When you send a bunch of anglers to Sam Rayburn in February, special things are bound to happen. But Mother Nature has thrown a knuckleball in the direction of the pros fishing the St. Croix Bassmaster Open presented by SEVIIN, the first event in Division II.
The lake, which was a foot above full pool at the end of practice on Tuesday, received a tremendous amount of rain Tuesday and Wednesday, over 4 inches, which will likely raise the lake level and muddy up some of the popular areas on the lake.
This was all ahead of a cold front, which brought strong north winds to the area Thursday morning, forcing the cancellation of Day 1. A now two-day tournament will start on Friday morning and conclude on Saturday.
Anglers will likely be fishing under totally new conditions when they hit the water tomorrow. Temperatures are expected to be in the high 30s at launch and only reach the mid 50s. Saturday’s high is expected to be
But, as mentioned early, Sam Rayburn is a special fishery this time of year.
“February on Sam Rayburn is just phenomenal,” Louisiana pro Darold Gleason said. “The year I qualified for the Elite in 2020, the lake popped off. There were some really good bags there. But this event will blow that one away.”
Just last week, a Texas Team Trail event was won with over 41 pounds of largemouth and a 10-pounder was weighed in. Then during practice, Oklahoma’s Austin Cranford boated an 11-pounder during practice.
The talk of the town was Adam Rasmussen, though, who landed a true lunker largemouth that topped out on his scale at 13.82 pounds. A bass that size crosses the threshold for the Toyota ShareLunker programs highest class if he had entered it.
“When it came by the boat, I thought for sure it was a catfish until it came up again,” the Wisconsin angler said. “The thing was so massive. I’ve never in person seen a bass that big. It had one hook and I started freaking out that I was going to lose it. But I got the other hooks in her face and got it in the boat.”
Crazy things could have happened if the temperatures had stayed in the 70s and 80s like the Team Trail anglers enjoyed. At the beginning of their practice period Sunday, Tennessee’s Tristan McCormick said there were plenty of bass high in the water column and ready to eat. He saw water temperatures as high as 67 degrees, but by the final practice day on Tuesday, those temperatures were down to 58 or 59 degrees.
“I expect to see a lot of the bigger females pull back out,” McCormick said. “It seems like warm rain, but it really isn’t. It’s coming out of the north. It is going to change things up. It will be a whole new lake.”
With the cool down, expectations have been tempered slightly.
“I think the crazy weights we were going to see (aren’t as likely),” Cranford said. “We will still see some good weights, but the consistency I thought we were going to get throughout the tournament and the crazy consistent big bags, I think the weather is going to tone that down a little.”
Plenty of options are still available to the pros, though. The warm up did allow plenty of bass to push into staging areas, with some even making it all the way to the bed. Water has filled the shoreline bushes as well. Although it isn’t everywhere, there are also reports of strong grass growth in some areas of the lake, some all the way out in 12 feet of water.
“I think some guys are going to catch them on the bank more than some people expect,” McCormick said.
Cranford had been keeping an eye on the forecast all practice, and planned his tournament around the possibility of higher winds and rising water.
“I didn’t want all of this to dictate my tournament,” he explained. “I kind of know what you need to do to stay consistent with the water level and with the wind. The wind is the only thing that will hurt a lot of guys. There is another portion of guys that are banking on a bite that this rain is going to hurt. The rain is going to muddy up the creeks and the wind will hurt the ‘Scopers.”
He also believes a lot of the bass that were wanting to make the push shallow have stalled in a lot of the staging areas, which will make the offshore bite better for the anglers who can effectively fish those areas.
There are a ton of bass in the lake right now, but not all of them are giant. A healthy population of 2- to 4-pounders populate the lake, and the great big ones seem to be a little random according to several anglers. Cranford’s 11-11 fit his pattern, but it was the only bass he caught in that spot.
“The big bites are not safe,” Cranford said. “There is a rhyme or a reason, but it is a little random. They are not everywhere. There are very few places where they are stacked up.”
Anglers to Watch
Darold Gleason: Gleason is trying to work his way back to the Elite Series and Sam Rayburn was the catalyst for getting him there in 2020. He believes he has a couple of places where there are multiple big ones stacked up, and if they bite, watch out.
Tristan McCormick: McCormick was in the running for a victory last time the Opens visited Rayburn in 2022 and notched a 14th place finish in a Toyota Series event in 2023. With offshore bass in play, I would expect McCormick to be in the running again.
Jack York: While he guides at Lake Fork, York has two Top 10 finishes at Rayburn in Toyota Series events in the spring. There’s no doubt he will have the confidence to put together a couple megabags this week.
Miles Burghoff: After taking most of last season off to care for his daughter, Burghoff is fishing Division II and he has a solid history on Rayburn. In the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit, he notched 12th and 18th place finishes in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
