The first stop of the 2019 FLW Tour on Sam Rayburn Reservoir was quite the show. Big bass, big weights and tons of fish made for an impressive start to the season. What’s more impressive is the way pros adapted to adverse conditions to dial in a stellar bite with Rayburn almost 10 feet over full pool by the end of the tournament.
High water isn’t unusual in the spring or summer, but dealing with rising water this early in the year was somewhat of a new experience for many of the pros – as it is for the weekend warrior. Therefore, the Rayburn Tour event is a case study on how to handle this situation and still put loads of bass in the boat.
Avoid temptation
After banking a top 10 on Rayburn a few weeks ago, Tour veteran Jim Tutt has some solid insight into how to approach rising water this time of the year.
“In my experience when you have a fast rise in water in the winter, even though it looks really good up shallow, the fish know it’s not time to go up there yet,” Tutt says. “Sure, some fish go shallow, but the majority of them stay out. It’s different in the spring or summer with rising water because the fish will get in the flooded stuff in a few days. But when the water is cooler they don’t follow that fast. It was pretty obvious by looking at the top 10 or 30 at the Tour event that loads of fish stayed off the bank.”
While flooded timber and bushes certainly can lure in any bass head, the real key is to pay attention to water temperature.
“I think what happened at Rayburn is a good rule for people in general,” Tutt explains. “A lot of guys got to Rayburn and may not fish there a lot or live up north and saw it [the air temp] was 70 degrees in practice and saw the flooded cover and got fooled. If you looked at the water temperature it was around 52 degrees, which is still winter for here. If the water temp was consistently 55 or 56 then there would have been a lot more fish up on the bank.”
FLW article by Kyle Wood
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