What a crazy spring it’s been. While wet and cold has been the norm in the southeast, the Upper Midwest has been incredibly dry and warm. In fact, here in Minnesota we just experienced the second-warmest April on record.

Here’s a vivid example of what I’m talking about. Before leaving the Twin Cities to cover the FLW Tour qualifier in Knoxville, I took my beagle for a walk around a small local lake. I knew the weather had been warm so I decided to bring my sight-fishing glasses just in case. (Is this normal?)

A few minutes into the walk I spotted what I thought was a vacant largemouth bed. I could see the silt had been finned away but no fish or eggs were present. Another few steps and I saw a 2-pound largemouth locked on. In total, I saw five bass spawning that day. Keep in mind the calendar said mid-April and our fish aren’t supposed to spawn until mid-May.

Meanwhile, I heard several practice reports that the main wave hadn’t come up yet on Loudoun-Tellico. How is that possible I thought? Knoxville is over 600 miles south of the Twin Cities. Naturally I assumed they were wrong. It just didn’t make any logical sense. But per usual, the FLW Tour pros were dead on with their migration assessments.

Even crazier is that Rob Newell, an FLWOutdoors.com contributing editor, was catching bedding largemouths on Lake Seminole, which straddles the Georgia-Florida line, the same week I was seeing these Twin Cities fish .

That’s just not right.

When thinking about our weird weather I can’t help but look back a few years to when Lake Lanier was announced as the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup site. At the time, the big joke in the industry was that you had to have water to hold a bass tournament. Lanier was in dire shape with water levels reaching record lows. Ramps were closed all around the lake and boat access was nearly impossible.

Two years later Lanier is sitting pretty – a few inches above full pool to be exact. And while we Minnesotans were basking in surplus, our lakes are now over 2 feet low. Unless we get some heavy rainfall, boat access could be a real problem in the near future. I guess what goes around comes around.