WACO, Texas — Any fan of tournament bass fishing knows all about Toledo Bend and Sam Rayburn. Falcon Lake and Lake Amistad each have special spots in the sport’s history, and Lake Fork has been perhaps the most consistent giant-largemouth factory in the country over the past 30 years.
But when the Bass Pro Tour heads to Texas Thursday through Sunday for Champion Teamwear Stage 3 Presented by MillerTech, it won’t visit any of those famous destinations. Instead, the 51-angler field will take on two fisheries that have never hosted tour-level events: Lakes Whitney and Waco. Lake Whitney will host the two-day Qualifying Round, and the anglers who advance to the Knockout and Championship Rounds will fight for the $125,000 top prize on Waco.
The field isn’t going in completely blind. Each fishery hosted a round of the 2021 Heritage Cup, so a handful of pros have at least spent a day on them (including Ott DeFoe, who won that event). Plus, Alton Jones and Alton Jones Jr. live near Waco and know both fisheries well.
Still, the lack of history should add intrigue to what’s shaping up to be a diverse event with the potential to produce some Texas-sized lunkers.
Two different tests
Adding to the puzzle anglers will have to solve at Stage 3 is the fact that, even though they’re only separated by about 50 miles, Whitney and Waco set up completely different.
“They will fish differently, which is going to be one of the real interesting things,” Jones Sr. said. “A guy is not going to be able to figure them out on Whitney and then say, ‘oh, it’s going to translate to Waco.’ Because it’s not.”
An impoundment of the Brazos River, Whitney is a highland reservoir with cleaner water, steeper contours and lots of rock. The younger Jones described Waco, on the other hand, as a “mud hole.”
“I don’t mean that in the sense that there’s no bass there, but it’s fairly dirty water, gradual contours and just a few rather silty rivers that pour into it,” Jones Jr. explained.
While Whitney has some wood cover in the form of timber, laydowns and docks, anglers will primarily be targeting various forms of rock, from bluffs to boulders to gravel to sand. Waco holds all largemouth, but Whitney boasts a solid number of smallmouth. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife fisheries biologist Michael Baird, Whitney has the fifth-largest smallmouth population of any Texas lake, and he expects to see brown fish up to 4 pounds hitting SCORETRACKER® at this event.
At Waco, meanwhile, the name of the game will likely be shallow cover. Jones said the lake recently returned to full pool after being low for a few years. The bushes and terrestrial vegetation that grew in the meantime are now flooded, offering bass plenty of habitat.
“Waco, I think, is going to be a full-on, big line, thick cover, ripping your wrap off getting through the trees type place,” Jones Jr. said.
Those differences will exacerbate the conundrum BPT pros always face when an event is split between two fisheries: Where to practice. The good news is neither fishery is huge – Whitney covers about 23,000 acres, while Waco is about 8,000. For reference, Lake Hartwell, which just hosted Stage 2, spans 56,000 acres on its own.
However, given that so few pros in the field have experience on the fisheries, Jones Jr. expects most anglers to devote the bulk of their three days of official practice to Whitney to give themselves the best chance to make the Knockout Round, then try to break down Waco on the fly if they make it.
“I think three-quarters of our field is going to play the safe game, which is going to be spending most, if not all, of your practice on Lake Whitney,” he said. “And then let the cards fall where they may on Waco.”
Shallow bite should be on
It’s been a warm start to spring so far in Texas – much to the dismay of both Joneses. The younger Jones thinks there will already be some fish on spawning beds (especially on Waco, which usually runs about three weeks ahead of Whitney), but he expects prespawn bass to dominate.
He believes that lessens any local advantage he and his father might have enjoyed, as the fish are more likely to be spread around the shallows and holding near obvious cover than stacked up on offshore staging spots.
“When it’s colder and fish are staging, you can lean on a lot of history,” Jones Jr. explained. “Fish tend to group up, especially on Lake Whitney, on the same spots every year. Once you understand the stage that the fish are in, you can kind of run a pattern. But as it gets warmer, the fish go from prespawn to starting to think about spawn, and they’re going to spread out a lot. Which, as a local, that basically zeroes my advantage.
“For me, I wish we were in an ice storm. But for everyone else, I think it’ll set up for a better show.”
Jones Jr. expects to see a lot of cranking around the rocky banks of Whitney with some finesse tactics mixed in. A few anglers might even find a topwater bite. At Waco, he’s anticipating a heavy dose of power fishing – flipping, spinnerbaits, swim jigs and the like.
He thinks a few pros will be able to use forward-facing sonar to their advantage during their one allotted period per day on Whitney, but he’s not expecting the technology to be a difference-maker at this event. Nor is he expecting to see many bass caught on jighead minnows.
“Whitney has a really, really high population of (striped bass),” he explained. “So, the bass there don’t tend to just get out on the bait and float around. You can catch some at times here doing that, but your efficiency is very low, because you’re throwing at things that aren’t bass. I think you’re going to see shallow, Neko rig type ‘Scoping. Dice baits might really play. I honestly expect forward-facing to not play as heavily at this event – which it really hasn’t played heavily this year, yet. I think at Whitney it will be a player; on Waco, I really don’t expect it to be a player at all.”
While Waco and Whitney might not have the reputation of some of Texas’ more famous bass factories, Baird expects to see solid catch rates at this event with the potential for a few lunkers to show up. He said the water level is currently “excellent” at both fisheries and predicted top performers could catch as many as 30 to 40 scorable bass a day. Jones Jr. guessed that it’ll take about 70 pounds across two days on Whitney to make the Top 25 and advance to the Knockout Round.
Both predicted the number of scorable bass that hit SCORETRACKER® might not be as great on Waco, but there’s better potential to catch a giant.
“Given the current conditions, double-digit fish are very possible,” Baird said via email. “Whitney might produce more fish, but Waco could steal the show with quality. According to one local angler who has fished these reservoirs all his life, ‘These lakes are on fire.’”
Don’t miss any of the action
All four days of competition will be streamed live on MLFNOW! from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT. Watch the action at MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and the Major League Fishing channel on Rumble.