Lake of the Ozarks Midday Update – Day 2
Top pros are navigating steep temperature drop, challenging bite
It was a fun morning at Lake of the Ozarks … unless you happened to be out on the water fishing on day two of the Costa FLW Series Central Division event presented by Evinrude.
Honestly, the weather could’ve been far worse, as the forecast for rain all morning was wrong, and the precipitation actually quit shortly after takeoff. Still, it was 42 degrees at takeoff, and by the time our on-the-water crew had gotten off, it had warmed up to all of 43 degrees.
The steep temperature drop probably would’ve caused a fog delay, actually, had it not been for gusting winds pushing the fog around and making for quite the eerie scene. In fact, the wind chill seemed to be dipping late in the morning, adding a distinct bite to the air.
Fortunately, the cool down didn’t hurt the water temperatures much. We saw maybe a degree or two drop compared to yesterday. It didn’t seem to hurt the fishing too much, either. Then again, the fishing was pretty tough to begin with.
We ran into a few of the top pros from yesterday, and they were struggling. Fourth-place pro James Watson had none, but to be fair we only watched Watson first thing in the morning, alternating between a buzzbait and spinnerbait around docks in the same small cut as Marcus Sykora. He could’ve improved since then.
Local pro Casey Scanlon only had two keepers just a few minutes before we got off the water.
Greg Bohannan, in second place, spent most of the morning with just one bass in his livewell. A move to some windblown banks ignited his buzzbait bite and led to three quick keepers.
Kenny Young couldn’t wait for the sun to pop out to get his dock pattern going. The bass simply weren’t committing to his popper, and he managed his first tiny keeper while we watched him late in the morning.
We also watched Andy Newcomb catch a solid 2 1/2- to 3-pounder on a buzzbait, though he was surprised the fish wasn’t bigger.
“That’s not the one that should live there,” he said. “That’s a 5-pounder’s spot”
Which tells you the fish are definitely in a bit of a funk, especially the bigger bass.
Still, plenty of small fish are getting caught, with many guys able to catch shorts with ease. Larry Stoafer, Larry Jones, Mike Findley and Chris Williams all caught their fair share of short fish this morning while fishing either the fronts or backs of docks – neither seemed to really stand out, from what we saw – but only Findley had a lone keeper in the box.
With many anglers predicting tomorrow’s bite to be about as tough as possible, the top pros we saw this morning are going to really need to make something happen later on today to stay in range of tournament leader Ladd Shannon. Many anglers yesterday mentioned not having a keeper until noon, and then the afternoon bite turning on. So, we’ll see if that happens again come weigh-in, which starts at 3 p.m. CT.
Tournament details
Format: All boaters and co-anglers will compete for two days. The top 10 boaters and co-anglers based on cumulative weight after two days of competition will advance to the third and final round, with the winner determined by the heaviest cumulative three-day weight.
Takeoff Time: 7 a.m. CT
Takeoff Location: Public Beach #2, 711 Public Beach Road, Osage Beach, Mo.
Weigh-In Time: 3 p.m. CT
Weigh-In Location: Public Beach #2, 711 Public Beach Road, Osage Beach, Mo.