Looks Like Cross Will Be Tough

Hindsight being 20/20, FLW Outdoors might not choose Cross Lake as the location of the FLW Tour Championship and the launching pad for its new bracket format. Why? One reason: the fishing isn't too good.

So say the pros, though they always qualify that with "someone will catch them."

But a summertime tournament at a shallow, heavily-fished lake that fishes even smaller than its 8,000 acres -- and which has a 14-17 inch slot limit -- doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

"The fishing is pretty tough," said Alton Jones. "The easy fish are gone. It's pretty well been beat-up. That's a problem with a really small body of water like this. It will take less weight to do well."

"Let's just say the weigh-in will go relatively quickly," said Gary Klein.

Practice Big, Tournament Small

"There's a lot of water to fish because there's so many cypress trees and backwater areas," said Oklahoma's Harmon Davis, the only rookie fishing the tournament. "But come tournament day, I think it will fish pretty small. Everyone will be concentrated in the same type of areas."

"It's practicing large, but it's going to fish small," said Bernie Schultz. "Everybody is spread out in practice, but by tournament time people are going to be packed into each other. There aren't really any good areas, but there are some areas with some fish in them."

"It's fishing smaller by the day," added Gerald Swindle. "It probably wouldn't be such a bad deal if they limited us to one day of practice. But by the third or fourth day, we're all fishing on top of each other and we're bored of looking at the same water."

Trees or Shoreline?

Since Cross Lake maxes out at about 10 feet, there aren't any obvious summer holes to fish. At the same time, the lake is loaded with cover.

"There's cypress trees, a couple different kinds of grass, lily pads, brushpiles and docks -- fish are all over the lake," Schultz said. "You can get bit on a lot of different techniques."

But you have to be shallow. "I spent parts of 3 days looking offshore," Swindle said. "I have not seen a minnow or a school of shad, and have not marked a fish out there. I talked with (David) Fritts today and he said the same thing: he hadn't marked a fish (offshore)."

That said, the pros appear to be dividing into two groups: the shoreline group and the cypress trees group, though the lake is so small pros can easily fish both. "I can start at the dam and run my boat to the upper end of the lake, and be there in less than 6 minutes," Klein said. "This lake is a big farm pond."

Flippers, like Lake Fork Tackle owner Mark Pack, seem to be concentrating on the cypress trees. "I have about an 8-mile stretch I'm fishing back and forth," he said. "It all has to do with the angle, but you don't have time to flip all the angles because you have to cover so much water. So I'm making one run flipping one angle, then coming back and fishing the other side."

He said a key is fishing bunched cypress trees close to deeper water -- if you can find them. "The deepest they grow is about 5 feet, but there's about a million in 2 feet of water."

For Davis, another flipper, fishing "anywhere you find a ditch or some type of drain" in the cypress swamp seems to produce better. He figures many pros will fish these areas, as does Ohio's Dale Teaney.

"I think on the tournament days the boats will really be ganged up," Teaney said. "I've made three laps around the lake already because it's not very big. I caught a few fish off the docks, but the trees seem to be better." (He added that he's heard rumors of some competitors planting brushpiles.)

Jones, on the other hand, said it's possible to catch a fish anywhere along the entire shoreline of the lake. "You might catch one anywhere you pull up and stop. I haven't found anyplace where there's a concentration of fish. The fish seem to be pretty scattered. The guy that figures out the right kind of stuff to run and the key bait to use will catch them."

He noted that the cypress swamp has "better odds of a big bite, but it's harder to get bit there."

Unders vs. Overs

Cross Lake's 14-17 inch slot limit was not rescinded for the tournament. That means 2-3 pounders are off-limits -- to livewells, but not to lures. Because of the lake and the conditions, almost all pros say it's impossible to target overs (bass over the slot) exclusively.

"I tried the bigger bait/bigger fish deal, but it didn't seem to work," Teaney said. "There aren't that many baits you get bites on, and it seems like all the fish are right together. You'll catch a 3-4 pounder and a 12-incher right next to each other. The lake has been worked over a lot, plus the lake is really low. I think that's why the fish aren't spread out."

He noted that the lake has "bad areas" too, where you catch "nothing at all or all 10-inchers. So I think you have to fish for whatever bites you can get."

"You could catch 5 unders and be in great shape," Davis noted. "I'm just going fishing. I'm sure I'll catch slot fish, some unders and hopefully some overs. From what I've found, you can't just target one. You're liable to catch any of the three anywhere."

"I'm just going where the most fish are that I can find, and I hope things fall my way," Schultz said. "I don't think anyone in this tournament is going after big fish. They're mixed in. You can catch 5 dinks and all of a sudden a 5-pounder."

"You don't get that many bites," Jones said. "A really good day is 7-8 bites and half of those are in the slot. If a guy catches one over the slot every day, he'll be really strong. The day 1 leader probably will have a limit with two over the slot."

Swindle put it this way: "I think a good winning strategy is to spend the whole day trying to catch a limit of unders because there are no big ones in here."

Klein noted that the pros are conditioned to "catch better-quality fish. A 16-inch fish in this lake is 3 1/4 pounds. To release that for a 1 1/8 pounder is hard for me. I'm not going to change my philosophy. I'm going to fish like there's not a slot limit. But a championship should never have been held on a slot lake."

And Then There's Mark Pack

But maybe a few pros can find a spot on at least one day with a few big overs

"If you can get the right bites, you can blow it away," Pack said. "The first day I was here I caught a 5-pounder and a 7-pounder, and shook off the rest. Since then I've gotten some bites, but not big ones. Today I shook four off. I don't want to stick any more because I don't know how many I'll get."

Pack said he'll fish "boathouses and trees. You make about 3,000 flips a day to get 5 bites."

The Luck Factor

The slot also could introduce a substantial luck factor, Swindle noted. "It will come down to luck. That's what separates you from catching a 13 3/4-incher (under the slot) and a 14 1/2-incher (in the slot)."

Strategy: Fish For the Top 2

When it comes to strategy, this looks more like a BASSMASTER tournament in that everyone is fishing for the top, not to make a cut. In this case the top means the Top 2, which are the only two anglers that will fish for the big money on day 4.

"You have to fish to get as much weight as you can," Jones said. "Only the Top 2 guys have a chance to win. You can't put your eyes on beating the one guy you're bracketed with. You have to have your eyes on being one of the Top 2 guys on the last day. You can't save fish or sit back."

Jay Yelas agreed: "It sounds like you have to do the best you can and not save any fish," he said. "You need to be in the Top 2 after 3 days."

Notable

• Harmon Davis, the rookie, on being paired against 2002 FLW AOY and 2002 Classic winner Jay Yelas in the first round -- "I fish against him anyway in every tournament, and it's like everyone always says: you're fishing against the fish. But if I beat him people will notice that more than if he beats me. Everyone figures that would happen anyway, with the roll he's been on."
• Yelas on the format: "I still haven't figured it out yet -- I still don't understand what happens on the third day. The format is like a Rubik's cube, trying to figure out who's going to win this thing. Potentially, the guy who wins it the last day could have 1 pound and everyone else will have 10-15 pounds. It just don't make sense to me."
• Forced Negativity -- "I hate to sound so negative over a big tournament, but I think it was a little bit of poor planning," Swindle said. ("A whole lot of poor planning," said Marty Stone.) Swindle continued: "I thought it should be a treat, making the Championship, but it's turning out to be more of a chore."
• Zero vs. Zero -- On a lake this tough, it's possible that two guys could zero on the same day, especially later in the competition. If so, who advances? Likely answer: whoever is higher in AOY points. But anyone with a zero advancing is a bizarre concept.
• Only Bogeys -- Fishing with the slot limit is "kind of like putting Tiger Woods and some of the best golfers in the world on a golf course and saying you can't count eagles and pars," Klein said. "Only bogeys count. It's very frustrating."

Weather Forecast

Here's the Weather Channel's forecast:

> Wed, Sept. 11 -- Mostly Sunny -- high 94°/low 67°

> Thu, Sept. 12 -- Isolated T-Storms -- 90°/67°

> Fri, Sept. 13 -- Isolated T-Storms -- 89°/66°

> Sat, Sept. 14 -- Isolated T-Storms -- 90°/70°

Launch/Weigh-In Info

Not available.