If you are a tournament junkie like me then you’ve got to be excited about this derby on Lake Dardanelle. Here’s what’s so cool about what’s to come.
This lake fishes like a river and that aspect has thrown a curve ball into the game plans of everyone. In recent days the river took on flood waters upstream from Oklahoma. All that water is coming down river. “Chocolate milk” is a commonly used word to reference the conditions of the main river channel. The anglers seem to be shying away from an offshore, typical summer bite on the river.
This lake has a year-round population of shallow bass. So who needs the river? Guess we’ll find out. Subtract the river channel from the sum of the whole and you get a concentrated group of anglers fishing shallow. “It’ll fish small, very small.” I heard that often when interviewing anglers yesterday.
“This will be a junk fisherman’s paradise.” That’s a quote from Michael Iaconelli. Junk fishing tournaments are fun to follow for a couple reasons. Junk fishing requires an all out, wide-open approach. Every lure you can imagine is in play and that covers a wide spectrum when those baits are targeting shallow bass.
Finally, what’s really cool is what we all stand to learn as average anglers. There is no single, strong pattern. Sure, there is the usual shad spawn but it turns off sooner than later. No sight fishing. No ledge fishing. No intercepting a steady flow of post-spawn bass headed out to deeper water.
It’ll be fun to watch this one, for sure.