Byron’s 5 Keys to the Cup

Cup Host Byron Velvick previews the championship on Wheeler Lake

Preparation leads to success, especially in bass fishing. And especially in a bass fishing tournament on the scale of the Forrest Wood Cup, which kicks off on Thursday on Wheeler Lake in Huntsville, Ala.

Just like the 50 guys who qualified for the Cup this season, I’ve been doing my research on what we can expect from the bass that inhabit this Tennessee River reservoir during the heart of summer so that I’ll be prepared to help break down all the action as one of the on-the-water hosts for the 2016 Forrest Wood Cup.

If you want to follow along, check out FLW’s live Twitter feed and regular on-the-water videos all four days of the event. I’ll be joining the crew on the water Friday through Sunday.

In the meantime, based on my research, here are the five factors that I think will greatly influence the results of this tournament.

1. The deep bite

It’s summer in the South, so of course there’s an offshore bite. The main things out deep are going to be offshore current and shell beds. Current, because obviously Wheeler is a river system. And shell beds, because they create feeding areas and current breaks out deep.

As far as techniques, well, I’m a swimbait guy, so obviously I’d be slow-rolling a swimbait right on the bottom or over the top of structure or brush. I’m sure there are pros in this field who’ll do the same thing. Then there’s the deep cranking bite. If you can get it down there to the bottom, you can definitely make it work.

Other than that, it’s simple fishing – idiot fishing, we call it. No, that’s not a knock on anyone who fishes these techniques. It’s just a joke because the technique is so simple, yet really so effective. I’m talking about dragging bottom with worms, rigs or jigs.

Even stroking a jig could be big for trying to fire up an otherwise dormant school. This time of year, the fish might be nocturnal or pressured or just lethargic, and a guy might have to stroke a jig to get a reaction out of them. To get them fired up, well, there’s an art to it, whether it’s with a flutter spoon or swimbait or stroking a jig. It’s hard to get that first one to commit, but once you do you create the feeding flurry, and then you have to have that follow-up bait – that Carolina rig or Texas rig or even a drop-shot.

I’ve seen a lot of guys crush, in 20-minute windows, a school of fish that had otherwise no interest in biting.

2. The shallow bite

There’s a core group of FLW guys who really do make their living in shallow water, even knowing that the majority of the fish could be out deep. I’m talking about guys such as Andy Morgan and John Cox. This could be their tournament to win.

They’ll be burning banks, running and gunning, throwing a frog or a buzz frog, and also punching grass mats and fishing shade targets. Shade targets will be key, especially looking for fish that are in that shallow water with deep water nearby – the extreme shallows can be almost stagnant this time of year. A little current would really help too.

Bait is also critical. If there’s any forage prevalent in an area, whether schools of bream or juvenile bass, that really helps. Most of the traditional baitfish such as shad should be out to the main river.

The challenging part about the shallow bite is finding enough areas for four days, or recognizing when you can go back and re-fish an area. The guys fishing shallow, they’re usually just putting the trolling motor down, fishing all through an area and hitting those “lone wolves” – or individual bass. They have no desire to go back to a spot unless they’re just gnawing on the fact that they missed an opportunity somewhere. To go back, they have to get an indicator that there are more fish there – a school of fish that swims out away from the boat, for instance. But you don’t see that kind of thing in the summer all too often.

Of course, the quality is there. When you’re fishing shallow this time of year, you might jerk a 4- or 5-pounder out from a piece of wood or out from under someone’s boat dock or a pontoon that doesn’t get any pressure, because every guy in the area is out on the schools. That’s the advantage of the shallow bite this time of year.

3. Takeoff and the Guntersville Dam

The last time I fished a tournament on Wheeler, we went out of Decatur, so the Decatur Flats area was a big factor. This tournament is out of Ditto Landing near Huntsville, and that puts the Guntersville Dam more in play.

Obviously, generation from the Guntersville dam is huge, and it puts the generation schedule into a much bigger light. The current delivers bait to the bass and keeps the water oxygenated, and both are keys this time of year. The dam is going to be a big player.

If it was launching in Decatur, guys might not be as likely to run to the lower end and to the Guntersville Dam in the same day. With this situation, a guy can hit the dam quickly in the morning then run down to fish the flats or elsewhere. The takeoff location is a game-changer.  

4. Natural springs

There are a lot of springs in Wheeler. I’m talking shallow-water, natural springs. They introduce cooler water and maybe even a little moving water, so if there’s a spring in the back of a creek that changes everything.

This is key for the shallow guys, but finding a spring is huge for anyone who’s junk-fishing too.

To find them, guys will watch their water temp gauge and maybe see some bait activity. Birds help you identify springs a lot too. There just always seems to be more life around springs. Finding a spot of life in a shallow pocket where it’s not so stagnant could be critical.

5. Gamesmanship and strategy

I love the sandbagging that goes on in tournament fishing. I really do. It’s gamesmanship, and we’re seeing it this week.

There are a few pros hinting at how tough Wheeler Lake is going to be, and they’ve suggested that the winning weights might be pretty low. First off, it’s summer in the South, so it’s probably going to be a challenge. Still, the sandbaggers tend to over exaggerate, and they get everybody to believe that a 12-pound bag is really strong. Then they crush ’em and catch everyone off guard. I know because I’ve been burned by that kind of talk before – at Wheeler, no less.

It was in a Bassmaster Elite Series event, and everybody was signing the blues, and we all bought into it. We started feeling good about 12- or 13-pound bags. They totally played us.

The shallow bite turned out to be really good, and you could tell because guys like Tommy Biffle and Terry Scroggins were at the top of the leaderboard. It wasn’t just a couple of guys – the top 15, 20, 30 guys all had magnum weights.

I’m not saying it’s going to take 20 pounds per day to win. All I’m saying is that pros shouldn’t fall for the trap of believing all the dock talk they hear. They just need to figure it out cast by cast, spot by spot, deep or shallow, or wherever the conditions take them.

Overall, there are a lot of factors in play in this tournament. Those late-summer fish seem to spread out. They’re not grouped up, and patterns can be tough to uncover. Even those offshore fish that the Tennessee River system is known for might not be schooled up as much as guys had hoped.

So yeah, there’s a lot in play, but someone is going to win $300,000. I can’t wait to find out how the champ gets it done. It’s Wheeler Lake, the Tennessee River, the Forrest Wood Cup. I’m ready to get this thing started.