Reports from Virginia's Smith Mt. Lake are varied, but the pros practicing there for tomorrow's Bassmaster Elite Series all made the same general comment – they're seeing tons of post-spawn "chasers" in the clear water, but it's darn near impossible to get them to commit. It creates one of the all-time great dilemmas in pro fishing: Do you stick with the big fish you've seen and hope they'll eat, or ditch 'em and pick up the small stick?
Jared Lintner, who's ranked 18th in the BassFan World Rankings presented by Tru-Tungsten and is currently 3rd in the Elite Series Angler of the Year (AOY) race is wrestling with that decision. He's pretty sure he'll stick with his swimbait chasers tomorrow, but he's also concerned because the whole scenario "scares" him.
"I depend on making these checks to pay my bills at home, so I just want to fish well and stay consistent and go from there," he said. "And obviously, the AOY thing is very important to me, so I can't have a bad tournament. But this is one of those lake where it could happen. I've seen it a lot, fishing around California, with lakes similar to this.
"Sometimes you do really well fishing the way I am, and sometimes you end up in the back of the pack. It's kind of scary."
