Through one day of fishing at the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite Series on Lake Oahe, the massive Missouri River impoundment has proven to be one of the more unique fisheries many of the Elite Series pros have been to.
“There’s nowhere I have ever been like this,” Bryan New, who landed in fifth with 19-5, said. “It is basically a river with a little bit of a lip. It is 100,000 times different than Lake Champlain or Thousand Islands. It is a great big, giant lake, but it fishes pretty small.”
For one, the water is much lower than it normally is, leaving a lot of cover the bass normally set up on high and dry. The various types of baitfish that inhabit the fisheries and how the smallmouth react to them also set Lake Oahe apart from other fisheries.
Drew Cook landed in second place on Day 1 with 20-6 and saw plenty of bait in his primary area, but has found that bite only exists in specific places.
“This is the most (unique) place I have ever fished,” Cook said. “You can find a spot like I found today and it has this rock on it and the right depth and you can go fish 30 more spots just like it and they aren’t on any of them. It really doesn’t make any sense. Most places you can have a pattern and duplicate it. Not here. You can go miles without another bite.”
While the lake was a giant question mark coming in for many anglers, three bags over 20 pounds reached the scales and the Top 14 anglers had limits weighing over 17 pounds. Overall, 78 anglers caught limits.
Here’s what some of the top performing anglers from Day 1 had to say about what sets Lake Oahe apart and what they have ascertained so far.
Brandon Card (1st-place, 21-10)
Card found several areas holding quality fish and capitalized on it so far. The North wind picked up on Day 1, but Card found that it didn’t hurt his bite.
“In the South, a north wind is bad,” he said. “But it must be good up here because they bit way better today with a north wind than the south wind for the three days of practice. It was interesting that they turned on with a north wind.”
Drew Cook (2nd-place, 20-6)
Cook caught the entirety of his limit in a frantic 30-minute stretch early in the day. There were tons of bait around his primary spot.
“You will see big balls of bait. I’m talking about 20-foot wide balls. Then you will see these little basketball-sized balls and those are on the surface and you will see them jump when (the smallmouth) are feeding on them. I lost 10 weights today because I would hook one and the weight would be dangling down and another one would eat the weight. It is crazy.”
Patrick Walters (3rd-place, 20-5)
For Walters, the way he has caught them has changed every day of the tournament, leaving him with 12 rods on the deck for every situation. What practice did team him, however, is that certain areas hold fish. It just depends on where they are set up on a particular day.
“Really don’t commit to anything,” he said. “Go until you find the fish. Day 1 of practice I caught them on top water in 3 feet of water. Day 2 I caught them in 40-foot. Today I caught them in 25-30. Really, you find the good areas that have the bait and the smallmouth and adjust accordingly each day.”
Jeff Gustafson (4th-place, 19-9)
Gussy did his damage on his first couple stops of the day. While it looked good on paper, he said the fishing is pretty tough right now. He isn’t making as far of a run as much of the field, and where he is at doesn’t have as much bait.
“The tough thing here with the super low water is, there isn’t a lot of structure in the right depth,” Gustafson said. “There is a lot of structure shallower, but it is too shallow. In that 20-32 feet range, that’s what I’m thinking is the best, there isn’t a lot of rock. You have to be around some rock for the most part. If I catch one that’s not on rock, it is completely random.”
Brandon Cobb (8th-place, 18-13)
Cobb landed the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Day, a 5-12 smallmouth. He has found Oahe to be a tricky place to dial in.
“I feel like these fish roam around a lot, but for me, I can only catch them when they are set up on places,” Cobb said. “I think they are swimming around following the bait around, but I can’t catch them. You are still fishing rock just like you would on any other smallmouth lake, but they aren’t there all the time. Some of the places I caught them today I fished them a couple of times and they weren’t there and then a few would show up. They roam but they set up on the same type of stuff.”
Josh Douglas (9th-place, 18-10)
Douglas was still attempting to qualify for the Elite Series through the Bassmaster Opens when many of his fellow anglers were pre-practicing for this event. But while he had never been to Lake Oahe, the Minnesota native is comfortable fishing deep for smallmouth. He has noticed a couple of differences between Oahe and other smallmouth fisheries.
“I don’t think the smallmouth get a ton of pressure here,” Douglas said. “They are willing to bite. The bait forage is really different and with the water being so low, you can see there are boulders on the shoreline. If you put another 22 feet on that, I think it would fish a little more traditionally. It is a river system and not a lot of places to hide from the wind. It seems like they are spitting up a lot of shad, smelt-type stuff we don’t target a lot. There is salmon and stuff in here.”
Douglas added he doesn’t want to see a lot of bait. He thinks the bait makes the bass chase more and they act more traditionally when there is less.
