Even though he’s had ample experience on some of the fisheries he and the rest of the Major League Fishing Select field are fishing this week near Hot Springs, Arkansas, Pennsylvania-based pro Dave Lefebre insists he has “little to zero advantage” in the competition.

“If we were here when conditions were normal, maybe it would help that I’ve competed on Lake Ouachita three times and fished Lake Hamilton three or four times, but we’re far from ‘normal’ here this week,” Lefebre says in reference to the mega-high water that has come as the result of an unseasonably wet summer in Arkansas. “I don’t know exactly how far the water has come up, but I bet it’s up in the maple trees. Even a local like Scott Suggs won’t have an advantage, unless they’ve fished here in exactly these conditions, and I’ll bet that they haven’t.”

Furthermore, Lefebre contends that the spotted bass and largemouth in this part of Northern Arkansas behave slightly differently than the same species in other parts of the country.

“The fish in this region just aren’t normal,” he jokes. “The first time I was ever here, Ouachita was a grass-punching lake. Now, all that grass is gone. Arkansas Fish and Game put bugs in the water to eat the grass, and now it’s a rock lake. So now, this area is a cross between fish that have been programmed by nature to that think they want to be in the grass, but there’s no grass. It’s just a very odd situation, and the fish behave oddly.”