Day 1 gets underway for the 2022 Whataburger Bassmaster Elite Series on Pickwick Lake.
As the last few anglers were still making their way through launch this morning, other anglers in earlier flights were already on the board on BassTrakk, Josh Douglas and Koby Kreiger being the first two to register a small keeper apiece to get the day started.
The talk before the tournament was about how crowded the ledges were during practice and how the fish seemed to be a bit spread out. Looking at the generation schedule this morning for Wilson and Pickwick dams, it looks as though the current has slowed down a good bit from what it was in practice, which will likely spread the fish out even further. (The current dropped from around 60,000 units in practice to under 30,000 units to start Day 1).
With slack current, the bass are more prone to suspend and roam around. When the current is stronger, they get grouped up tighter and hang closer to the bottom, making them easier to target and, in theory, easier to catch.
But the early bite seems to be pretty good. In just the few minutes it took to type this up, all the boats have launched and 7 more anglers have registered fish catches on BassTrakk. Nothing big in the boat so far for any of them, but a quick flurry of action to start the morning.
Water generation is scheduled to increase in the afternoon, which should help the offshore bite as well.
