Here’s a short list of observations with comparisons between the conditions faced by Chris Lane and Kevin VanDam.
VanDam has moved out on the points. He’s already commented about the presence of boats. In those are weekend anglers and fishermen competing in an American Bass Anglers event. That narrows his fishing area by reducing the choices.
Lane has plenty of options because he’s fishing shorelines. He’s also dialed in to a pattern within a pattern of targeting specific areas with high strike probabilities. Those are points of vegetation, either reeds or grass. In fishing both sides of the lake for specific reasons, his pattern is sustainable all day.
It only takes one spot to load the boat with a 20-pound-plus bag. We’ve already seen VanDam do that earlier in the week. He only needs to “fire up” a school. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.
But this is not the typical summertime ledge fishing that VanDam so excels at on the Tennessee River system. There’s no generation schedule that stirs activity and the bottom cover is points, not ledges.
Calm conditions are best for Lane, at least in the morning. Check mark for him since there’s virtually no wind.
VanDam wants the wind to blow for a couple of reasons. First, it makes it difficult on shallow water anglers like Lane. Secondly, wind driven current out on the lake is an advantage for VanDam.
The lake is being lowered to bring it down after the recent floods. Current doesn’t really matter to Lane. It does for VanDam. Either way the high water is a huge factor for Lane because it’s created more fishing areas due to the inundated cover along shorelines.