SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — As the 35 competitors prepared to fight for the championship trophy at Bass Pro Shops REDCREST Presented by Mercury & Lowrance, the chatter was not about how to get bites on Table Rock Lake. The big question was how to get enough to keep pace in what’s shaping up to be a shootout.
“Honestly, that’s the problem – it’s too good right now,” Spencer Shuffield said. “You can catch them doing everything.”
With all three species of bass (largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass) in all three stages of the spawn, fans are virtually guaranteed to see contrasting styles and strategies on display, plus lots of bass hitting SCORETRACKER®. Throw in a $300,000 top prize, and it should make for a compelling event befitting of a tour championship.
Watch all the action on the MLFNOW! livestream from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT each day through Championship Sunday at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and the Major League Fishing channel on Rumble.
Each species has a shot to win
No one in the field has more experience on Table Rock than Roger Fitzpatrick, who qualified for REDCREST thanks to his win at the Toyota Series Championship on Grand Lake last fall. Yet it took the Missouri native a while during practice to identify what most of the bass are doing. At one point, he caught a “real, real big one” (he guessed the largemouth to be about 8 pounds) that was clearly a prespawn female. Not far away, he landed a 4-pound postspawner.
“That was a fat, prespawn fish,” he said of the first one. “And right before that, about an hour or two before that, I caught a 4-pound largemouth that was completely done – spawned, bloody tail, was out really deep. So, there’s a lot going on.”
No surprise for those familiar with Fitzpatrick’s shallow, power fishing background, he plans to primarily target largemouth, especially during his periods without forward-facing sonar. Same goes for Justin Lucas, although he said he’s also catching some spotted bass (as are most anglers). Zack Birge sampled both the largemouth and spotted bass bites in practice, but he said the spawning spots are tricky to target without forward-facing sonar and not as big on average as the other two species.
“They’re hard to catch unless you can see the target they’re on,” Birge said. “Most of them are on a target of some sort, and without being able to use forward-facing, that becomes a challenge.”
Shuffield, meanwhile, is building his game plan around Table Rock’s smallmouth.
“My main target this week is smallmouth,” he said. “I’m relying really heavily on them. I’ve got probably between about 80 and 100 scorable smallmouth marked on beds.”
All three species have their perks and drawbacks. Largemouth are the biggest on average and typically represent the way to win five-fish-limit tournaments on Table Rock, but it’s hard to find them in big groups, and the areas with the best largemouth habitat will likely attract a lot of pressure. Smallmouth, meanwhile, can be elusive. And while the spotted bass are most prevalent, they’re not as big on average as the other two species. The minimum weight for a scorable bass will be 2 pounds at this event, which Fitzpatrick noted is above average for a Table Rock spot.
“You still catch a lot of those 1-9 to 1-12 Kentuckies,” he said. “Even some of them that are 15 inches that I usually fish for, they don’t weigh 2 pounds.”
The other big decision anglers will have to make is where to fish. It sounds like Table Rock isn’t fishing as big as it sometimes can, with some pros saying there seems to be a springtime turnover affecting part of the lake.
Still, it’s a vast playing field, and Lucas said the best zones he found during practice are spread out. That means he needs to choose the right area to start or waste a lot of time running to another.
“I feel like I have to commit to certain zones and just stay there,” Lucas said. “Which makes it tough, because you have your other areas in the back of your mind. But it’s very time consuming getting around here.”
Many techniques on the table
Given that there are so many fish doing so many different things in Table Rock, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Birge thinks productive baits will run the gamut.
“I’m going to have more rods out on the deck than I prefer,” he said. “But every day has been a little bit different. I caught them on one bait the first day, caught them on something else the second day, and then yesterday, caught them on something totally different.”
Shuffield has his tackle a bit more tightened down. He planned to start Friday morning with only one casting rod on the deck, predicting finesse techniques will dominate the event. Lucas, meanwhile, thinks soft-plastic presentations will be the most popular tools with so many bass on or near spawning beds.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of fish caught on soft-plastics,” Lucas said. “I would venture to say like 80% of the fish that get weighed are going to be on some sort of soft-plastic.”
Then, there’s the question of forward-facing sonar. Just about everyone seemed to think that the top performers are going to need to put together a strong period with the technology while also avoiding a lull when they turn off their transducers.
“You’re going to have to use it to contend, I think,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’m not the best ‘Scoper in the world, but it’s the easiest way for me to catch them right now. So, I know these guys are going to do real well with it.”
Anglers won’t all be chasing suspended bass with jighead minnows during their one period per day with forward-facing sonar period. Some, like Shuffield, will use it to target spawning fish they can’t see with the naked eye. He thinks how productive he can be during that 2 1/2 hours will make or break whether he’s fishing during Sunday’s Championship Round.
“I could potentially catch 20 scorable smallmouth in my ‘Scope period tomorrow, but I could potentially only catch like 10 as well,” he said. “Two-and-a-half hours gets away from you quick.”
However anglers choose to go about it, everyone expects it to take two strong days to make the Top 10 cut and advance to the Championship Round. Guesses for the cut weight ranged from about 60 pounds across the two-day Qualifying Round (per Birge) to 120 pounds or more (from Shuffield).
“You will have to have north of 100 pounds in two days,” Shuffield said. “I think it’s going to be more like 120, 130 to make the Top 10. I hope I’m way off. I hope it’s like 80 pounds. But I don’t see that happening. I mean, this place is phenomenal. For an every-fish format, Table Rock is the place you want to go, because you’re going to catch them. It’s going to be over 100 pounds, and I think to win this thing on Sunday, you’re going to have to have a minimum of 70.”