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Norman,
OK - Another Elite Series event, another slugfest. The plot stays the same for another week. Or does it? Unlike the Florida and Texas events, where Florida strain bass were the target, or the Carolinas, where bluebacks were the story, the big catches at Wheeler were a surprise, especially after many of the 108 pros cried the blues about meager catches during practice.
Not only were the weights larger than in years past, but numerous anglers reported catching triple digit numbers of bass each day. Are today’s pros that much better than their predecessors, or were there additional factors at play?
Harold Allen fished four BASS events at Wheeler, in 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2001, respectively. He finished between 33rd and 52 in all of them (three had fields of 150, one had a field of 100), but never even weighed in 30 pounds over three days. In fact, in the 1999 event, he finished 39th with 15-10, and it only took 41-06 for Marty Stone to claim the victory. Those figures would’ve been on page two of the standings this year.
The weights weren’t extraordinary in any of those prior events. In March 1995, Bud Pruitt won with 63-01. In March 1999, Stone won with just over 41, as noted above. In May 2000, Art Ferguson won with 53-05. And in the Legend’s last Wheeler derby, in March of 2001, Kelly Jordon claimed first place with 59-01. Allen has definite opinions as to why the catches spiked this year.
“There were a few main reasons for the turnaround,” he said. “First, the grass is coming back real good. Second, they’ve had some high water conditions which is always good, and produced a couple of real good spawns. The lake just seems more fertile in general.”
The grass is not everywhere, he said, noting that he graphed some areas he’d fished in the past and not found any, but it is most prevalent on the Decatur Flats, which he believes has always been the most productive area of the lake.
“But when we were there, all we had to fish were the stumps or maybe some rocks.”
A veteran East Texas grass fisherman is likely to be partial to submerged aquatic vegetation, but he pointed out that the Tennessee River chain of lakes clearly demonstrates the value of grass to a fishery.
“The Tennessee River chain is a great chain of lakes and when they have grass they’re strong, but when they don’t have grass they can be very hard to figure out.”
Wheeler has also long lived in the shadow of its neighbor, the Big G. Has it risen to the level of Guntersville or even passed it?
“It has a little ways to go, but it’s not far off,” he opined. “We would’ve seen a lot more anglers catch 20 pound stringers there, even if they may not have duplicated that the next day.”
He believes that two other factors may have contributed to the substantial number of high-performing pros:
First, this was the first time he could remember that they fished the lake this far into the post-spawn: “When they get into that early summer pattern they’re a bit more congregated,” he said.
Additionally, without denigrating the competence of any of the current pros, he said that current technology has given them a boost.
“They have GPS now with Navionics chips. Even just a few years ago we had to find the offshore stuff with a depthfinder, line up on it and drop a buoy. Now it’s a no-brainer to fish the offshore structure.”
That last factor makes it particularly tough for him to serve as a spectator and commentator rather than a competitor:
“All year long it’s been a worm bite offshore, which is what I love to do. It’s tough to sit there and watch them, even though I enjoy watching them out there on the drops.”
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