Pickwick Lake didn’t disappoint on the first morning of the Toyota Series Central Division event. As predicted, fish were biting right off the bat. Most of the morning featured heavy, overcast clouds, which finally broke by 11 a.m. and turned to partly sunny skies. Fortunately, the rain held off for most of the day and the wind was light and variable.

Morning story

Complete details

A check-in with Pickwick ace Jason Lambert at about 10:30 found him with about 17 to 18 pounds. He had already run a lot of spots on the lower end of the lake and was working his way back up the river checking smaller isolated spots on the graph. Lambert noted that the big push of fish to the deeper ledges had not happened yet. The excessive current seemed to have a lot of fish still inside creeks and in smaller isolated spots closer to the shore. Lambert was waiting for the sun to come out before visiting some of the bigger community holes on the lake.

As for fishing pressure, there were not huge clusters of boats on the primary community spots as predicted. It was more common to see two to three boats per spot.

In fact, pro Brent Anderson had planned to avoid all the big community holes today and fish shallow when he noticed that one of the biggest community holes was, “wide open.” On a whim, he pulled into the spot and lit up nearly 20 pounds immediately. “I couldn’t believe it didn’t have 10 boats already on it,” he says.

Some anglers were finding success in Pickwick’s more grassy haunts. Buddy Gross and Marshall Deakins were both off to fast starts this morning in the grass. Gross estimates he had nearly 20 pounds. Also sampling grass this morning was local pro Justin Atkins who was rewarded with an early 5-pounder. After several days of rain, all pros seem to think this afternoon’s sunshine would help fire up the bite even more by weigh-in time.

Weigh-in starts live online at 2 p.m. CT and is sure to feature some big bags. Be sure to watch!