Back when the Bassmaster Classic was a dog-days-of-summer event, weather rarely played a role. It was either hot, really hot or core-of-the-earth hot. Sure, the occasional wrong wind or moisture system threw the field a loop, but for the most part, the pros fished a stable, fairly predictable set of conditions.
Fast forward to today and weather pretty much means everything.
Despite calendar date and moon phase, if it's monstrously cold, the fish won't begin their spring transition.
And it's been cold in New Orleans. The past few days saw below-freezing temps overnight and daytime highs in the low- to mid-40s. The field didn't have to deal with skim ice like last year at Lay Lake, but it did have to contend with a perhaps more intimidating factor: The anticipation of an intense warming trend.
Today's highs should reach nearly 70 – a 30-odd-degree temperature swing – and warm, sunny conditions are in the forecast for much of this week. So everything the field experienced during official practice Friday, Saturday and Sunday could mean little this Friday when competition begins.
The extreme cold made for a very difficult practice, many pros reported. That's expected when Jack Frost slams the tropics. But after a long hard winter, the fish should be moving up and chomping by Wednesday. That's when the pros get to check their water one last time before day 1 of competition on Friday.
Four pros said as much yesterday when they spoke with BassFan. Before their individual insights, however, here are a few factors/observations/predictions.
Brent Chapman: Insight
> "Conditions are a lot different than they were before the cutoff, there's no doubt about that. They're a lot colder and a lot dirtier, and it seems like the fish are few and far between, and there's fewer places where there's actually fish. I thought it would have been more of a spawn/pre-spawn deal, but the water's in the 40s so they're more in a winter pattern than anything. But it's changing, and over the next 5 to 7 days it'll change dramatically."
> "I fished basically the same area the first 2 days of practice and (yesterday ran) something different."
> "My run's probably 2 hours one way. It's where I feel I need to be."
Cliff Pace: Insight
> "It's different than what it was in December, and there are some things that have surprised me to say the least. But it is what it is. This really big cold front came through, but I think it's going to start getting better throughout the event, as far as the fishing's concerned."
John Crews thinks the fishing will turn on big-time with this week's warm weather.
> "I only fished one area the first 2 days of practice. I'm not sure where I'm going to start yet."
> "I think these conditions could go either way – help or hurt me. A lot of guys are going to catch fish. It's just going to be a matter of having one of those events where everything goes right and you get the right bites. You're fishing for such a short period of time in some areas, it's hard to know what's going to happen. And these Delta fish are weird. You could pull up today and get 50 bites in 5 minutes, then come back in a week and not have a bite for a couple of hours. So just because you found something this week, there's no guarantees, which can make it very interesting."
> "The wind and everything behind this cold front damaged the water quality I think probably everywhere in the Delta. But that should start getting better."
John Crews: Insight
> "I've gotten a decent number of bites and I feel pretty good about it. It's going to come down to who gets the biggest bites, because I think there's going to be a bunch of fish caught in this Classic. With the warming trend, I think the fish are going to bite pretty good."
> :I don't think they're going to be spawning, but they're going to be moving up to get ready. I don't think they move that far from their winter holes here."
> "I think you could be in a number of different areas and be competitive, because it's supposed to get warm and stay warm and I think that's going to lend itself to a lot of areas being the best they can be."
> "It looks like I have an area chosen, but I'm going to let Wednesday, the last practice day, tell me exactly what to do."
Greg Hackney drove more than he fished the past 3 days and plans to gamble: He'll choose an area based on looks and the knowledge that fish live there.
Greg Hackney: Insight
> "I wouldn't say my practice has been overly productive. It's been so cold that it's kind of got the shock in them right now. I do expect it to get better every day though. I spent more time riding around and looking than fishing the last few days. I fished some, but I've not fished a lot – just seeing how the water looks. The water's real low and real cold. It's probably the coldest it's been all winter, so I think they're shocked pretty good."
> "I haven't seen bait dying, but the bait here is strange. Shad would be really dying right now, but I don't know there's much shad here. It has a lot of different types of bait – finger mullet, menhaden, thousands of different types of bait. It's a bait-rich environment and shad aren't the dominant forage."
> "I really expect everything's going to blow open at one time because this cold weather's over. And I think there are about four distinct areas here that are big-time fish producers and they should all turn on at the same time because of the weather. Some are 2 hours away, some are 45 minutes. Probably one of the areas is going to bunch people up, and then the guys who run the other stuff are going to have an advantage because they'll be able to fish by themselves. But that's all I can say, because the deal right now is it's so easy to fish over them. That's why I spent so much time running and not fishing. I plan to gamble on an area based only on the fact that it looks good and I know they live around there."
