Fantasy blog: Locals say sight-fishing will dominate Knoxville event

Cool winter has delayed annual migration

I recently spoke with Wesley Strader and Ott Defoe to get their takes on the Fort Loudoun-Tellico lakes. For those with Player’s Advantage, Strader is the featured Pro Picker for the upcoming FLW Tour event. Strader lives in Spring City and Defoe lives in Knoxville; both fish the area lakes often. It is their belief that the third qualifier of the year will be dominated by sight-fishing.

Strader isn’t sure if the event will be won exclusively by sight-fishing, but he thinks bedding bass will play a major role. As such, he picked a handful of locals, a handful of bank burners and a handful of sight-fishermen. Typically the Loudoun-Tellico bass have started the spawning process by now, but 2010 has been a weird weather year to say the least.

While the Upper Midwest has received record warmth, the Southeast has experienced the opposite. Cool nights and low water levels are the main factors holding the fish back.

“Up until mid-March, it was really cold,” said Defoe. “It was cold for so long and then it was like we flipped a switch and all of a sudden it was summertime.”

Defoe recently fished local tournaments on consecutive weekends. The first took place during the last week of March. The warmest water he could find was only 48 to 50 degrees. A week later, Defoe was seeing 55- to 58-degree water.

“Temperature is important, but the lake is about a foot and a half low right now. When the water is pulled down, all that good stuff they like to spawn on is taken away. It’s enough to keep them right there on edge.”

A few bass were caught off beds at the inaugural College Fishing National Championship, but by and large it was a prespawn event. With the Tour event roughly two weeks later, it should be full-on spawn.

“This is going to be the main wave,” Defoe reiterated. “But I don’t think you can win this tournament doing only one thing. I just don’t think there will be enough fish for a 150-boat field.

“I love to catch them on bed, I really do. But for us (locals), it takes the home-lake advantage out of play.”