bass_nation #basselite season underway and to try and find some big Florida girls like this one! Only a week out... #bassfishing #largemouthbass #bassmaster #floridabassfishing #floridafishing @toyotausa @triton_boats_official @yamahaoutboards @carhartt @teamtoyota @lews_fishing @afwhiseas @_duckett_fishing_ @yum_baits @booyah_baits @minnkotamotors @humminbirdfishing

A photo posted by Terry Scroggins (@bigshowscroggins) on Mar 11, 2016 at 10:33am PST

A big weekend for pro bass fishing kicks off in about an hour. The B.A.S.S. Elite Series begins their season this morning on the St. Johns River while the FLW Tour starts tour stop number two on Lake Hartwell. Each has its own intrigue to me, so I'll be paying attention to both through the weekend, although I'm driving to Louisiana on Sunday, and I can't deny that I'm apt to be distracted by some seriously good Cajun cooking at Bourgeois Fishing Charters that evening! Off topic, I know. I guess I'm distracted already.

Anyway, the St. Johns tourney is more interesting than many both because it's the season opener, where this year's story lines begin being written. Plus, I was just in Florida, fishing the St. Johns, and I know how many big fish are apt to be on the flats. The water was off-colored for the area, and I don't know if it has settled, and I haven't looked at the forecast. Even if conditions turn out to be tough, though, I suspect some seriously big bags will be brought to the scales.

Meanwhile, the FLW event at Hartwell carries extra interest for me because it is so close to home. The launch they are using is about an hour from here, and parts of the lake are much closer. I haven't spent loads of time on Hartwell, but it's still pretty familiar, and it's always fun when a big event is happening so close to home. The weather has been warm, and I've seen photos of a lot of good practice fish posted by pros, so I suspect they are going to catch 'em well. Of course, every FLW Tour event is important to the points story line because there are only six events. By the end of the weekend, the season will be 1/3 over.

Both organizations do a good job of providing live coverage of their events. For FLW, I tend to like their Twitter feed best. For B.A.S.S., I go straight to their website and follow the event's blog and/or BASStrakk results. Look for yourself, though, to see which feeds suit you best.

Small (mouth) Distraction

My focus has been a little split for the past couple of days. It's something that sometimes happens when a big tournament is going on. And it's especially likely to occur when the pros are catching whopper smallmouths. I find myself spending too much time peeking at BASStrakk, the Bassmaster blog, the FLW Twitter feed, pros' facebook pages and more, wanting to know what the fish are doing and who is catching them and of course wanting to see photos of big brown fish.

I suppose it's somewhat of a vicarious fishing thing.

This week it's been a double whammy because the Elites are fishing Lake St. Clair at the same time as an FLW Rayovac Series event is going on at Erie, out of Sandusky. The fishing has been good, and they are catching a lot of big fish. Adding intrigue, friends are in major contention in both tournaments, and on the BASS side, the Angler of the Year race and Bassmaster Classic qualifiers continue to take shape.

I'm still getting my writing done. It's just taking longer than it should. I'd write more here, but I need to check on the weigh-ins!

Chris Lane's Astounding Day

Chris Lane weighed-in an astounding 37 pounds, 9 ounces of St. Johns River bass
yesterday to take a 9-pound lead halfway home. B.A.S.S. photo by Seigo Saito.

I mostly avoid re-hashing reports that you can read in various other places. Some things are tough to ignore, though, and a 37-pound, 9-ounce bass limit in a major tournament clearly is one such thing. That's what Chris Lane brought to the scales yesterday on Day 2 of the Bassmaster Elite on the St. Johns River.

Looking at the numbers, Lane would be in 10th place after two days if he had zeroed on Day 1! He actually had a solid 18-11 on the first day, though, so yesterday's giant bag put him nearly 9 pounds ahead of Day 1 leader Randy Howell.

The good news for Chris Lane is that he is in a great position, and because he is not sight-fishing in a crowd, he is not watching his fish supply dwindle. The bad news is that if he could do it yesterday, someone else could do it today or tomorrow. Twenty anglers had 20-pound-plus bags yesterday, and the St. Johns River holds enough big fish that someone else could surge into the spotlight with a giant bag tomorrow. In fact, although the cut-line was 28-14, barely more than half of Lane's two-day total, I'd go as far as to say that no one who made the cut is out of contention halfway home. Lane's bag today could change that story and all but seal the deal, but he was the first to say that he might catch 10 pounds or another giant bag. Not surprisingly, he did not plan to alter his approach of flippin' shallow lily pads

Detroit, Southern Fried

Plano Championship Chase winner, Chris Lane, B.A.S.S. Photo by James Overstreet

Pre-tournament prognostications for virtually any national tournament held on the Great Lakes talk about the fickle nature of big-water smallmouths and the lakes themselves and an inside track northern anglers supposedly possess. Most picks are heavily loaded with names of northern "smallmouth specialists," almost to the point that it would seem no "expert" believes a southern angler could possibly figure out northern smallmouths in a big lake.

It would seem, however, that Detroit's biggest smallmouths forgot to ask the experts which lures they were supposed to favor. First place in the Elite Series season finale' on Michigan's Lake St. Clair went to Chris Lane, who grew up in central Florida, where no smallmouths live, and now calls Alabama home. Second and third went to Mark Davis of Arkansas and Alton Jones of Texas.

Actually, if you look down the list of the twelve anglers who made today's final round of fishing, only one, Nate Wellman of Michigan, is from Great Lakes country. Morizo Shimizu still lists Osaka, Japan as home. Beyond Wellman and Shimizu, addresses from Top 12 finishers include five from Alabama, three from Texas, one from Arkansas and one from West Virginia.

I'll acknowledge a few of the Top 12 anglers moved to Alabama or Texas (although not from northern states). I'll likewise acknowledge that there are far more Elite Series anglers from the South than the North, thus stacking the deck. That said, most pre-tournament stories would suggest if there were dozen northern anglers in a Great Lakes tournament, you should expect them to fill 2/3 of the top dozen or so places.

For what it's worth, northern anglers do sometimes dominate tournaments on northern waters (and southern waters). It's not my desire to argue North vs. South or East vs. West. I just found it interesting how dominant Alabama and Texas pros were among top finishers in this particular event, and it seemed like a good time to note that the best Elite Series anglers have the capacity to find bass and catch them anywhere in the country.

Flood Thoughts

Being just home from a week on the road, it's hard to not think about the rain that's pounding on my tin office roof and how thankful I am that Nathaniel and I were able to get in as much good fishing as we did. Apparently, the area we fished in Tennessee (under blue skies for two days) has had rain every day since we left, including absolute downpours last night, and  the gravel bars we walked on in Arkansas' Buffalo  River were majorly flooded only a day later. Meanwhile we somehow dodged the heaviest of Georgia's rains as we drove home today. And the Mississippi, where we began our fishing adventure, is high and red right now.

The Bassmaster Elite Series pros fish West Point on the Georgia/Alabama border this week, and apparently it was storming, with heavy rains and even big hail as the pros arrived in town today. They'll be fishing flood patterns and dirty waters, I suppose. Most Georgia waters run pretty red when the rain falls hard, so that has a big impact on how the fish behave.

Sometimes flood waters wash out a trip. For example, floating the Buffalo would have been dangerous after the big rains came. Some lakes simply get too muddy for the fish to find their food or the current in a river gets so strong that the fish just move into survival mode for a day or two.

Often, though, flooding creates opportunities (as any extreme condition can) because it washes food into rivers into rivers and lakes, causes fish to position themselves predictably in obvious eddies, tight to cover, or in the clearest water they can find. Sometimes it just makes them more aggressive.

The key is to consider the conditions that the weather has brought and fish accordingly. Unexpected flooding might mean searching shallower, using bigger and noisier lures and keeping lures much closer to cover. It also might mean doing a lot of looking to find little pockets where the water color is better.  Find those, and you've found something special. It'll be interesting to see how that kind of stuff plays out on West Point this week.

Sabine Survived -- On to Falcon

Todd Faircloth of Jasper Texas won the Elite Series opener on the Sabine River with a four-day weight of 49 pounds, 6 ounces. BASS photo by James Overstreet

I feel safe saying that most Elite Series pros are happy to have put the very challenging Sabine River Challenge in the rear-view mirror and to be beginning practice on the legendary big-bass waters of Falcon Lake. Falcon, from my understanding, is not quite what it was in 2008 when Paul Elias broke the four-day record with his 132-pound, 8-ounce winning weight and everyone was hauling in monster bags. It's still Falcon, though, and when contrasted with the stingy Sabine and its muddy equipment-wrecking waters, Falcon is likely to look mighty grand.

Todd Faircloth won the Sabine event comfortably, topping second place finisher Dean Rojas by 6 1/2 pounds. Despite the big winning margin, Faircloth's four-day weight of 49 pounds, 6-ounces was the second lowest winning weight in the history of the Elite Series. The same weight at Falcon would have landed him in 51st place and outside the money at Falcon in 2008.

To give a better picture of the Sabine River event's toughness, 12th-place finisher Dennis Tietje weighed in 31 pounds, 5 ounces over four days. The last time the pros were at Falcon, the biggest single-day bag would have outweighed Tietje's four-day catch by more than 10 pounds. The weight for making the cut after two days and cashing a check at the Sabine was 10-pounds, 11 ounces. That meant catching a limit each day of fish that averaged a little more than a pound. If an angler was catching 2 pounders, three fish per day was sufficient to take away a check.

I don't know exactly what Falcon's fertile waters will produce this week, but I'm pretty sure that 1- and 2-pounders won't do the job.