Fingers Crossed at Table Rock
Will the spawn get going in time for anglers in the TBF National Championship quest?
Typically, Table Rock anglers are banging away at big spawning female largemouths by now, but a Twilight Zone sort of spring has got the fish stuck in a time warp. What with water temperatures trapped in the mid- to high 50s, they seem confused about whether they should be bedding or still staging offshore. What’s worse, their reluctance to behave as usual has the 94 anglers gathered here for the 2016 The Bass Federation National Championship just as muddled about where they need to be and what they need to do to win the coveted title.
The event began this morning at 7 a.m. when the first boats took off from Port of Kimberling Marina & Resort and, as expected, scattered like a covey of quail in all directions. Dock talk after Wednesday’s final round of practice seemed to suggest that many anglers did find beds and lots of smallish bank cruisers in the clearer upper reaches of the James and White rivers, though the presence of bass was no guarantee that they would bite.
“I ran across three nests that had males and females rubbing already,” says Brian Maloney, Missouri’s champion from Osage Beach on Lake of the Ozarks. “So it’s within 1 to 3 degrees of being right. You might run across 10 or 15 nests without anything on them, then find one with an aggressive buck that you can catch on two or three pitches, then maybe go to the next one and the bass takes off like a scalded dog when you pitch it in there.”
Though Maloney is well-versed in sight-fishing, many of the anglers are banking on intercepting bass somewhere between their bedding coves and the main lake. A lot of the identically rigged Ranger Z520C boats used in practice Wednesday returned to the boatyard carrying baitcasters rigged with crankbaits – most notably Storm Wiggle Warts – and umbrella rigs sporting a variety of swimbaits.
“If I was fishing it, I’d definitely be throwing Luck-E-Strike G5 American Series crankbaits, umbrella rigs, and even [Cotton Cordell] Red-Fins or [Bomber] Long As starting from where the James and the White meet and on up the White,” says James Watson, who’s definitely not fishing in the tournament because he’s competing in the Walmart FLW Tour event on Beaver Lake this weekend. However, Table Rock is Watson’s home lake, and he won a B.A.S.S. Open there last fall. “I’d be looking for the larger, flatter coves and fishing them about halfway up. Although it’s not right yet, it’s probably going to take a 17- or 18-pound limit of five largemouths every day to win.”
The dam schedule calls for water to be released through the dam between 7 and 11 a.m. (and pretty much all day Friday before going back to the 7-to-11 routine Saturday), so those who are foregoing sight-fishing for a prespawn junk-fishing approach will have the current in their favor. The weather forecast for the opening round calls for sunny, warm conditions. Of course, the weatherman made the same sort of forecast on Wednesday and was wrong, which helps explain why the competitors relying on a shallow bite are starting to get fidgety.
“It’s weird. Mother Nature has thrown us a curveball,” says Maloney, the 2012 FLW Bass Fishing League All-American champion who’s fishing his third consecutive TBF National Championship. “Even though the water is stuck in the mid-50s, it’s like a lot of bass have moved up there and are just cruising along. The females aren’t quite ready, but based on the weather forecast they could be by the weekend. It was supposed to be in the 70s and sunny yesterday [Wednesday], but it was cloudy and fairly cool all day. What’s going to happen is that they’re going to really bust loose by Saturday, or maybe Sunday while we’re all packing up to leave.”
Today’s weigh-in begins at 3 p.m. at Port of Kimberling Resort & Marina.
