EUFAULA, Ala. – Through two days of practice for the B&W Trailer Hitches Stage One Presented by Power-Pole, the Bass Pro Tour field has had two opponents: Lake Eufaula and Mother Nature.
While Eufaula has shown signs of cooperating, – anglers’ personal social media and spot reports confirmed some good Chattahoochee River bass showing up for some of the field – the South Alabama weather has not. The National Weather Service posted flash flood and tornado watches early Thursday morning, and the final day of practice went on under wet, windy conditions.
How that will affect the fishing for Qualifying Day 1 on Friday is still a guess. Here are a few practice notes from the field as competition is set to kick off the 2020 season Friday morning:
“It was brutal for me, and I’m not overly optimistic,” Murray said. “Out of all of the fish I caught, only one was above the 2-pound minimum. The bad weather during practice limited the areas that you could fish, so I am just going to pick an area and fish hard.”
“It’s constantly changing, both the water level and with water clarity with all of the weather we have had,” Clausen said. “But there are still a fair number of fish biting. There are only so many ways to catch them in these conditions, so I doubt that I will have more than a half-dozen rods on my deck all week.”
“It’s not as easy as I hoped it would be,” Thrift began. “I was excited to be coming here and thought I would have gotten more bites.”
“I only practiced six hours total for the two days, I wasn’t going to go out in the storms and lightning,” Montgomery said. “The fishing would have been really good if we didn’t get so much water coming in. Normally, fishing gets better as the water stabilizes, so it should be tough for a few days and pick up as the week goes on.”
“The weather didn’t help us during practice, but I have narrowed it down to a few things,” Roumbanis started. “I spent all of practice focusing on ways to get bigger bites because I am also looking ahead to the ‘Heavy Hitters’ event and making sure I qualify for that event. You can’t get behind already, and there should be some big fish weighed this week.”