Knoxville, TENN. – At any regular season Elite Series event the pros are unlikely to give up “the juice” after practice, possibly afraid of jinxing themselves or tipping another competitor off, but as we’ve heard time and time again, “the Classic is a different animal.” That doesn’t mean they’re unusually forthcoming with information this week. It just means that they typically ratchet up the sandbagging to 11.
As a scribe, my job is to attempt to read between the lines and decipher the blurred words. Making it more difficult is that it’s not a typical practice: Not only are there no points at stake, but the odd timing of the various days on the water makes it harder for even the anglers to know what they truly know.
In talking to them as they pulled their boats from the Tennessee River this afternoon, I hit on certain themes:
When it rains, it pours – “It’s a good day to be a duck,” said Tennessee pro Brandon Lester. Indeed, what started as a light downpour when the field launched this morning turned into a frog-strangler by the time they blasted off. Tyler Rivet reported that there were times today when he could not feel his hands well enough to mash down the buttons on his reel. Will Davis Jr. said that he learned he needs “some better gloves.” Others were less-than-satisfied with less-than-perfect raingear. The rain makes it hard to run and gun, and it’s physically more demanding than clear conditions, especially when forced to wear heavy bibs all day. On the flip side, the rain makes fish, particularly shallow largemouths, more likely to bite.
Bringing the heat – Even those anglers who didn’t have exceptional practice periods generally seemed heartened by the weather to come. The temperature should push 80 degrees on both tomorrow’s off day and then again on the first day of the tournament.
Starting spots – The general consensus seems to be that there’s a lot of water to fish, but that the venue will “fish small.” That makes where you start critical, both to catch vulnerable fish and to stake a claim to the area. Defending Champion Jason Christie will be going out second in line, but said that he’s frustrated he didn’t find “a key stretch or a juice hole” today. “I’ll have to sleep on it,” he said of where he’ll start the tournament. “I’ll have to make my best guess and I’m tired of having to make my best guess instead of knowing where he’s going. During his victory last year, he didn’t necessary have a spot that was guaranteed to beat the rest of the lake, but he did have “two really, really confidence techniques.”
Looking forward – With many fish moving shallow, it’s presumed that forward-facing sonar will not be a big player, at least for the largemouth guys. Then again, we assumed that at Okeechobee, too, and look how that turned out. Brandon Cobb said he won’t use it much, largely because he’s fishing isolated shallow cover, but also because of the way the heavy current camouflages the fish into the bottom. Nevertheless, the age of disregarding it completely is over. Christie put it bluntly: “I think forward-facing sonar will play some sort of role in every tournament we fish from here on out.”
Clear as mud – With so many anglers focused on fish glued to shallow, isolated cover, the most consistent gripe was about the clearing water. While no one seems to wish for mud, most claim they’d like a little more color, at least to make the fish less spooky. “I would like it to be higher and dingier, but it seems to be clearing up,” Brandon Card said. “Once the run-off from today’s rain comes in, it might dingy it up, but it takes a hard rain to do that and I don’t think we got enough.”
Brown vs. Green – Not surprisingly, 2021 Elite Series champ Jeff Gustafson is nearly all-in on smallmouths. “If I have a largemouth in my bag, it’s going to be no good,” he said. The one monkey wrench in that plan is the sheer number of anglers who know where he’s fished, and have checked it out this week. He may prove to have more company than is healthy. Sometimes splitting the baby is detrimental to everyone, but feels that the bite is setting up similarly to last time. His good friend Seth Feider refused to check them out. “I probably should have but I’ve avoided them all week,” Feider said. “I was betting on the weather.” Drew Benton said that he too will fish for smallmouths. In fact, he believes that the bite-friendly conditions of today’s final practice day might give the largemouth seekers too much confidence. “On a day like today, they’ll bite all day instead of just short periods.” Does he have any fear that he’ll be stuck with a bunch of 17 ½ inch smallmouths that amount to nothing? “It’s the Classic. You’ve got to fish for them.”
The Optimists – Alone among near unanimous sandbaggery, Maryland pro Bryan Schmitt was excited about what he saw today. “It looked like the water came up a little bit today,” he said. “Not a drastic change, but on these Tennessee places it should help. I think they were already biting pretty good. March overall is just a good month here, and conditions are going to make it overall easier to get bit.” His biggest issue may be slowing down enough to hit all of his key cover and areas thoroughly. He has 20 pieces of isolated cover that are calling his name, but he said fishing slow is the way to get the best bites. “I also have a big fish thing going on 65 miles away.”
The Pessimists – Caleb Kuphall said that the main lesson he learned today was “how not to catch a fish.” He did better on the first two days of practice than on the more recent two. When I asked him if he’d lay off his best stuff if he had 18 pounds in the box, like several of his peers his immediate response was laughter. “Eighteen pounds would be a miracle,” he said. “I’d start laying off some stuff if I had 14 or 15 pounds, just to make sure I’d have enough fish left over for the other two days.” Even the pessimists believe that the warming weather can’t hurt things. “It will not affect the fishing in a bad way. It will only help it,” Kuphall opined. Jacob Powroznik said the relative lack of current killed any hopes he had, but even though he seemed frustrated by the inability to string some bites together, even he turned a negative into a positive: “It’s spring and warm weather is coming, so you don’t have to be on anything to excel in this tournament.”
Junk in the trunk – The anglers, and in particular the shallow water devotees, generally seem to believe that no single lure will dominate – it will take a multi-pronged approach to be competitive. Accordingly, there were lots of decks loaded up with rods bearing everything from soup to nuts tied on. I thought that Brandon Card had the most with a total of 20 rods out, including seven spinning rods on one side of the front deck. “It’s embarrassing,” he said. “I just kept pulling them out all day. Then Bryan New passed by with 32 at the ready. “I don’t even have that many in my boat,” and incredulous Seth Feider stated. “And I guarantee you there’s some more in his rod box.”
Half Optimist, Half Pessimist Quote of the Day – Seth Feider: “There will be moments of betterness and moments of suckiness.”
