Brandon Lester is one of the few anglers in the 2026 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour who has fished all four B.A.S.S. events on Fort Loudoun and Tellico.
In those tournaments, most anglers stayed on Fort Loudoun, although Jeff Gustafson won the 2021 Elite and 2023 Classic in and around the canal connecting the two reservoirs. This year, however, will likely be a different story.
Tellico has seen much more attention from the field of 58 pros during unofficial practice and Wednesday’s official practice day, which suggests new areas of this section of the Tennessee River will get highlighted during this Classic, particularly by anglers looking to unlock a smallmouth pattern.
“Tellico sets up better for smallmouth,” Lester said during Thursday’s Classic Media Day session. “It has more rocks and has clearer water. It just has the feel of a smallmouth place. Gussy won with smallmouth essentially in Tellico twice.”
There are a couple of reasons for this. Tellico Lake has a larger population of smallmouth, but in the first three trips, anglers could only keep 18-inch smallmouth per state regulations. Finding five 18-inch smallmouth proved to be a difficult task, and many anglers stuck with largemouth in those events.
State regulations have recently changed, allowing anglers to keep 15-inch smallmouth, a more consistent mark for pros to reach in this tournament.
“I think the smallmouth are more predictable (on Tellico),” back-to-back Angler of the Year Chris Johnston said. “The size limit is the biggest player. I think you will see a lot more limits because of it.”
The water in Tellico tends to be cleaner and deeper than Fort Loudoun, and Lester said it fishes more like a highland reservoir than a river. This plays into the hands of anglers who want to utilize their forward-facing sonar, especially after 2 inches of rain fell Wednesday night and Thursday morning in east Tennessee.
There are certainly plenty of risks to committing to Tellico. It’s around 45 minutes from takeoff in downtown Knoxville through Fort Loudoun to the canal, and Tellico itself is 33 miles long. Unlike some of the tidal fisheries Bassmaster visits, there are plenty of places to gas up, but timing could certainly be an issue.
“You are losing two hours of fishing,” Johnston said. “It could take you all day to find five big ones. You have to manage the time. The guy who only runs 25 minutes and can dial in (a bite) at Loudoun will do very well for himself.”
Georgia pro Emil Wagner spent most of practice in Tellico, and had some success, but noted they are some of the most difficult bass he has ever tried to catch.
“They are incredibly smart,” he said. “The one’s in the obvious places, there’s not many of them at all, and we show up and everyone makes perfect casts to them. It didn’t take them long to get adjusted.”
Not only that, Lester noted that southern smallmouth tend to be more affected by weather changes than their northern counterparts. Thursday’s media session started with temperatures in the 30s after nearly a week of highs in the 70s and 80s.
“Southern smallmouth are fickle creatures,” the Tennessean said. “They have short feeding windows and fronts affect them a lot more. They will clam up and there is nothing you can do about it. Some of these guys will find the smallmouth bite will not be as easy as what they found in practice.”
For anglers like Lester, the fishing style on the lower lake doesn’t match how they want to fish. Fort Loudoun also houses the better population of big largemouth, and in Wagner’s mind, is the better lake of the two.
Lester practiced on Tellico as well, but has elected to stay closer to takeoff.
“I wrestled with it coming into this event, I really did,” Lester said. “I spent the first half of my first practice day there and I came to the realization that wasn’t what I wanted to do if I wanted to win. It may be the wrong decision, but Gerald Swindle told me once, ‘It is okay to be versatile, but when you get your pitch, you have to swing at it.’ I’m going to swing and see what happens.”
But in a tournament where winning is the only objective, the risk of making the run to Tellico could be worth the reward for anglers willing to take the gamble.
“I don’t think there are as many bass down there, but I think most of the 3- to 6-pound smallmouth live there,” Wagner said. “Over there, you have a chance to come back with one bass, but there’s also the chance to come back with 20 pounds.”
A note on Fort Loudoun
Johnston believes plenty of anglers will be using forward-facing sonar on Fort Loudoun, but many of those anglers will be using it in 2 to 3 feet of water.
“That is very hard to do,” Johnston said. “But that is going to be the sneaky X-factor this week.”
