That headline alone should get the heart thumping of any hardcore smallmouth angler.
Here’s the scenario at Oneida Lake. The smallmouth spawn came a little later than normal, pushing it nearly on top of the tournament. The already aggressive smallies are hungry and schooling up around the lake’s signature offshore shoals. For a double bonus the anglers get this, too. Not far away from any given shoal is largemouth territory. Those bass have spawned too, and they are aggressively feeding as well.
Read Ronnie Moore’s early blog post and you can find the evidence of what is panning out on the lake. At takeoff most of the boats headed east towards the numerous shoals, some of which are known community holes. Those are producing. Largemouth and smallmouth.
A couple of notable comments relayed to me this morning while shooting BASSCam videos. Brandon Palaniuk said the smallmouth are fatter, like those he loves to catch on the St. Lawrence River. Those are healthy fish that have the advantage of getting fat on the round goby that coincidentally live offshore, like the smallmouth. Oneida Lake has that exotic fish as well.
Charlie Hartley said catching 15 pounds won’t get you anywhere on the scoreboard. It’ll take more like 16 pounds to meet the benchmark with at least one kicker fish to push the limit up toward 18-plus pounds.
It that sounds familiar it should. Oneida produced such catches this very week last year at this Open. As a reference, Wil Hardy won it with 53 pounds, 13 ounces. That was an 18 pounds per day average.
Look for more of the same here, this year.
The pros have dealt all week with a low pressure system making it’s way across the Midwest. The main system arrives here today, and will be around long after the tournament ends. The storm won’t deter the anglers or make the bite tougher. What will be the challenge are the lightning-bearing storms and winds produced by those.
“Every angler in this tournament knows where every bridge is located,” said John Murray, one of 11 Bassmaster Elite Series pros here, of course, for a shot at the world championship. And most of all, the fantastic smallmouth fishing.