FLORENCE, Ala. — It’s an understatement to say that Pickwick Lake suddenly looked different Wednesday than it did the previous two days. It’s an understatement as massive as the storm front that moved through the South on Wednesday. And that will make for a fascinating tournament when the four-day Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite begins with a 7:45 E.T. takeoff Thursday.
“All bets are off,” said Steve Kennedy, the Auburn, Ala., pro who is coming off a second-place Elite Series finish at the Tennessee River in Knoxville. “The water is going to be three, three-and-a-half feet higher than it was when practice started.”
And instead of clear water in the creeks, they were spewing mud by Wednesday afternoon when tornado warning sirens shrieked across the lake, sending anglers to shelter. As is fitting this time of year when “survive and advance” is the theme for NCAA Basketball Tournament teams, this four-day event will be about surviving the suddenly changed Tennessee River impoundment and building a winning pattern.
“It’s very diverse and we have changing conditions,” said Brandon Palaniuk. “I think that sets up for a good tournament from both a fan and angler perspective.”
Palaniuk, who has won five Elite Series tournaments, added, “I’m kind of glad I didn’t have a good practice. It’s always easier to let something go that you weren’t married to in the first place.”
He still believes that it will take a four-day total in the 90-pound range to win. The Elite Series hasn’t been here since Davy Hite won in 2011. But this 43,000-surface-acre lake has a big reputation with healthy populations of largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass. All three species have a 15-inch minimum length limit.
Pat Schlapper of Eleva, Wis., is among the three Elite Series anglers in this field to compete in the B.A.S.S. Nation championship on at Pickwick last November. Shlapper, who won the three-day event, said his bags included two largemouth and three smallmouth one day, three largemouth, one smallmouth and a spotted bass another day and five smallmouth on the final day.
Schlapper was more than a bit discouraged by the changing conditions he found Wednesday, saying, “I hope the extra flow is going to help the smallmouth bite.”
Randy Pierson also won the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship at Pickwick Lake. His title came in 2018.
“I (practiced) on a lot of the stuff when I won it, and I caught fish, but they weren’t even keepers,” Pierson said. “I was thinking I wasn’t going to hit any of that stuff at all during the tournament. But some of that in the Nation Championship was in high current, so it may come into play after all.”
Bill Lowen had built a solid pattern in practice before the rain came, saying, “I was getting the right bites. Now, I don’t know. I’m just going to go fishing and try to figure it out.”
That’s basically it for all 100 anglers beginning Thursday: Go fishing and try to figure it out. In other words, it’s the ultimate test of bass fishing tournament skills.