EUFAULA, Okla. — At 105,000 acres with 800 miles of shoreline and three feeder tributaries, Lake Eufaula has a superabundance of bass fishing opportunities, or so it might seem.
Eliminating unproductive water is the fundamental starting point to breaking down the fishable water for a lake of this size, and that process is underway this week at the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Lake Eufaula.
Eufaula fishes much smaller during summertime, which is good news for the limitations of time for anglers faced with a full postspawn mode event. The bass are in the final transition stage and are settling into their summer patterns.
Here are points to ponder gathered from insights shared by the anglers, along with their overviews of what to expect this week at the fifth of nine events on the schedule.
As you will read, this will be a grind-it-out competition that will take a lot of mental determination, physical stamina in the intense heat, and mindfulness of the need to pivot when strategies fail to produce the needed results.
- Extended water clarity. Eufaula is typically dingy with lures visible from the surface to less than six inches. This week the visibility throughout the lake is down to three feet or more. Will this extended water clarity expand the strike zone?
- Milk run, junk fishing or both? Postspawn conditions have the largemouth scattered with movement ranging from transitional migration to stationary. To catch the estimated 18-pound daily weight needed to win, will that take multiple patterns (aka junk fishing here), or burning up time on the clock running to multiple areas?
- Finding the pattern. The overarching theme is strategic patterns are very isolated and specific to one area. Call it patterns within a pattern. They are difficult to duplicate in like areas. That’s a whole new game that could take a mindful approach to time management, patience and mental fortitude to stick with a game plan.
- Crucial early bite. With a 6 a.m. takeoff time, the anglers get the benefit of the low light remnants of a shad spawn. Topwaters are the overwhelming favorite as the first lure to be used this morning by the anglers. Getting on the BassTrakk scoreboard early, for weight and confidence, will be key before the long day ahead.
- Beat the bank or go deep? Which end of the water column will yield best results? Each end is in play, with bank beating and offshore bites producing, all of them driven by forward-facing sonar.
Opens EQ pro and Oklahoman Matt Pangrac expanded on the above scenarios with this additional insight about the fishing conditions in play, beginning with the prevailing strike zone.
“You will have guys power fishing in two inches of water, and others drop shotting from one- to 18 feet,” he said.
“The lures of the top 10 gallery will be more varied than we have all season, unlike a majority of one type in the photos.”
Pangrac noted the lake’s healthy gizzard shad population will influence bass movement and focus on the patterns in play.
“The bait is suspended in the water column, the thermocline is set, and that is making the bite consistently sporadic,” he said.
Opens EQ points leader John Garrett summed up the game best.
“It’s going to be our first grinder tournament of the season,” he said. “This won’t be like past events on the schedule where one location can make your tournament.”
“Getting a consistent bite and duplicating that in multiple places is difficult.”
Garrett is facing that challenge head on, finding bass in isolated areas with a pattern limited to that one specific area. As mentioned above, it’s a pattern within a pattern scenario.
“I can’t duplicate a universal pattern based on like habitat; it takes modifying it to water clarity or even a new bait or tactic,” he said.
“Eufaula this week is fishing like a Florida lake,” he continued. “Eighty percent of the largemouth are in 20 percent of the lake.”
That all said, the true test of the season begins as the Opens EQ field crosses the midway point in the schedule. The looming priority is a focus on gaining valuable points toward qualifying for the nine 2024 Bassmaster Elite Series invitations extended to those top anglers.
