Time to pull a hog from a hat
Bass fishing on Sam Rayburn Lake unpredictable lately
JASPER, Texas – It’s a safe bet that none of the 202 pros who launched on Sam Rayburn Lake Thursday for the second Stren Series Texas Division tournament of the season has an iron-clad game plan.
The weather has been too fickle, the water too cool and the bass too unpredictable for anybody to lock down a pattern and hang with it all day. At least that was the conventional wisdom in the predawn darkness Thursday, when Carolina rigs, crankbaits and swimbaits were all seen rigged and ready in anglers’ boats.
How many pounds it will take to top the leaderboard is anybody’s guess. Anglers can weigh five bass measuring at least 14 inches or longer.
Normally, a good one-day weight on Sam Rayburn is in the 20s. Yet last week, a one-day Walmart BFL tournament was won here with 15 pounds, 10 ounces. That sack didn’t have a single hog, for which the lake is famous.
Blame the weather and specifically the water temperature. A cold front last week pushed the bass off the beds and back into deeper water. The water temperature has warmed into the 60s the past few days, but it’s fallen back into the 50s at night. Fish are moving in and out of the shallows in random patterns.
The magic water temperature at which the lake turns on is a steady 63 degrees, said Larry Matthews of League City, Texas, who has a trailer in a nearby RV park and calls Sam Rayburn his home water. He said he struggled during the prefishing period and that he wasn’t alone.
“There aren’t many females on the beds,” said Matthews, a newcomer to Stren Series competition this year. “We had a short spawn two weeks ago, but none of the sows were in yet. We’re all hoping that, today and tomorrow, they’ll start moving in.”
And if they don’t, can another lighter-than-average winning weight be expected?
“No, somebody will find ’em,” Matthews said. “There will be some 25- to 30-pound sacks. To make the top 50, you better have 20 pounds a day.”
That is what Dicky Newberry of Houston had on the final day to win here last year. Newberry weighed bags in the high teens during the first three days before icing his victory with a 24-pound bag on the final day.
At the launch today, Newberry said he saw at least 100 fish in the shallows during the last couple hours of Wednesday’s prefishing. Yet he wasn’t pumped when he headed out this morning.
“I’m not a sight-fisherman,” Newberry explained. “I don’t have the patience to sit on ’em. I was hoping they would stay out staged, where I could use a Carolina rig or a Rat-L-Trap.”
Newberry said he found 66-degree water Wednesday, when the air temperature reached a high of 79. Today it’s predicted to hit 84, so a well-timed warming trend might arrive.
The water level at Sam Rayburn is lower than normal, as this part of eastern Texas is about 8 inches shy of normal rainfall. Yesterday’s pool was measured at 159.32 feet. Full pool is 164.4, meaning that shoreline cover where bass usually spawn is dry.
Logistics
The tournament is being staged at the Umphrey Family Pavilion on Route 255. Launch is at 7 a.m. daily and weigh-in is at 3 p.m. daily.
Pros and co-anglers are fishing for top cash awards of $65,000 and $30,000, respectively, if all contingencies are met. The full field will fish for the first two days, after which the top 10 pros and top 10 co-anglers will advance to Saturday’s final round.
Today’s weather
High: 84 degrees
Low: 55 degrees
Sky: sunshine with a few afternoon clouds
Winds: N at 5 to 10 mph
Temperature at takeoff: 48 degrees
Sunrise: 7:20 a.m.
Sunset: 7:28 p.m.