STRATEGY MOMENT: Starting With a New Playbook for Table Rock V.2

BRANSON, Mo. – You could hear the frustration in Mike McClelland’s voice as he talked about the results of his three days of fishing at the Bass Pro Tour Berkley Stage Six Presented by TrueTimber on Table Rock Lake, Missouri.

“What I was doing – how I was fishing – would’ve been better a week or two from now,” McClelland admitted after finishing 33rd in his Elimination Round on May 20.

Thankfully for the veteran Mercury pro, he’ll get a second shot at his home lake when the Bass Pro Tour returns to Table Rock for the Bad Boy Mowers Stage Seven Presented by Covercraft (May 31-June 5). And for a handful of reasons, Table Rock Part 2 should play out dramatically different than it did just nine days ago, when Mercury pro Aaron Martens hoisted the Stage Six champion’s trophy over his head.

“I’m excited to get another chance, but I know there are a lot of guys who thought they’d do well and it didn’t go like they thought it would go,” McClelland said. “It’ll be awesome to fish a second event on the lake that I love to fish. But it’ll be different – I expect some different things to happen (next week).”

MLF’s decision to move the event from Grand Lake to Table Rock because of flooding was an exercise in nimbleness as the league relocated a major sporting event in an unprecedented amount of time. But just as significant as the logistics of that move is a new set of conditions that will influence how this impoundment of the White River will fish when the first Shotgun Round of Stage Seven begins on Friday.

Top among those factors will be water level and timing.

Water Level Stabilizing

Table Rock was unseasonably high during Stage Six – two-and-a-half feet above typical “summer pool” levels of 916 feet – which kept much of the lake’s bass population tight to the bank and in shallow, flooded cover. Martens ultimately dominated the Championship Round by committing to an offshore bite for post-spawn spotted bass that related to deeper flooded cedar and brush piles, but throughout the six-day competition window of Stage Six, several thousand shallow spotted and largemouth bass showed up on SCORETRACKER®.

With water at 917 feet and falling as Stage Seven practice begins, much of the shallow cover that the field capitalized on will be out of the water.

“Water level is going to be a key this week,” McClelland said. “When there’s as much available cover on the bank as there was (in Stage Six), there’s just that much more reason for fish to remain shallow. We saw it rise a little again on the final day last week, but the lake has fallen and stabilized and should continue to fall. It definitely feels like it’s shaping up for fish to get more into a summertime pattern: trees, brush, boat docks. I’m not saying that there won’t be any fish caught shallow, I definitely don’t think there’ll be as many.”

The Afternoon/Evening Shift

One of the most interesting wild cards for Stage Seven is the altered competition time. Instead of the typical 6:30 a.m. start time, lines are in at 12 p.m. and out at 8 p.m., from the Shotgun rounds to the Knockout Round. That removes the morning shad-spawn bite that carried several competitors through Period 1 last week, and places more emphasis on an afternoon/early evening bite that anglers like Zack Birge and Jordan Lee capitalized on.

“It’ll be interesting swapping the time up to late afternoon and evening,” McClelland admitted. “There’s typically a good late bite. A guy will have the opportunity for schooling action in the evening hours. You get different shadows and shaded banks that late in the afternoon, so we’ll all definitely have to fish it a little differently than we would in the morning. We’re still fishing a couple of rounds (the two Elimination Rounds) on a weekend, so there’ll be a lot of traffic in the middle of the day and less of it in the evening. It’s definitely a situation where you’ll have to see how everything goes and make adjustments as the day goes on.”

Stage Seven begins Friday, May 31 from Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri and continues through Wednesday, June 5. Catch all three periods of action on the MLF NOW! live stream daily beginning noon to 8 p.m. CT, and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. CT for the Championship Round.