Industry News
News headlines from around the bass fishing world.
Another sort of California challenge
March 10, 2010 – bassmaster.com
As soon as Bassmaster Elite Series pros compete March 11-14 in the season opener on the California Delta, they’ll hit the road to travel about 175 miles north to Lakeport, Calif., to prep for another northern California tournament, but one of an entirely different nature.
The March 18-21 Golden State Shootout will be on Clear Lake, the largest natural lake to lie entirely within California’s borders. In sharp contrast to the sprawling, shallow system of canals and sloughs that comprise the Delta, Clear Lake is 19 miles long, measures 8 miles wide at its widest point, and has an average depth of 27 feet.
Elite pros will compete on Clear Lake for four days to claim the $100,000 first-place prize. They’ll also be striving to earn points that count toward qualifying for the Bassmaster Elite Series postseason in July, as well as for next year’s Bassmaster Classic and Elite season.
Bassmaster.com will cover the 2010 Golden State Shootout with daily analysis, photo galleries, standings and a real-time leaderboard. ESPN360.com will offer live, streaming video. ESPN2 will recap the competition on The Bassmasters at 9 a.m. ET, Sunday, April 4, and again at 11 a.m. ET, Saturday, April 17.
The 2010 Shootout will mark the eighth time a BASS tournament has been on Clear Lake. The most recent winners were Elite pros Jared Lintner of Arroyo Grande, Calif., in a 2005 Bassmaster Open event; and Steve Kennedy of Auburn, Ala., in 2007, when the Elite Series last stopped at Clear Lake.
Kennedy’s winning weight of 122 pounds, 14 ounces, stood as the BASS four-day catch record for more than a year. It slid to seventh place only when the Elite Series visited another lunker haven, Texas’ Falcon Lake, in 2008.
One reason Clear Lake harbors such a robust bass population is that the state Department of Fish and Game plants Florida-strain largemouth. The lake is healthy and has been for some time; the lake record largemouth of 17.5 pounds was set in 1990.
Elite pro Fred Roumbanis grew up fishing Clear Lake. He now lives in Bixby, Okla., but he will tap into his California roots for the Golden State Shootout — as he is dong this week on the California Delta.
“I believe Clear Lake is going to be a phenomenal tournament,” Roumbanis said. “What’s really nice about it right now is that California’s had a lot of rain, so the lake will fish a lot bigger, the fish will be spread out. Although a lot of the guys will go with a swimbait bite, there will be a lot of other ways to catch them.”
At the 2007 Shootout — when not only Kennedy bagged 122-14 over four days, but also when fellow pro Skeet Reese of Auburn, Calif., brought in 117-06 — the water was lower, so the fish were more concentrated, Roumbanis said.
“It’s going to be hard to match 2007,” he said. “There’s going to be some giant bags caught over the four days, but doing it four days in a row will be hard because the water’s up so high.”
Conditions are prespawn, he said.
“The fish want to come up,” he said. “We could hit it just right — or it could be a tough bite. It really will depend on the weather leading up to it. If the weather warms, then 20 pounds a day will be only a top 40. If it’s tough, 20 pounds a day will make the Top 12 on the final day.”
The full Elite field will compete Thursday and Friday, with the top 47 advancing to Saturday’s competition. Only the Top 12 will still be in the game the final day, Sunday, for the $100,000 top prize.
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournam…VanDam Stuns Birmingham, Sacks Shocking 19 1/2
February 22, 2010 – bassfan.com
The outcome seemed almost a given. Even as Kevin VanDam made his way from the stage to his boat, some reserved shouts and cheers went up from the Birmingham, Ala. crowd. There was an icy air – a palpable electric current that seemed to signal the best who’s ever been was about achieve the inevitable.
There wasn’t the tension then emotional outpour like when Takahiro Omori won and feel to his knees in a heap of emotion. There wasn’t an NBA-height leap like when VanDam edged out Martens at Pittsburgh.
VanDam simply weighed the biggest bag of the tournament and won by a mile.
Maybe that’s more what it’s like when a champion achieves such a level of dominance in a sport that a win is expected before he even enters the arena. Maybe it’s more a function of technology – readers watching BASS’s Internet coverage on cell phones pretty much knew VanDam had it locked up.
But if one thing was certain, this Bassmaster Classic at Lay Lake – or more specifically, the final moments of today’s weigh-in at the Birmingham-Jefferson County Convention Complex – scribed a new page in sports history.
VanDam’s victory – secured by an unthinkable 19 1/2-pound bag from beat-up, used-up water – cemented him as perhaps the most dominating pro athlete in sports history.
It marked his third Bassmaster Classic title – only Rick Clunn, at four, has more. He begins the Elite Series season as the reigning Angler of the Year (AOY) for the second consecutive time (he’s won five BASS AOY titles). He surpassed the previously unimaginable mark of over $4 million in career BASS earnings, and $4.5 million in combined BASS and FLW Tour winnings. And he’s been the No. 1-ranked angler in the world for most of the past decade.
He clinched the win fishing close to the launch in crowded Beeswax Creek. As the first boat out on day 1, he had his choice of spots to fish. He didn’t head for what others in the field felt would be the best spot in Beeswax – that’s where runner-up Jeff Kriet fished all 3 days.
Instead, VanDam made an abrupt left turn from the launch, went under the nearby bridge, put down his trolling motor and moved little for 3 days. As he predicted in practice, that specific area had the right combination of elements to not only hold up for 3 days, but actually improve as the expected warm weather arrived.
Kriet’s spot, on the other hand, petered out and he weighed a respectable but ultimately insufficient 14-05 today. Kriet started the day 2 ounces ahead of VanDam, but finished 2nd by a massive 5-pound margin.
Todd Faircloth, who also fished Beeswax in the vicinity of VanDam and Kriet, faded hard today when he brought 12-05 to the scales to end the Classic more than 7 pounds behind VanDam.
Local favorite Russ Lane finally got his bite to turn on in Spring Creek. He bailed on Beeswax and weighed 18-01 out of Spring – a bag second only to VanDam’s – and improved two spots to finish 4th.
And Brent Chapman rode Beeswax to a 16-12 sack today and a 5th-place finish.
Rattlebaits with some cranks mixed in were the ticket in Beeswax, but 6th-place finisher Mike Iaconelli threw a grub in there too. For Ike, today marked his third consecutive championship Top 10. He finished 2nd in both the 2009 Classic and Forrest Wood Cup.
In the end, this Classic didn’t come down to which pattern prevailed. It was determined by choice of starting spot – a choice that was complicated by arctic-like weather and muddy water during practice. Water temperatures in the low-40s seemed to shock the fish (and the anglers).
But Beeswax, which dominated the tournament, was the warmest of the creeks. It also had some of the only coontail in the fishery, and is a popular release site for local events.
http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3530Kevin VanDam wins 2010 Bassmaster Classic
February 22, 2010 – bassmaster.com
The 2009 Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year, Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Mich., added another accolade to his career Sunday, winning the 40th Bassmaster Classic on Lay Lake.
After a banner final day with a haul of 19 pounds, 7 ounces, VanDam will take home the $500,000 first-place prize from the total Classic payout of $1.2 million, along with bass fishing’s most coveted trophy. With the win, his career BASS earnings topped $4 million, making him the first BASS pro to hit that mark.
With a three-day total of 51 pounds, 6 ounces, of Lay Lake bass, KVD held off a determined and confident Jeff Kriet of Ardmore, Okla., who finished second with 46 pounds, 6 ounces, and third-place finisher Todd Faircloth of Jasper, Texas, who had 44-3.
Alabama’s Russ Lane, from Prattville, made a charge Sunday with an 18-1 haul, ending up fourth. Brent Chapman of Lake Quivira, Kan., was fifth with 37-14, and Mike Iaconelli of Pittsgrove, N.J., the 2004 Classic champ, finished sixth with 37-5.
A majority of the top finishers, including the top five, fished all three days in Beeswax Creek, not far from the Classic’s daily launch site at Beeswax Creek Park. All fished roughly 2 to 10 feet of water, relying on a plentiful crop of submerged coontail in the creek, where bass were bunched up in the cold weather.
VanDam had an area to himself, save for a short visit to the spot by Takahiro Omori, who told VanDam once he realized the bounty of fish VanDam was focusing on that he would back off the area.
“That’s the class of anglers that we have on the Elite Series, and that’s one of things that makes it special to compete with these guys,” VanDam said. “It’s an honor for me to get to fish with them through the year. I love the competition; it’s how we measure ourselves… they’re the best in the world. You don’t see that in other sports.”
VanDam knows Beeswax Creek well, having fished it during the 2007 Bassmaster Classic. The only major Lay Lake creek with grass in it, the area holds a lot of food, along with two feeder creeks with channels, stumps, coontail grass, slime and shellbed points, all good habitat for bass. With water temps in the low 40s as the Classic started Friday, VanDam had success with a lipless crankbait. He said that the shad kill wasn’t as bad in Beeswax, and the bass were a little more active than they were elsewhere. As the weather warmed, more fish moved into Beeswax.
VanDam caught every bass he weighed on a ½ounce Strike King Red Eye Shad in plain gold along with a new color, gold Sexy Shad. He used Quantum Signature cranking gear: a 7-foot, medium-action KVD Tour cranking rod with a Signature KVD Tour reel and 17 and 20-pound-test fluorocarbon, a larger size that helped slow down the bait, important in the shallow water.
Kriet, who went into Sunday with a 2-ounce lead over VanDam, has battled and lost to VanDam before in a high-stakes competition, and was clearly disappointed with Sunday’s outcome.
“What do you do?” he said. “I figured I had to have my best day today. None of these guys are really fun to have behind you. I respect him (Kevin), he’s great — obviously. But I guess I shouldn’t want him there… that’s two big tournaments I would’ve won if he hadn’t been there. That’s twice I’ve been leading and he’s been in second and he’s beaten me. This one hurts a little more than the first time.”
Faircloth, who lost the 2008 Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year race to VanDam by a few pounds on the last day of competition, also felt the sting of going home without the trophy.
“It’s a good finish, but not where I wanted to be,” he said. “Third place. People say that’s great but that’s not what I came here for.”
Pam Martin-Wells of Bainbridge, Ga., the 2009 Toyota Tundra Women’s Bassmaster Tour Angler of the Year, made history Saturday as the first woman to make the cut into the Top 25. Martin-Wells weighed in a third five-fish limit Sunday for 25-0 overall and a 22nd place finish.
Onstage, Martin-Wells told the crowd of 58,478 fans at BJCC that her Classic experience has been indescribable.
“I tried to prepare myself coming into this so that I wouldn’t be overwhelmed, so I could come and fish,” Martin-Wells said. “Now probably tonight, tomorrow or the next day, I might fall to pieces — or tonight, when I watch it on TV, because every time I see it I get goose bumps. It has been incredible; the guys have been wonderful. There are really no words to describe this whole feeling.”
Martin-Wells will continue to compete with the guys as she participates in the 2010 Bassmaster Southern Open and Central Open circuits. Up next is the April 8-10 Central Open on Lake Amistad in Del Rio, Texas.
VanDam said that the physical demands of his style of fishing — fast and constant casting — took its toll by Sunday, but it didn’t lessen his intense satisfaction of winning his third Bassmaster Classic.
“I’m worn out right now, but this means everything,” VanDam said. “It’s what I dreamed about as a kid, it’s very special. I’m going to really enjoy it. Everybody that’s ever fished a bass tournament dreams of being on that stage. I’m as motivated as ever. I love the competition; I love the people that I get to be around.
“There’s a bunch of dang good people in our sport. Outdoorsmen, fishermen are good people — we’re passionate about what we do. Any of these guys, you ask them to do something and they’re willing to do it. They give their time freely because they care so much about the bass that we fish for and the water we get to do it on.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournam…Top three after Day Two tightens to three ounces
February 20, 2010 – bassmaster.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Jeff Kriet of Ardmore, Okla., is sitting atop the field in the Bassmaster Classic on Lay Lake with a two-day limit of 32-1. Fishing in Beeswax Creek, Kriet caught most of his fish on lipless crankbaits.
Coming into the event trailing Day One leader Kevin VanDam by 3 pounds, 1 ounce, Kriet surged ahead with the day’s heaviest limit — a 15-10 sack of largemouth. Kriet focused most of his effort on a 200-yard stretch of the creek in about 5 ½ feet. He said the sweet spots had a grassy bottom and stumps near a slight roll-off.
“I caught 11 keepers, but it’s slow,” Kriet said. “It’s cold and there’s a lot of pressure. I watched (Todd) Faircloth catch a couple and I watched VanDam catch a couple of his. I know that if any one of us had it to ourselves, it would be a blow-out.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll just grind it out until I can’t grind anymore. I know a lot of other guys would like to be where I’m sitting and I appreciate those guys — and they know who they are — who stayed off of me.”
Kriet acknowledged a tight race, but said he has confidence in what Sunday holds for him.
“I think I have a chance,” he said. “It’s about time I won one of these.”
In second place, VanDam trails Kriet by 2 ounces with 31-15. VanDam began his day power fishing the sunny cove off Beeswax Creek where he did his Day One damage. He tried other spots, but finished his day back in Beeswax. VanDam’s limit weighed 12-7.
“The lake changed a lot,” VanDam said, noting a depth drop of about a foot. “It got tougher today with those high, bright skies.
“I’m not going to die in one place tomorrow. I have other places to look at.”
Sitting just an ounce behind KVD, Todd Faircloth of Jasper, Texas, dropped a notch to third place with a 13-12 limit that gave him a 31-14 total. Also working in Beeswax, Faircloth caught most of his fish on a Sebile Flats Shad in hollow green color.
“It’s a grind out there — we’re all fishing the same area,” Faircloth said. “I feel like if you could let something rest for 30 minutes to an hour and come back to it, you could catch one or two. But it’s just not getting much of a rest.”
Improving from seventh place, Michael Iaconelli is in fourth with 26-12. Ike caught two largemouths on a vibrating Lazer Lure in spicy shad and a pair of spots on Berkley Shaky Worm rigged on a 3/16-ounce Tru-Tungsten Iky Head.
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournam…Not enough room in the beehive
February 20, 2010 – bassmaster.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It was a Chamber of Commerce type day on Lay Lake Saturday — clear skies, light winds and a mild breeze — but it’s unlikely that all members of the Chamber were ecstatic.
Sure, the nearby hotels are full, the restaurants are doing a steady business and the vendors at the Bassmaster Classic Expo are going gangbusters but the proprietors of the local gas stations have largely been left out of the windfall.
With a big bass tournament loaded with 225 and 250 horsepower outboards in town and the many turns of Lay Lake’s channel and coves at the competitors’ disposal, surely you’d expect some gas to be burned. Some of the anglers have done them proud, but others have decided to tread a little lighter on our precious fossil fuels.
“Today I didn’t burn an ounce,” Florida pro Shaw Grigsby said. “I cranked it up, idled over, fished, then cranked it up and idled back.”
Grigsby is currently 19th with 17-9. He might’ve had more had he not had to split his key area with Brent Chapman, who is ninth with 21-2. In the style of King Solomon, they “split the baby,” and it may have cost one or both of them a shot at their first Classic title.
This is a tournament where the kindergarten aphorisms that it’s important to “play well with others” and “share and share alike” have taken on new meaning. Beeswax Creek, a fairly small tributary, is the primary focus and fishing grounds of the top five anglers: Jeff Kriet, Kevin VanDam, Todd Faircloth, Mike Iaconelli and Russ Lane.
Some remaining anglers, like Grigsby, Chapman and Kriet were just a long cast from the boat ramp all day on Saturday. Others, like Lane, Faircloth and Iaconelli, have been within sight of the launch most of the first two days.
Kevin VanDam would have been able to see the launch from the spot where he started both of the first two days were it not for a small bridge and an armada of spectator boats blocking his sight lines.
What makes this small creek so good?
“It’s two things,” Russ Lane said. “First, it has a lot of offshore grass to go with the bank grass. Second, it’s the No. 1 release spot on the whole lake.”
Lane caught all four fish he weighed in on Saturday out of Beeswax, but he vowed to run mostly new water on Saturday.
“I’m going to pull out my flipping stick and go fish places I’ve got history with,” he said. “I’m going to go on my gut instincts.”
Anglers including Kriet have said that the comparatively clean water in Beeswax is making it so productive right now, but Lane disagreed.
“Muddy water is what makes the Coosa River lakes so good in my opinion,” he said. “Clearer water is not what you want.”
The first two days have allowed the leaders to establish proprietary banks and milk runs, and with the field halved Sunday, there’s even less likelihood that their division of territory will be violated.
Grigsby said that he’s confident that he, Chapman and Lane have developed a mutually-agreeable arrangement, but he might cede some of his key water on the basis of the standings.
“It’s the top three or four you don’t want to mess with,” he said. “I can’t win, so what are you going to do except catch fish and have fun. If one of the top guys come in, I might give it up. I’ve got a couple of other creeks.”
Chapman echoed Grigsby’s thoughts. He said that he and his bank-mate haven’t discussed the division of property since the first morning, “but I treat people the way I like to be treated.”
Even if the anglers don’t herd each other out of the way, the fish may be too beaten up at this point for Beeswax to produce the winner. Additionally, with the location of the top anglers already a matter of public record, the dozens of spectator boats who camped in Beeswax on the first two days might grow substantially, if not exponentially.
That presents a question of who has the upper hand, Kriet or VanDam.
On the one hand, VanDam’s starting spot the first two days is largely protected from boat traffic and he has done a good job of controlling his spectators. On the other hand, any fish heading into the creek to replenish the diminished population have to pass through Kriet’s area to get to VanDam. The Oklahoman will therefore have first shot at them.
Tommy Biffle, in sixth, is the first angler on the standings sheet who has not made a cast in Beeswax during the tournament.
“I’m not a retread fisherman,” he said.
Even if he catches a big limit Sunday, he may be too far behind the leaders to claim his first Classic title.
“One of them will catch them in there or maybe all of them will catch them,” he said.
Kriet left no doubt as to his Sunday game plan.
“I’m going to grind it in that one area until I can’t grind no more,” he said.
Others were less resolute in their convictions.
“I’m saying that I’m not going to fish in there, but I may not be able to stand it,” Lane said.
He’s 6-6 out of the lead and plans to go for broke, even though he believes the odds right now favor Kriet over all comers.
“If another area of the lake does not turn on, Jeff will win it,” Lane said. “What he has is an area. Everyone else has a couple of sweet spots and an area beats a sweet spot every time.”
For Grigsby, 14-9 out of first, it would take a perfect storm of events to vault him to the top, and while he won’t sit the day out, he took a laid back approach to the competition hours.
“We could send up the hill for some barbecue,” he said, referring to his fellow competitors.
If the spectators show up as expected, they might not even have to go to the bank to get it — they can just pass it from boat to boat until it gets to its intended recipients.
VanDam has firm grip on Day One lead
February 19, 2010 – bassmaster.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A warming trend was the boost the 51 competitors needed for a productive Day 1 at the 40th Bassmaster Classic, and sunny skies Friday afternoon were accommodating for most as several limits of more than 16 pounds were brought to the scales at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex arena.
Starting things off with a bang was 2009 Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Mich. The second angler to weigh in — behind reigning Bassmaster Classic champ Skeet Reese of Auburn, Calif. — VanDam secured the Day 1 lead early with a five-fish limit that weighed 19 pounds, 8 ounces.
The perennial powerhouse competitor and two-time Classic winner waited out the 49 remaining anglers as they weighed in through the late afternoon and early evening.
“I have a lot of confidence in fishing this time of year,” said VanDam, who weighed four largemouth and one spotted bass. “It’s the way that I like to fish and I was fortunate to have a good day. It was kind of a grind. Mentally it’s tough — always in the Classic. When the water’s real cold like that and you have to work real hard for them, you better be confident in what you’re doing.”
At 7 a.m. CT, the Bassmaster Classic kicked off with temperatures hovering at freezing on Lay Lake, roughly 47 miles south of Birmingham, but by midafternoon anglers welcomed increasingly warmer temperatures — so much so that second-place finisher Todd Faircloth of Jasper, Texas, said he was happy to take off his jacket for the first time since he arrived in Alabama.
Faircloth weighed in 18 pounds, 2 ounces of largemouth and said the fishing Friday was markedly better than any of his practice days. He fished the same southerly area of Lay Lake as VanDam, not too far from the launch point of Beeswax Creek Park in Columbiana, and he added that they had quite a bit of company.
“I felt like if I caught 13 or 15 (pounds) today that would put me in really good shape,” he said. “I was fortunate to exceed that by 3 pounds. The warmer water’s helping out for what I’m doing.”
Faircloth was in 2 to 7 feet of water for most of the day and caught a limit early and then went after a few productive spots he found in practice. He was able to cull after he landed two or three good-sized bass.
“Whenever you have a long cold span, like we’ve had here for so long, and you get some warmer weather the fish get more active,” he said. “They want to get up high in the water, in the sun, and soak some of that warmth in. I think that’s why it made it better today.”
Rounding out the top five were Jeff Kriet of Ardmore, Okla., in third with 16-7, Cliff Pace of Laurel, Miss., in fourth with 16-3 and 2004 Classic champ Takahiro Omori of Emory, Texas, in fifth with 15-7.
Asked how the seemingly slim pickings of the practice periods this past week turned into several good weights in the high teens Friday, VanDam said much of the field likely spent the four official days of practice scouting, not hanging out in any particular spot for too long.
“When it’s tough in practice, nobody’s really working their areas to see how many fish are there, you don’t want to burn anything,” he said. “And guys stumbled onto the right area and there was a group of fish there — and that’s typically what happens in the winter and early pre-spawn bite, they’ll be grouped up. I was pretty confident that I had an area that was going to have some fish in it; I just didn’t know how active they were going to be. It was not easy — by no means.”
VanDam said Lay Lake fish have been lethargic and hard to entice, so he refused Friday to back off or save anything for Saturday or Sunday.
“You can’t really do that,” he said. “When you have that opportunity and those bigger fish are biting, you better catch them. So I’m going to worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”
VanDam is fishing a few similar patterns, and said he is trying to fish methodically in more obscure areas.
“Sometimes that pays off, sometimes it doesn’t,” he said. “These guys are the best guys in the world and they don’t miss much, so I’m hoping I’ve got something for three days.”
Billy McCaghren of Mayflower, Ark., the Bassmaster Elite Series Rookie of the Year, had an impressive Day 1, finishing sixth with 15-4. McCaghren said he fished slowly with a reaction bait — one he typically fishes fast. He was in shallow water up to about 6 feet, and had a limit before 9 a.m.
“I culled twice by 10:30 a.m. and totally changed up, looking for one really big bite,” McCaghren said. “I’m pretty excited. I’m trying to treat it like any other tournament and not for what it really is — the Bassmaster Classic. I’m trying to keep my mind on the fishing, but it feels great, I’m excited to see my name up there with the greats in fishing.”
Other notable results Friday: 2003 Classic champ Mike Iaconelli of Pittsgrove, N.J., had the big bass of the day with a 6-pound, 10-ounce largemouth; he weighed in 14-9 for seventh place. Reese is 37th after Day 1 with three fish and an overall weight of 5-2. Pam Martin-Wells of Bainbridge, Ga., just the second woman in history to fish the Bassmaster Classic, finished Day 1 in 30th place with a limit at 6-13. Boyd Duckett of Demopolis, Ala., the home-state favorite and 2007 Classic winner at Lay Lake, brought one fish to the stage, at 1 pound, 2 ounces, for 48th place heading into Day 2.
Saturday’s forecast for the Lay Lake area calls for continually warmer air temperatures, with a high of 63, according to Weather.com. That would make Saturday the first day in more than a week with a high above 54.
The public is invited to attend the Classic in Birmingham and witness the crowning of the 2010 Classic champion, who on Sunday will claim a first-place prize of $500,000 from the total Classic payout of $1.2 million.
Launches are set for 7 a.m. CT Saturday and Sunday at Beeswax Creek Park in Columbiana. Daily weigh-ins will be at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex arena. Doors open daily at 3 p.m. CT. All events are free and open to the public.
The 2010 Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo presented by Dick’s Sporting Goods will be at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. Show hours are set for 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. With no admission fee, the Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo offers hours of quality family fun. Exhibitors are slated to offer activities such as free games with prizes, autograph sessions with top bass pros, raffles and product giveaways.
Cold, Muddy Water Leads To Lots Of Head-Scratching
February 18, 2010 – bassfan.com
The last time Alabama’s Lay Lake hosted a Bassmaster Classic, the water was cold. But it wasn’t as cold as it is now. And it wasn’t as muddy.
Boyd Duckett won that 2007 Classic with mixed bags and big help from two substantial largemouths. His final weight was just shy of 49 pounds – an average of about 16 1/2 pounds a day.
This year, most in the field think it’ll take 38 to 40 pounds a day to win, or a 12 1/2- to 13 1/2-pound average. That’s how tough the fishing is.
The mud has pretty much taken away the deep bite. And the frigid temperatures have wreaked havoc on the shallow bite. Surface temperatures on the lake ranged from 43 to 48 during today’s final practice day, and this past weekend, several pockets had ice on them.
So for the most part, the field has resigned itself to searching the very backs of creeks where there’s clear water and slightly warmer water temperatures. A limit’s by no means guaranteed. In fact, it’s the goal. And a limit of 2-pound fish could carry an angler a long way in this tough-bite Classic.
There does remain some hope. Tomorrow and Friday should be sunny and warmer, with daytime highs around 50. Rain is predicted for Saturday, then mostly cloudy skies with a high near 60 expected for Sunday. The hope is the warming trend will activate the largemouths. But others are more skeptical, and feel that the overnight lows near freezing will negate any warming effects during the day.
No one knows what will actually occur beneath the waters of Lay until Friday’s competition commences. But there are several clues as to how things might go down, and they’re delivered below in BassFan’s annual Classic Scouting Report.
BassFan Lake Profile
> Lake name: Lay
> Type of water: Lowland reservoir
> Surface acres: 12,000
> Primary structure/cover: Rocks, rocky points, brush, docks, shoreline grass, laydowns, eddies, bars
> Primary forage: Threadfin and gizzard shad, plus crayfish, sunfish and crappies
> Average depth: 22 feet
> Species: Largemouths and spotted bass
> Minimum length: 12 inches for both
> Reputation: A premier and very consistent spotted-bass fishery (a “football factory”), with an excellent population of 2- to 5-pound largemouths with some Florida genetics
> Weather: Unseasonably cold with recent sleet and snow, but warmer temps and clearer skies on the way
> Water temp: Low- to high-40s
> Water visibility/color: Heavily stained with a foot of visibility in the main river, some clearer water in the backs of pockets with several feet of visibility
> Water level: Full pool (normal)
> Fish in: All depths
> Fish phase: Winter
> Primary patterns: Jigs, finesse plastics, crankbaits, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits
> Winning weight: 43 pounds
> Cut weight (Top 25 after 2 days): 20 pounds
> Check weight: N/A (everyone is paid)
> Fishing quality: 1 for Lay, but could easily improve with warmer water
> Biggest factor: Water temperature and color – warmer and clearer equals better
> Biggest decision: Whether to fish the river or nearer the dam, and whether to fish fast or slow
> Wildcard: Deep fish – has somebody figured out how to fish the muddy main river and trigger bites from fish stuffed with dying shad?
WEATHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT, CHILLY CLASSIC IS COMING
February 17, 2010 – basszone.com
Birmingham, Ala. – When BASS moved the Bassmaster Classic from the summer months to February in 2006, the change came with the promise of big pre-spawn stringers of bass, and so far that has proven to be true. Winners Luke Clausen, Boyd Duckett, Alton Jones and Skeet Reese have all survived the elements and produced big catches. But the change also heralded the possibility that one day a Classic would arrive where volatile weather conditions would play an outsized role in the outcome of the event.
Clausen’s win was marked by a late-tournament cold front that shut down the finicky Florida-strain bass for many competitors and Jones won despite a brutally cold day one, but their weights were still strong. Duckett, on the other hand, benefitted from a warming trend that moved a sizeable number of fish shallow at the most opportune possible time.
It seems unlikely that the weather patterns that characterized Duckett’s victory will be repeated in this week’s return to Lay Lake. The pre-tournament cold that marked the February 2007 will certainly be exceeded – it snowed during practice – but it’s expected to be in the low 30s every night between now and the end of the Classic, with temps getting up into the mid-50s at their height during the competition day. Perhaps the ever-lengthening days will bring some fish up nonetheless, but probably not in the numbers that competitors saw in 2007.
The precipitation and record-setting cold spell raise additional questions:
• Will the big largemouths (an 8+ on Day One and a 6+ in the waning moments of the tournament) that pushed Duckett over the top show up to play?
• Will three limits comprised entirely or almost entirely of spotted bass be enough to win the event?
• Will melting snowfall and other precipitation take the upper end of the lake—where anglers including Skeet Reese reeled in near-winning catches – out of the picture? If so, will the lake fish smaller than any previous Classic site?
• Will the threat of miserable weather keep some of the normally-exuberant flotillas of spectators off the water?
• Will the power-fishing techniques that dominated at Lay in 2007 give way to finesse presentations?
• Did the anglers, many of whom will not return home until after the March California swing, pack enough cold-weather gear?
White Classic
February 15, 2010 – bassmaster.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Conditions were miserable enough Friday that more than a handful of anglers quit early to avoid the freezing temperatures and constant snowfall at Lay Lake.
Cliff Pace Bassmaster Classic
The first day of official practice for the Bassmaster Classic got serious about 9:30 a.m. when the first few flakes of snow began to fall. Within the hour, boat decks were covered in white and anglers were covered in as many layers of clothing as they could scrounge up.
“I’ve got two layers of GoreTex on and two layers of everything else,” Cliff Pace said.
And he still looked cold.
Some anglers looked forward to the adverse conditions, knowing it would eliminate much of the competition not prepared for a mental battle.
“The cold will probably have a lot more effect on the fisherman than those little green fish,” Gerald Swindle said. “It’s hard to feel your hands, you lose motor skills and it becomes a mental game. I’m hoping that my many, many back-to-back days in a deer stand has helped me become acclimated to this weather.”
Advantage also went to reigning Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year Kevin VanDam, who spent much of the offseason in the woods or on the water ice fishing in his home state of Michigan.
“This is what I left home doing,” said VanDam. “Snow is a lot better than rain when it is 34 degrees out. No matter what, it is going to be a grind. The fish don’t bite well when the weather is like this, but if I can catch them through the ice & ”
Not every angler that left the water early did so because of the cold. Federation Nation qualifier Brent Long was dealing with the flu and the weather only exacerbated the issue.
“I actually went to the doctor’s office first thing this morning and then got out on the water,” Long said. “But I was feeling so bad — it’s nasty and cold out there — I decided to call it a day.”
Fortunately for Long, this is his second Classic, and his prior appearance was on Lay Lake in 2007. That past experience will go a long way with being comfortable on a body of water that is 425 miles from his home in Catawba, N.C.
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