With the kickoff of the 2020 FLW Pro Circuit coming up January 23 on Sam Rayburn, we've put together previews of every stop of the regular season. Below you'll find an overload of information on the fisheries, prospective patterns and anglers to watch throughout every minute of the season.
Sam Rayburn has a reputation as a phenomenal bass fishery and a giant in the tournament world. At more than 114,000 acres, it’s the largest reservoir contained entirely within the borders of the Lone Star State. The Angelina River feeds Rayburn, which sprawls out into a typical Texas lowland impoundment that features timber, bushes, submerged hydrilla, plenty of bank vegetation, and, of course, lots of legendary Texas “drains” or ditches that are renowned for producing giant bass.
One of the most fun places FLW visits, the Harris Chain is a collection of lakes in central Florida that includes Lake Harris, Lake Apopka, Lake Griffin, Lake Eustis, Lake Dora, Lake Carlton, Horseshoe Lake, Little Lake Harris, Lake Denham and Lake Beauclair. In all, the pros have the run of 10 lakes, plus the myriad residential canals, rivers and backwaters that spread out off of them.
Alabama has no shortage of famous fisheries that lie within its borders, and while Martin doesn’t get the kind of attention given to the Tennessee River, Lewis Smith, Eufaula or Coosa River, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a solid fishery. Martin supports a healthy population of both spotted bass and largemouths, with spotted bass being more plentiful and the largemouths providing the better quality.
We learned last year during the FLW Pro Circuit event that Cherokee is a phenomenal place to catch smallmouth bass, but it also touts a solid population of largemouth and spotted bass. The overall bass numbers can be attributed to the excellent forage base found in the lake, which includes shad, alewives, crappie, bluegills and crawfish.
Built on the Savannah, Tugaloo and Seneca rivers on the border of South Carolina and Georgia, Lake Hartwell is a fairly typical example of a Southeastern spotted bass and largemouth fishery. Though there are shad and bream, the primary forage is blueback herring. Hartwell has very little vegetation outside of flooded dog fennel, and the primary cover types are docks, rock, shoreline wood, brush and cane piles.
Dardanelle isn’t a traditional Arkansas reservoir in that a good portion of the lake fishes much like a river system. The upper end of the reservoir is extremely riverine in nature with ample backwaters, sloughs, vegetation and current. The lower end does offer some deeper water with offshore fishing opportunities. There’s plenty of manmade cover in the form of docks and riprap banks, plus flooded strip pits that offer unique habitat for bass.
Though the Pro Circuit finale takes off from the Detroit River, that’s hardly the only place the pros will be fishing. Takeoff is near the southern mouth of the river, giving pros easy access to the west end of Lake Erie. At the other end of the river is Lake St. Clair, which has been home to some of the most epic smallmouth beatdowns on record in recent years.