Weather drives seasonal patterns and hastens much of what anglers eagerly await; but meteorological forces also can be the ultimate buzzkill.
Nothing like getting the ball rolling, establishing momentum, piecing the puzzle together — then you gotta sit out a day.
Unfortunately, severe weather did just that to anglers fishing the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Norfork Lake presented by SEVIIN.
After one day of competition, Missouri pro Casey Scanlon leads the field of 234 with 18 pounds, 5 ounces. Posting a margin of 1 1/2 pounds over Wisconsin’s Doug Chapin, Scanlon said his success required a hard reset after his first couple of spots failed to produce.
Pulling the plug, he evaluated the playing field, discovered a relatively reliable scenario comprising a particular combination of rock and water clarity. Scanlon noted that he had to stay on the hunt for the right scenario and, while it sounded like bites were few and far between, he seems to be “on something.”
Insight from other top-10 performers set against Norfork’s current complexion offers a glimpse of what we might see when competition resumes on Saturday.
Telltale Turbidity: One day before the tournament, a view from the Pigeon Creek Bridge (Hwy. 201) revealed a cloudy plume of muddy runoff rolling into Norfork. Freckled with woody debris, the mud stream exemplified the turbid inflows pulsing through every artery feeding the lake.
Multiple anglers noted that the Panther Fork waters adjacent to the tournament site offered 20-plus feet of visibility. By tournament time, you could flip a pebble into the water and it would disappear before the first ring formed.
With another full day of runoff, there’s no escaping the increased turbidity that will surely await anglers for Saturday’s finale.
Now, muddy water’s nothing new to the Ozarks region, but it takes a while for fish to adjust and for anglers to figure out their locations and preferences. Understanding these seasonal occurrences takes the edge off their dramatic impacts.
“I live about an hour from here on Bull Shoals and we get crazy rain every spring so I’m used to rising water on these Ozarks lakes,” said Trey Schroeder (fourth place with 16-7). “I felt comfortable fishing a lot of new water and just feeling like they’d show up for me.”
Notably, muddy water can create feeding opportunities, as bass will leverage the diminished visibility to ambush prey. On the flipside, lower visibility shrinks the strike zone, as fish rely more on vibrations detected through their lateral line than brief glimpses of prey.
Given this truth, covering lots of water proves evermore critical to running your bait past a hungry one. As for targeted casts to particular rocks, laydowns, etc., precision’s key.
Quality and Quantity: Given the conditions, seeing nearly 80% of the field catching limits wasn’t too bad. However, only a little under 60% reached the 10-pound mark.
On the upside, a handful of angler showed off sizable fish.
Scanlon boated a 5-9 and stated that he lost one even larger. Chapin’s first cast yielded a 5-pounder, while Schroeder anchored his bag with a 5-2.
“That was one of those unicorns swimming around out there,” Schroeder said. “That 5-2 weighed as much as some of my practice (limits).”
Go with the Groceries: As bad as Norfork Lake looks right now, this is nothing new for the fish that live here. Even under less desirable conditions, they still gotta eat.
To this point, Schroeder said he did his best work on channel swing banks, but he noted that he’s looking for a particular scenario that concentrates fish.
“The rain flushes a bunch of nutrients into the lake and the shad go up there up there and start feeding and the bass will follow,” Schroeder said. “If you can find the places that the shad have moved up into already, the bass aren’t far behind them.”
Starting the final round in third place with 16-11, Kentucky pro Bailey Gay said he fished deeper than most — between 15 and 45 feet — because that’s where he was consistently finding bait schools.
Rise and Shine: When describing his Day-1 game plan, Chapin said he was following the course that bass typically take when lake levels rise. That could mean the shoreward push to exploit newly accessible feeding zones, or it could refer to the areas where natural features minimize muddiness and offer a little better clarity than others.
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how many anglers embrace and harness the week’s conditions, rather than succumb to their limitations.
Mobility Matters: It’s nice when you find that one dock, point or dock that delivers a fat limit, but that’s a very unlikely scenario for this tournament. Schroeder, for example, said he did his best to run his Falcon boat out of gas.
“Day 1 was not consistent at all,” Schroeder said. “I had about 8 pounds on my starting hole and then ran all over this lake. I probably burned 35-40 gallons of gas just trying to get into everywhere I could.
“I had a limit probably by 9 o’clock and then I didn’t get another bite by noon,” Schroeder said. “I landed on a spot where I caught three fish really quick and then went to another place and caught that 5-2 and a high 3.”
Gay also stayed on the move throughout Day 1. Pointing out his preference for locating the right areas over a key pattern, Gay said he fished about 35 different spots.
Wide Open: All due respect to Scanlon, who clearly outperformed the field on Day 1, but with the lake’s complexion changing by the hour, this derby’s far from conclusive.
Just over 4 pounds separate first from 25th (ties at 11th, 14th, 18th, 21st, and 23rd places) and, despite the extremely challenging conditions, closing that gap may not be as difficult as it appears.
Certainly, no one wants to see a leader stumble, but even if Scanlon has a decent performance, someone within the top-25 could post a banner day and significantly shuffle the leaderboard.
The final day of competion will likely see significant rain, so anglers will have to stay sharp. Most are accustomed to casting in conditions that would keep a frog indoors, so dramatic tales may be soon in the making.
