Kevin VanDam

A sleeping giant awaits warmer temperatures

March 18, 2010
(bassmaster.com, March 17, 2010)

LAKEPORT, Ca. — The Elite Series is tickling the nose of a sleeping giant.

After two practice sessions Monday and Tuesday that Bassmaster Classic champion Kevin VanDam described as “so brutal I can’t believe it,” most of the 93 anglers leaving the Willow Point Park launch on Clear Lake, Ca., Wednesday for the final day of practice for the 2010 Golden State Shootout sound like they’ve been snake-bitten. It’s been that tough.

“I think most of us would rather be back on the Delta,” Denny Brauer joked Tuesday after practice. “I’ve thrown that swimbait 1,000 miles and don’t have a thing to show for it.”

Or, as VanDam put it: “It can’t get any tougher than this.”

Oh, but how quickly that could change.

This 43,000-acre lake located 160 miles northwest of Sacramento has been locked down in a late-winter funk, thanks to an early-March temperature dip that brought nighttime lows into the high 20s last week. Water temperatures consequently took a plunge, dropping into the high 40s and putting the emergency brake on the pre-spawn schedule of the largemouth population in northern California’s most revered big-bass lake.

Golden State Shootout: Anglers meeting

It’s almost a mirror image of what happened last week on the California Delta, when a series of high-pressure systems and unsettled, cold weather produced a tough, unpredictable bite. And it’s also the polar opposite of 2007, the last time VanDam, Brauer and the Elite pros tangled with Clear Lake’s 5- to 10-pound class of Florida-strain largemouth.

Back then, Steve Kennedy obliterated BASS’ all-time four-day total weight with 122 pounds, 14 ounces of largemouth, a performance that included one day where his fish averaged 8 pounds. Seven anglers broke the 100-pound mark at that event, and 11 caught 90 pounds or more in one of the biggest slugfests in Elite Series history.

Kennedy’s record was subsequently reset at Falcon Lake, but the 2007 Shootout established Clear Lake in most Elite pros’ minds as one of the best largemouth fisheries in the world.

And that’s exactly why frustration has crept in during practice.

“You know they live here,” VanDam said. “The big thing is, when we were here a couple of years ago, it was unreal, and that’s what your expectations are. You know it’s a good lake and that there are some big fish here. It’s just one of those deals: It’s not fishing well, but you know better. You know what it can produce.”

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/elite/news/story?id=5004556

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