Preview: Texoma Sudden Death
For the Sudden Death portion of the MLF Summit Select being held out of Ardmore, Okla., Select pros are headed to Lake Texoma. The lake is aptly name due to its location on the Texas-Oklahoma state borders.
Texoma is a massive sprawling impoundment of some 90,000 acres with about 600 miles of shoreline. If some of the lake were not located in Texas, Texoma would rival Lake Eufaula as the biggest lake in the state of Oklahoma.
As with most MLF events held on large public lakes, Texoma will be cut down to a specific zone for the anglers. The zone for Sudden Death will be located on the Glasses and Little Glasses branches near Kingston, Okla. The southern boundary of the zone will be just south of Alberta Creek and the western boundary will near Aylesworth at the mouth of the Washita River. This leaves notable areas such as Glasses and Little Glasses Creeks, Catfish Bay, Willow Springs, Hog Pen Point, Alberta Creek, the railroad bridge and the Roosevelt Memorial Bridge (Hwy. 70) in play. The entire zone encompasses 8,600 acres.
The cut weight for the day has been set at 22 pounds. The first three pros to reach the 22-pound mark will move on to the Championship Round while the other three anglers will be eliminated for the week.
As the pros fishing the first half of Sudden Death roll into Little Glasses Resort and Marina for their launch, they begin to process the given playing field for the day. Immediately, the first topic of discussion becomes a previous BASS Elite Series event held at Lake Texoma in June of 2016. Pros in today’s Sudden Death Round who fished that Elite event are quick to begin studying the map to figure out if their experience in the Elite overlaps with the official zone for the day.
MLF Select first timer Jordon Lee, who finished 9th in that Texoma Elite Series event, does not seem to recognize anything he sees in this portion of the lake.
“Nothing looks familiar to me right off the bat, mostly because the water in that Elite was so high,” Lee recalled. “The lake looks to be at a fairly normal level right now, but it was considerably higher in that event.”
When asked about the 22-pound cut weight, Lee said it sounded pretty stout to him.
“I did pretty well in that Elite event here and I don’t really remember catching anything that special – maybe 13 or 14 pounds a day. A couple of guys might reach 22 pounds by the end of the third period, but I don’t think three will go out before the end of the day.”
Chris Lane finished 40th at the Elite event two years ago and he was also having trouble recognizing where he was on Texoma.
“I don’t really know where I’m here,” Lane said as he studied his map. “But you have to remember, this is a huge lake, and we’re only on a tiny portion of it here.
“It doesn’t matter, though, because this lake has fish in it everywhere. This lake is well known and gets a lot of fishing pressure. With it being Thursday, there might not be as many folks out here fishing today.”
Lane, too, felt the 22-pound target weight was a little rich.
“I’m sure there is a good shad spawn going on right now somewhere here,” he said. “If one or two guys land on a shad spawn, they might be out of here quick. But if no one gets the shad bite going first thing, we’re probably going to here a while.”
South Carolina pro Marty Robinson knew exactly where he was on Texoma. He fished water in this very zone to help him to a 24th place finish in the Elite Series event.
“This is a good part of the lake; it’s got a lot of good cover in the water.” Robinson said. “When we fished here before it was really high; it looks more normal now, so there may not be as much cover in the water, but it’s still a good zone – we could be stuck in worse places on this lake than here, that’s for sure.”
Robinson’s plan for ride through included looking for birds on the bank that might give away the location of spawning shad.
“That shad bite is going to be the ticket out of here,” he added. “Catching 15 or 16 pounds on an early shad spawn is going to going to give a guy a huge head start in reaching 22 pounds.”