Lake Eufaula FLW Tour
Tournament Recap
Friday, May 15, 2015
Jay Yelas
I was pleased with my choice of where I fished after doing poorly up the river 2 years ago. I fished shallow and caught most of my fish on docks with a jig and a Gary Yamamoto Flapping Hog. I also caught some on a Yamamoto popper topwater bait on day 1. The rest were caught pitching to docks.
It’s the not the right way to win the tournament and I knew if I’d made the cut, I’d pretty much tapped out the docks. There just aren’t that many here. It seemed like 80 percent of the field was fishing off shore this week. I did fish deep for a while, then I’d go shallow and out deep again, but those guys are committed and that’s how you win here. I could’ve made the cut with one more good fish and I know several guys will make the cut fishing shallow, but it’ll be won deep.
Most of the good docks were shallower. I caught a few on deep docks, but most were 7 feet or less. They were more main lake or point-oriented. In practice, I fished just about every dock in here and had several good bites, but shook them off.
Luke Clausen
As a whole, it was disappointing to lose ground to Wesley. It just seems like such an uphill battle for the AOY. There seven or eight guys who are catching them and it’s feasible with two Top-5s, I might not win it. That would be hard to swallow.
This week, I had a horrible practice and some of that was influenced by my being sick, but even when I was out there, I wasn’t catching much. There were just several factors that didn’t go my way. To be honest, I was a little scared going into the tournament. I was thinking it could be like a 100th-place type of thing if I don’t get my act together. I made good decisions to get a check and end up in the top third of the field so it was somewhat of a relief to not have total disaster.
The first day was a lot of junk fishing and panic fishing. I fished shallow and deep and went back and forth. I fished some old waypoints from before and found some brush piles during event. I threw a Megabass Vision 110 Magnum SP jerkbait and caught a limit pretty quick just to settle myself down. It was maybe an 8-pound limit, but with the way things were going, it was important to get on the board early and concentrate on catching bigger fish.
With the water temperature in the 80s, it was not optimal for a jerkbait, but I also caught some on deep floating dock and threw wacky worm in shallow. When I fished brush, I threw a Megabass Deep-Six and Z-Man Saw Tail WormZ.
On Friday, I felt like I could go back to some areas where I’d caught some 4-pounders, but only caught 10 pounds there. I tried to scramble and nearly ran out of gas running around so much and trying to get something going.
I didn’t catch anything deeper than 12 feet in the brush and it’s hard to find brush when you get shallower than 10. With the water dropping recently, the water has enough color in it that I think a lot of fish are still working their way out. They really don’t have to go deep yet because there’s so much bait in here now from the top to 30 feet. And there’s not much current generation to get them out there to the ledges.
Practice Summary
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Jay Yelas
I think the fishing’s decent. It’s the same exact thing at every tournament – guys badmouth the lake in practice and then come in on day 1 with nice bags. The fish are schooled up a little bit and you can fish for several hours without catching one, but when you catch one or two and you want to leave because you don’t want to break up the school or feel like you’ve caught them all.
What I’ve determined over the last 2 days is we’re further along then we were than 2 years ago. The shad spawn is virtually over and the bass spawn is totally over. There might be a handful left on bed, but as far as I can tell, it’s pretty much over. I would think the weights will be similar to what they were 2 years ago.
I bombed here the last time and I fished from take-off on up the river. This week, I haven’t even been up there. I’ve fished the lower end of the lake and I’ve had a better practice than what I had a couple years ago. I’ve caught a couple good fish each day.
I’m going to fish shallow. I couldn’t find anything good deep. You can’t graph them here like you can on the Tennessee River lakes. Here, it’s more about having 30 or 40 brush piles and hoping to catch one out of each pile whereas on Kentucky Lake you can sit on a ledge and catch them all day. I think my chances are better to have a strong finish if I fish shallow. It’s a great shallow water lake and I’ll bet half of the Top 20 will be fishing shallow. I don’t think you can win it that way, though, not at this time of year.
Luke Clausen
I’ve been sicker than hell and when I’ve fished I haven’t caught a lot. I’m going to try to grind it out. I’m glad it’s been a tough practice instead of a blowout. I can’t say it’s been overly productive when I’ve been out there.
I’m going to fish both dirty and clear water. I don’t really know where I’m going yet. I’m just going to do a lot of fishing. I’m going to fish shallow, of course, since I didn’t practice much. I do have some deep brush piles I know about from the past, I’ll probably find myself fishing around the bank to grind out some bites.
I went up river Tuesday and could barely notice any current. By the time you get to the lake it’s dissipated. On Sunday, I found some on beds, but those have left. I also saw some bluegill beds with bass around them and they’ve all left.
I think we’re seeing the tail end of the spawn and the end of the bluegill spawn and shad spawn, all of which are pointing in a bad direction for the bank to be productive. My thought is it’s too late to start fishing out. It’s more of a brush-pile lake where it’s isolated stuff, so I’m left with fishing visible targets. There are still some good fish up shallow. It’s not like they’re all gone, but there’s nothing happening that’s making it better.
Day 2 Practice Recap
Monday, May 11, 2015
Luke Clausen
It’s been a long couple days at Eufaula. It’s been really hot and is going to continue getting hotter the rest of the week. There’s not a really good deep bite right now and not much of a shallow bite after the early morning. There’s a little shad spawn going on, but it doesn’t seem like a big population of fish are following them. It’s so short lived and with us taking off at 6:30 a.m., I’d say it’ll probably be a non-factor in the tournament.
If I had to start tomorrow, it’d be a lot of junk fishing. I’m still going to explore new areas and try to find new ways to catch them tomorrow. There’s just nothing real concrete that’s good right now. You can catch one out and then one on the banks. I’m not sure it’ll be super easy to catch a limit. You can really get into some dry spells.
I saw 94-degree water in the back of a creek by the dam today and it was 79, 80 in the main lake up north. The water is definitely warming up and you’d think it would get some more fish going off shore, but it’s hard to even mark many out there.
Under normal circumstances, even the river stretch, there’s hardly any noticeable current there. I’m going to go up there tomorrow and get a better handle on it.
Day 1 Practice Recap
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Jay Yelas
The water was in the low 80s today and the air temperature was in the low 90s. It’s the hottest weather I’ve been in this year and the hotterst water I’ve seen so far. The fish at Eufaula are largely post-spawn. We were here two years ago at about the same time and my initial take is the fish are in about the same stage. One difference is some are on beds.
The lake has dropped about two feet in the last week. They had a lot of rain down here in mid to late April so that’s come and gone and the lake is now down to full pool, but that’s taken a lot of water out of the grass that is in 18 inches to 2 feet of water. There are fish that live in that shallow grass that were in play for the tournament, but when you take 6 inches out of there, it might make it tough.
Randy Haynes won this event two years ago fishing ledges and pretty much blew it away, so I’d look for the same thing. I’d be shocked if that wasn’t the winning pattern again. There are shallow fish and deep fish transitioning to their summer spots. There is a little topwater bite and shad are spawning early in the morning – pretty much everything that goes with fishing in early May. I think it’ll shape up a lot like last time we were here.
I had a decent catch today, but nothing that would win, but a solid day of practice. With a couple more days, we’ll see what I can put together. May is a wild card month. I’ve been places when everything is high and flooded, but we’re supposed to have a few more days of hot weather so it’s setting up to be an early-summer type tournament. Ledges should prevail, but guys should be able to do well shallow.
