It’s about noon. I’m on my way back from practice. As nasty and ugly as it is out there I have to say that this weather didn’t hurt my fishing or my Classic strategy one bit. In fact, it might have gotten better after this morning. I’ve got one more technique in my arsenal that I think might be handy at some point along the way. You can’t have too many patterns in a Bassmaster Classic.
The bite was really pretty good this morning. Fish usually go active in the snow, and this morning was no exception. I’m not sure why that is but it’s very similar to what happens in Florida just before and during a rain. All in all it was a good day. (Ok, it was a good half-day. I didn’t stay out as long as I could have.)
That’s not to say that I like this weather, though. My fingers and my toes are still numb, and I’ve got the heater running on high. It must be the Florida blood in me. No matter how hard I try I can’t learn to love cold weather and snow, even when the fish are biting. It just doesn’t happen.
Looking back on all my practice I have to say that I’m really looking forward to Friday and to having a good event. That’s not a prediction of anything. All I’m saying is that I’m optimistic about getting out there and fishing for real.
I think it’s going to be a very interesting Classic. Here’s the thing: We’ve had a bad storm blow through the area with lots of heavy cloud cover, snow, ice and cold rain. But it’s over. Things are looking better. The skies are brightening up and the snow is gone. Now we can expect true post-frontal conditions. The skies will clear with bright sunshine and high pressure.
A lot of anglers automatically think that means tough fishing conditions with a slow and tentative bite. That’s not always the case, however. Sometimes they really turn on after a front, especially a severe front like the one we just had. It’s one of those things you don’t know about until you actually get out on the water. Like I said, it’ll be really interesting to see what happens on Friday and what the afternoon weigh-in looks like.
I don’t think that the cold nights will amount to much as far as the fishing is concerned. This is Oklahoma. There’s nothing unusual about it getting cold when the sun goes down in February. The fish know instinctively what to expect and when something is out of the ordinary. This isn’t out of the ordinary. And besides all that, we’re supposed to have a warming trend over Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
There’s not much I can say at this point beyond that. We can’t control the weather and we can’t control fish behavior. All we can hope to do is adapt as best we can to try to make things go our way.
We’ll talk again tomorrow.