Jason Christie, 51, has spent his entire life living somewhere near eastern Oklahoma’s Lake Tenkiller. No other body of water ranks close in the number of hours the 2022 Bassmaster Classic champion has fished here. You would expect he’s seen it all on this lake. And yet …
“I guarantee you Sunday night, whether I win or finish 100th, I’m gonna be like, ‘I didn’t know that’ or ‘I wouldn’t have expected that,’” Christie said Wednesday.
The four-day Lowrance Bassmaster Elite at Lake Tenkiller begins Thursday. You can expect some surprises. The lake is about 5 feet (and falling) above the normal/conservation pool level of 632 feet above sea level. There is an abundance of fish-holding cover flooded along the banks. There’s also plenty of smallmouth bass in this lake. Mixed bags of largemouth and smallmouth will be common, with the occasional spotted bass hitting the scales.
“I’m being honest right now, and people aren’t gonna believe me,” Christie said. “But I am on the same playing field as everybody else, especially with (forward-facing sonar). I know a thousand places on this lake where there’s a little rock here or brushpile there and stuff like that, maybe 2,000 of those places. But all it will take is one dude to fish down that stretch to find it. I mean it’s not like this is Lake Okeechobee or Lake Ontario, where you’ve got this vast amount of water.”
Indeed, Lake Tenkiller’s 12,900 surface acres – maybe a bit more with the high water – comprise the smallest playing field for an Elite Series tournament this year. The 101 anglers are going to see a lot of each other over the first two days, before the field is cut down to the Top 50 for Saturday and tTp 10 on Sunday. (The initial field was 102 anglers, but Mike Iaconelli was a late scratch for this event due to the increasingly painful bursitis and tendinitis in his right arm.)
“A lot of the time that I’ve spent on this water is not when there’s 102 tournament bass fishermen driving around on the same body of water,” Christie said. “These guys are not dumb. I can’t tell you how many places this week I’d be like, I might get to fish that, and then I drive by there and see a boat sitting on it.”
It took an average of just under 14 pounds a day for Carl Jocumsen to win the only other Elite Series tournament held on Lake Tenkiller. That was Sept. 19-22, 2019, in an event that was originally scheduled on Oklahoma’s Fort Gibson Lake but moved due to high water conditions. Jocumsen’s winning weight was 54-15. He overcame weighing only 6-4 on Day 2 by catching the big bag of the tournament, 19-12, on the final day.
It may take more like 16 pounds a day to keep someone in contention for the title this week. The 4- and 5-pounders are game-changers. Caleb Sumrall had the big bass of that 2019 event, a 5-pound, 7-ounce largemouth.
Jay Przekurat, the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year points leader, has survived his two biggest unknowns, the Texas Swing of Lake Fork and the Sabine River. He was nervous about what he knew he’d have to catch at the big bass factory that is Fork and nervous about what he could catch at the always stingy Sabine River.
“I wouldn’t say I’m as nervous as I was before Fork and the Sabine, but this one definitely makes me nervous,” said Przekurat, who will turn 26 years old on June 21. “I’m not really super confident with what I found. I just know kind of what I want to do and where I want to fish. I just don’t know the potential of the size of fish that I’m going catch.
“I’m going to catch fish, but I just don’t know if it’s going be 8 to 10 pounds or it could be pushing 13 to 15 pounds. That 3-pound class range, that’s what we’re all shooting for out here right now. It’s not that easy to catch 15 pounds. Catching 15 pounds is going to be huge. That’s going to get you towards the top of the leaderboard.”
Only 64 points separate the top five anglers after six tournaments in the nine-event season. Przekurat’s first place total is 544, followed by Chris Johnston 502, Kyoya Fujita 494, Trey McKinney 487 and Will Davis Jr. 480.
“I think a guy that’s going to win or do very well, finish in the Top 10, is going to have to really mix it up,” Przekurat said. “You might see a guy out LiveScoping in the morning or something like that, or fishing around the shad spawn. Then he may go start flipping bushes for a couple hours, catch a couple fish, and then transition back out to LiveScoping again.
“I think we’re going see a large diversity of people doing a lot of different things. There are still a lot of fish on the bank. I think you’re going to see a lot of quality fish caught from the bank this week.”
