Here are a few notable items about today's Erie/Niagara Bassmaster Elite Series, collected yesterday and this morning.
The River
At the tournament briefing last night, BASS tournament director Trip Weldon stated that in the event of dangerous weather, he'd restrict the field to the Niagara River. In such a situation, the Buffalo Harbor, Black Rock Canal, and Niagara River up to the Peace Bridge (near the point where Erie empties into the Niagara) would be fair game. The sticking point is that to access the river, pros would have to travel 4 miles of a no-wake zone down the Black Rock Canal.
The Black Rock lock can hold nearly the entire field, and the turnaround time is a half-hour, but there's commercial traffic expected through the lock this week. Bottom line: Nobody here wants to see bad weather and restricted waters.
Dunkirk or Bust
At least a dozen pros BassFan spoke with plan to make a 40- to 50-mile run down the U.S. shore to the area of Dunkirk. And one pro said he was going to run 15 miles past Dunkirk to Barcelona. The fish are reportedly running larger down in both areas. Of course, the biggest worry is getting there and back.
Conditions were sketchy at sunrise this morning. Buffalo was calm and overcast, but Dunkirk had thunderstorm activity at 6:00 a.m. And several isolated thunderstorms are moving down from Canada and across the lake. The Dunkirk harbor offers safe port during a gale, and several safe harbors can be found between there and Buffalo. With storms moving from the north to south, the Canadian shore might offer the safest fishing today. Bottom line: A long run is risky today.
Denny Brauer told the local news he caught the biggest smallmouth of his life this week – a 6-02.
Brauer on Brown
BassFan noted previously that Denny Brauer is within reach of a Bassmaster Classic berth. Would he head out to deep water for smallmouths, or try for smaller largemouths in the harbor and river grass?
Looks like he's after the big brown fish. He told the local news this morning that he'd caught the biggest smallmouth of his life this week – a 6-02.
But BassFans probably know that local news seldom gets its facts right when it comes to bass fishing. A few errors this morning on the local broadcast: "The best five fish on Sunday win" and "Watch the tournament this Sunday on ESPN."
Walleye Boats
ProCraft pros Tim Horton and Brian Snowden both plan to fish from Tracker walleye boats. Horton, who had the walleye boat but never launched it last week at Champlain, said he won't even launch his ProCraft bass boat this week.
Nitro, like ProCraft, is part of the Tracker Marine family, but Nitro pros like Kevin VanDam and Jason Quinn will fish from bass rigs.
Other Notables
> Kevin VanDam attracted the biggest crowd at Angler Alley, followed closely by local rookie Matt Sphar.
Takahiro Omori's hot-oil wound still hasn't healed.
> Takahiro Omori's wound has not yet healed. He burned his finger on hot frying oil. Also, he noted after Smith Mt. Lake that he'd forced himself to use spinning gear for the first time this year, and has been using it a lot. But here he is in smallmouth country, and all his spinning rods were buried deep in his rodlocker. Hmmm...
> Frank Scalish might be fishing cold today. He won a Bassmaster Open here several years ago, and said he practiced this week to "blow out the field." But the big fish weren't there, so he's basically starting on memories today.
> The field could be sandbagging, but most pros said they're only on 15 to 18 pounds right now. The exception was Aaron Martens, who said he had two 22- to 24-pound days in practice.
> BassFan asked Angler of the Year leader Skeet Reese whether he'll fish a little "safe" this week. "You can't fish safe if you don't have anything to go to," he said, implying that his practice was weak. But he's said that of a lot of his practices this year. Sandbagger or scrambler? You be the judge.
> The death of Tim Tucker weighs heavily on everyone's mind. But several pros said they'll just do exactly what Tim would tell them to do, "Go fish (their) butts off."
> Gas tip for BassFans traveling to the event: Gas is going for about $3.10 a gallon in New York, but the Seneca Nation sells gas for about $2.75 a gallon. Those stations are just off the Silver Creek exit of the New York State Thruway (between Dunkirk and Buffalo).
