Patrick Walters views Lake Hartwell like a house; a house with lots of rooms, any of which could be hosting competitive fish. That’s true in much of the year, but with Classic week experiencing a pleasant warming trend, the playing field will be wide open.
His strategy — knock on every door until he finds the ones he needs.
“Every day is going to be different in the Classic,” Walters said. “I honestly think you’re going to catch ‘em in different rooms each day of the tournament. The fish are moving so quickly right now; they’re transitioning, they’re trying to get there to spawn, there are some coming and going.
“It’s going to be something different every single day. Somebody’s going to catch them in the dirt, somebody’s going to catch them out in 40 feet. It’s going to be that weird limbo stage so it’s going to be the one who can stay with them the most.”
That, of course, will require a lot of casting with a lot of baits. After practice concluded, the diverse pile of baits on Walters’ deck bespoke a multi-faceted effort without a lot of focus.
No problem, Walters said. A broad array of baits may be just the ticket for tracking down a competitive limit. However, the one constant will be mealtime — find where that’s going down and it’s jackpot.
“When they’re sitting at the dining room table, that’s when they’re there to eat,” Walters said. “When they’re on the way to the couch, when they’re on their way to spawn, when they’re on their way to the bed, they don’t want to bite; that’s that limbo when they’re on the move.
“But when you catch them at the dinner table — in the ditches and the shallow points — those are the ones you can catch easy, because they are there to feed. Those are the ones you want to find.”
A likely key to this premise will be the blueback herring. Harwell has shad, bream and other forage fish, but the bass have become so attuned to capitalizing on sudden appearances by the nomadic herring that these sizable baitfish bear a great impact on bass year-round.
Walters said: “The fish that are chasing herring are the ones that are sitting at the dinner table ready to eat.”