Scroggins and Myers detail a stormy weekend at Oklahoma’s Lake Eufaula

EUFAULA, Okla. – Team Toyota’s Terry “Big Show” Scroggins and his longtime touring roommate Britt Myers have 38 years of combined pro angling experience, but neither of them can recall a weekend on the road full of life-threatening weather like they faced this past weekend during practice for MillerTech Stage Four Presented by REDCON1 at Oklahoma’s Lake Eufaula.

“Neither of us had ever been to Eufaula, Oklahoma, in our lives, and the first day of practice on this 108,000-acre lake was full of 20 mph winds, waves that were 3 feet tall, and a trip to the tornado shelter that night,” Scroggins says.

Not exactly the kind of weather the local hosts hoped would greet their pro angling guests, but it’s late April; it’s Oklahoma, and tornadoes are unfortunately a challenging part of life in the region each spring. 

“Around midnight after the first day of practice, our cell phones started going crazy with tornado alerts, so we jumped in my Tundra and joined about 15 local residents in the tornado shelter,” Myers details. 

It was a rough night. Nobody was hurt. No Toyota Tundras or high-performance bass boats were damaged, but the weather was far from pleasant. Roughly 17 hours later, several anglers captured cell phone video footage of a tornado hanging over the lake as they wrapped up Sunday’s practice. 

“Guys were calling each other saying to run for shelter,” Myers recounts. “It was nuts. Sure enough, before long, we were all running back to this tornado shelter again.” 

Scroggins says he’s seen terrible storms on Table Rock in Missouri and a tornado that once crossed the opposite end of where he was fishing on Guntersville in Alabama, but he’s never been summoned to a tornado shelter twice in one weekend. 

“We’re dealing with a lot right now on Eufaula,” Scroggins says. “First off, most of us have never fished here. On top of that, we’ve been in a tornado shelter twice while the water got crazy muddy and rose 4 feet. But as much as anything, you’ve had to get a grip on when it’s time to run for cover.”

That’s a variable nobody – including the sport’s top anglers – want to make a habit of trying to figure out. 

Surely the weather and fishing conditions will stabilize far better by the event’s conclusion on Sunday, and more than anything, Scroggins and Myers hope they won’t find themselves back in the tornado shelter for a third time.