Stage set for shallow spring showdown on Oklahoma’s Lake Eufaula

EUFAULA, Okla. – After a short break, the Bass Pro Tour season is set to resume Tuesday through Sunday on Lake Eufaula for MillerTech Stage Four Presented by REDCON1.  

If you’ve followed tournament fishing for a while, it’s probably not the Eufaula that first came to mind. 

Rather than Lake Eufaula in Alabama, which has hosted a pair of BPT events (including REDCREST 2021), the 79-angler field is heading to Lake Eufaula in eastern Oklahoma. The sprawling, 100,000-plus acre reservoir hasn’t hosted nearly as many national tournaments as its Chattahoochee counterpart, but a Tackle Warehouse Invitationals event on the fishery last spring showed that it’s worthy of more tournament traffic.  

The Bass Pro Tour’s arrival should further bolster that reputation. Local anglers believe this is one of the best times of year to fish Eufaula, especially for those seeking a break from the forward-facing sonar, minnow-shaking program that has dominated the year to this point.

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A large, labyrinthine playing field

For most of the BPT field, this will mark their first time competing on Eufaula. Not only will they face the challenge of breaking down new water, but a whole lot of it. 

Eufaula’s defining characteristic is its size. The largest lake in Oklahoma, it’s fed by three major rivers (the Canadian, North Canadian and Deep Fork) plus several smaller creeks, many of which wind their way into remote, shallow backwaters anglers can explore — if they can get there.

Oklahoma native James Elam said the lake’s breadth combined with its navigational hazards will make it impossible for anglers to lay eyes on the entire playing field during the three-day practice period. While there can be long stretches of unproductive water on the lake, causing it to fish crowded at times, Elam thinks the potential exists for a few anglers to find productive areas and have them all to themselves. 

“It’s such a big lake,” he said. “It’s impossible to cover the whole lake. So, there will be some guys that pick the right places to go and find something special, I’m sure.” 

As for habitat, fellow Oklahoman Zack Birge said Eufaula has “a little bit of everything, minus grass.” The lake is best known for its shallow, hard cover – tons of rock, shallow wood and boat docks – but has plenty of offshore elements like brushpiles and channel swings, too.  

With so much water and so many types of cover to dissect, Birge said the biggest challenge for anglers might be figuring out where to start. 

“You can literally run an hour one way and catch fish or an hour the other way and catch fish, and it’s kind of a toss-up on where it’s going to be won,” he said. “Guys can definitely get away from one another, and it’s not like guys are going to be ganged up on one patch of grass and that’s where it’s going to be won.” 

Despite the fishery’s novelty and size, Birge and Elam don’t believe the three Oklahoma natives in the field (Birge, Elam and Edwin Evers) or the 19 anglers who also competed in the Invitationals event last April will have a significant advantage. Birge said being familiar with the lake might allow him to expand a pattern more quickly than others, but with most of the bass expected to be in some phase of the spawn, they should be fairly predictable and accessible. 

“I don’t feel like I have a local advantage here, fishing-wise, to be able to catch a ton more fish or anything like that,” Birge said. “I just feel like, if anything, I can pick up on something quicker and know where to go or what to change and how to do it and where to go with it maybe a little bit quicker.” 

Weather watch

The variable that will likely have the biggest impact on where the event is won is the weather. According to local anglers, the fishing on Eufaula can be particularly susceptible to weather events and changes in water conditions. 

For one thing, the fishery’s generally stained water can turn to chocolate milk in a hurry. And with thunderstorms in the forecast for the days leading up to the event, Birge thinks there’s a chance some areas will become too muddy to fish – and those areas could change by the day as the muddy water flows through the reservoir. 

That said, there could also be an advantage to the spring storms. If the lake level gets to about 586 feet (it’s at 585.23 as of this writing), Birge said the flipping bite can be excellent. 

“When Eufaula gets up … it gets really good in the bushes,” he said. “And the way everything is setting up right now, as shallow as a bunch of fish are around here, it could turn into a flipping and frogging tournament and guys just chunking and winding the bank like we’re kind of used to.  

“Now, that also means that if we do get the rain, that a lot of the water that can be good will get muddy, and that will kind of shrink the lake down a little bit, as well. So, it’s kind of a Catch-22 with having an influx of water on the lake.” 

Anglers won’t just be keeping a close eye on the water level, but the wind as well. As those who competed in the Invitationals event last spring experienced firsthand, a strong breeze can transform the lake into a wave pool; making certain areas virtually unfishable and running from one spot to another challenging. As of now, winds are forecast to top 10 miles per hour each of the final four days of the event. 

“When you do get a windy day, moving around that lake is just harder to do,” Elam said. “It’s harder to run and gun when you’ve got the big wind.” 

Return of the shallow staples?

So far this season, it hasn’t mattered the type of fishery, target species, time of year or conditions – the jighead minnow is undefeated. While both Birge and Elam figure a handful of anglers will look to utilize the technique in conjunction with forward-facing sonar, they expect most to employ more traditional springtime tactics. 

“I really do feel like it’s going to be a wide variety of stuff,” Birge said. “I don’t think it’s going to be anything like we saw at Dale Hollow. I feel like it will be a lot more like just a normal event where guys can fish shallow, they can fish their strengths. They can fish offshore and catch some fish, too — brushpiles and all that. But I don’t think it’s going to be dominated that way.” 

“I think this will be a straight power-fishing event,” Evers said. “I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of the jighead minnow-type stuff that we’ve been seeing. I think it’s going to be a lot of spinnerbaits, crankbaits, a jig – just your typical power-fishing type baits. There will probably be quite a bit of sight-fishing going on as well, so I think it will be a really fun tournament with plenty of options.” 

The results from last year’s Invitationals stop support those predictions. BPT pro Kelly Jordon won by winding a squarebill crankbait and bladed jig along staging points. Jigs, spinnerbaits and shaky heads were also well represented among the top baits.  

Expect similar shallow-water, power techniques to play this time around, plus perhaps some more flipping and wacky-worming for spawning bass. Birge expects to find quite a few bass on beds, although it remains to be seen whether it will be enough for anglers to solely sight-fish across the six-day event. Elam guessed anglers will have to find multiple patterns, mixing and matching spawning fish with pre- or postspawners. 

“We’ve kind of had a weird spring,” he said. “It got warm early. We didn’t have one of those springs where it was really cold, and then all of a sudden it got warm, and a big bunch of fish flooded the banks. So, there’s probably going to be fish in all stages.” 

As far as how much weight it might take to qualify for the Knockout Round, Championship Round and hoist the trophy, Birge and Elam both said they have no real idea. With no past high-level tournaments utilizing the Bass Pro Tour’s every-fish-counts scoring on the fishery, competitors will have to use SCORETRACKER® to assess where they stand in real time. 

“I have no idea,” Elam said. “But 25 pounds a day is always a pretty good predictor when you don’t know, to make the cut.”