Toyota Series Championship gets started on Guntersville

GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. – As 194 boats fan out across legendary Lake Guntersville for Day 1 of the Toyota Series Championship Presented by A.R.E., all the anglers are hoping they’ve managed to figure out a tricky fall bite just enough to get things rolling in the right direction. Always a good tournament fishery, Guntersville is never easy in the fall, and 20-pound bags are not typically commonplace like they are in the spring and early summer.

This week, the vibe from competitors and locals alike reflects that challenge, with things decidedly mixed. Alex Davis, who guides on Guntersville and Lewis Smith Lake, has mostly been guiding on Smith of late. When he has been on G-Ville, he likes to punch and frog, but the numbers haven’t been as good as he knows they can be. Meanwhile, there are some reports of good offshore action from anglers like Nick Hatfield, and also good news on the flipping side from pros like Rick Harris.

Flipping up a few big bags in a row like Kyle Walters did in 2018 is definitely on the table, but it sounds like there will be plenty of other techniques (and maybe more than largemouth) in play as well. So, stay tuned for a good one, as the best of the Triple-A ranks battle it out for more than $200,000.

Anderson isn’t banking on the grass

A Tennessee River veteran, Brent Anderson has enjoyed a good amount of success in the fall on Kentucky Lake and is no stranger to Guntersville.

“It’s typical fall on the Tennessee River,” Anderson said. “A lot of schoolers that are hard to catch, but there are some big ones in them. If someone figures out how to catch them, they’ll do really well.

“My better days have been just junk fishing, a bunch of rods on the deck, going, and throwing at anything that looks good,” he said. “I’m fishing differently than I’ve ever fished on Guntersville.”

According to Anderson, the mat bite is not as productive as it should be due to pressure and bum luck on the weather side of things.

“A lot of the mats have blown away, what mats are left, well, it’s like musical mats out there. I’d rather go fish for 13 or 14 pounds and not see many boats than go grind with everybody else, to be honest.

“It’s bad timing, I talked to a few guys before off-limits, and it was lights-out, frogging and punching three weeks ago,” he said. “Some of the guys that really know the place said it was as good as they’ve seen it in a long time. When we got in here for practice, a lot of the mats were gone. That happens a lot, the good mats are already dead underneath, but they’re trapped inside the growing grass. Then, the first few cold fronts knock that down, and a big wind will blow it away. I’ve seen 500-yard mats disappear overnight, so I wasn’t surprised by it.”

Naturally, if you drop 190 boats on mats that have recently shrunk dramatically in size, you’ve got a recipe for a tough bite on the old standby patterns.

This week, Anderson says he’s planning on fishing for limits away from the crowd. But, in his past wins, taking a risk for big fish has been a hallmark of his style, and it might be the winning strategy this week.

“You can’t count anything out in the fall, I’ve always tried a lot of different things,” he said. “Then, once I catch a big fish or two, I do it. You look at my fall results, and they are hero or zero, and for a lot of those zeroes, I thought I could catch big fish.”

Howell hopes his timing, movements are right

Local young gun Laker Howell has his sights firmly set on the top prize worth upwards of $200,000. But to do so, he’ll not only need to beat out the rest of the field, but he’ll have to beat more of those boats than he would like to his juice. Howell feels confident with what he found in practice this week, but he has a strong inkling that he’s not alone.

“There’s a lot of schoolers and I think a lot of people found the same fish,” Howell said. “There’s definitely going to be a lot of boat rotation. The person who wins this deal is going to be the person that makes the best decisions based on timing.”

For Howell, timing has less to do with the time of the day and more to do with how an angler is going to manage movement between their spots. Stay too long at one, you could get beat to your second or third spot. Leave too early, and you may be giving up on the winning deal. Luckily, Howell thinks there are plenty to be caught in the grass, and there’s still a lot of grass out there.

“The fish never leave the areas, there’s 100 fish on a spot that has good grass,” Howell said. “You have to know how to time it out right about when to leave, come back and jump your spots you have marked. I have enough areas to run around, but you know how that goes in a big tournament like this. We’ll see.”