|
Norman, OK
– For those of you too young to remember, the key to Lake Murray hasn't always been chasing big schools of blueback herring around flat points. The roaming baitfish are a recent introduction to the lake.
And the big pond near Columbia wasn't always so devoid of cover. Prior to the early 1990s, it was loaded with deep grass that held big limits of bass.
The Legend, Harold Allen, isn't old, but he's old enough to remember and to have seen the lake change over the years. He fished five BASS events on Murray between 1991 and 2000. Three of them were in March, and were dominated by sight-fishermen, including Fish Fishburne's 93-04 total in 1995. The other two were in October and also produced big catches, but now that he's been there in 2008, he's convinced that it's a different lake altogether.
"It's primarily due to the herring," he said. "They create nomads out of the bass. The bass roam and roam and roam, or else they sit out there and wait for the herring to swim by."
The other change, as noted above, is the eradication of submerged aquatic vegetation. "They sprayed it and put in grass carp," he said.
He fears that with little cover in the lake the fishery might "start to go downhill in three years or so. I can't say it's not going to happen," he said. He believes that dropping water levels might also play a role in any qualitative change.
"Right now the only cover is the bushes in shallow water and the docks. It's always been one of the best dock lakes in the country. There are tons of both floating docks and docks with pilings. It's such a good dock lake that it was always possible to find a pattern within a pattern. It might depend on the depth or where the dock is within a cove or if it's on the main lake. Sometimes the biggest fish will be on the littlest floating docks with pontoon boats tied up to them."
While some competitors did rely on the docks for all or part of their catches, he believes that they would have played a much greater role had the tournament taken place a month or two later.
He'd never fished Murray at such a high level and he feels that the high water, coupled with the prevalence of the bluebacks and the imminence of the shad spawn enabled most of the competitors to remain shallow, even if at times the fish just sat and watched their lures go by.
Given his East Texas roots, the Legend would probably rather fish a grass lake than depend on the erratic herring-based bite. "I enjoy the grass," he said. "It's so good for a fishery. You can pattern fish on it, approach it like a shoreline with distinct guts and contours."
With that said, he recognizes that had he been fishing he would have to learn about the bluebacks' habits in a hurry. With Clarks Hill, Murray and Hartwell on the 2008 schedule, no one can slide by without learning about them and hope to survive. He believes that the fishermen in the Carolinas and North Georgia have gotten a leg up on the competition, but that everyone else is being forced to catch up.
"It's a timing deal. Those guys on Lanier, it drives them crazy. You'll have fish on brushpiles in 18 to 25 feet of water and then they'll disappear to follow the baitfish. You can't just go to a spot and set up. Very few of us can do that waiting game. You have to have numerous places and be there at the right time of day and understand how they relate to those little flat points. All the little variables affect them, like shade and wind, so even if you find the right little point in front of a spawning bay, you have to repeat your places over and over to get it in front of them."
|
.jpg)