Successful fishing is all about adapting to the conditions you are faced with. It’s the same with tournament fishing, but then it becomes more about those who adapt the quickest, and who makes the best decisions at the right moments. The two biggest factors that anglers must overcome are weather and water conditions. Sounds simple, right?
In theory, understanding bass’s seasonal movements are based on current water temps, weather patterns and forage abundance is the key to finding the bass. Most fanatics would agree: Finding them is the hard part, and catching them is the fun part. The catching part begins with pattern establishment, and that comes with flexibility. Sure, everyone has a certain way to catch fish that they prefer over other presentations, but if you’re trying to force feed the fish simply because that’s how you like to catch them, don’t plan on cashing a lot of checks.
The biggest factors that the 2016 Classic contenders must overcome to remain in contention are water visibility, water temperature, forage abundance and fishing pressure and boat traffic. Let’s break each of those three factors down and hopefully isolate how the winning decisions get made.
Water Visibility
Winter has been funky across the nation this year; nobody would argue that—thank you El Niño. It was much warmer, which translates to lots of rain. With Oklahoma’s rich agricultural roots, especially around Grand Lake, the extensive runoff can easily turn the water into chocolate milk. Once it turns that way, it takes a while for the system to filter through the silt.
The Classic anglers have to adapt to stained water, which if it were a little warmer the fish would likely be in ultra-shallow water and very easy to catch. But, we’re not on the water temps yet; we’ll get to that later. The fish are in a prespawn mode and are in the process of moving into shallow water.
“I lost quite a few fish during the day, and some were pretty big, too,” said Aaron Martens during the first day of competition on Grand Lake. “It’s been pretty frustrating, but I think it’s because they can’t see the bait very well, and that might mean a slower presentation might be better. But, I’m also occasionally getting hung up in the rocks, which will roll the point of the hook over, and they’re not as sharp. So I put new hooks on and filled a limit—you’ve got to adapt.”
The water won’t likely clear up very much by Sunday, but with the warm sun, low winds and increasing nightly lows the water temps should increase. Read on see all the challenges the anglers are facing – http://www.bassmaster.com/news/grand-factors. Written by Thomas Allen