GROVE, Okla. — It’s not like the Bassmaster Elite Series anglers are unfamiliar with Grand Lake O’ The Cherokees. It has been the site of two Bassmaster Classics since 2013 and numerous other tournaments in recent years. But no one has seen it like this — low, cold and dirty, especially for late April.
So there’s a cloud of mystery over the four-day Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Elite, which begins Thursday on this 59,000 impoundment in the Ozark Highlands of northwest Oklahoma.
However, the mystery may get solved in a big way this week.
“I think so, without a doubt,” said Edwin Evers, who won the 2016 Bassmaster Classic and lives nearby in Talala, Okla. “I’ve caught some great big ones in practice, but they’re still out there in a wintertime pattern, and they’re white as ghosts. Those are few and far between. But if those fish move up, it could get ugly.”
That’s “ugly” as in big limits, which is why Evers predicts it will take “20 pounds and change” per day to win this tournament.
It should be noted that few tournament anglers, whether they live nearby or not, have experience on Grand Lake in April – under any conditions.
“I’ve always fished it pre-spawn or post-spawn or in the fall,” said Mike McClelland, who won an Elite Series event here in early June 2006. “This is really, really an awkward time for me to be here. Even when I fished local circuits growing up, we always came here pre-spawn or post-spawn.”
Jason Christie of Park Hill, Okla., who finished second to Evers in the 2016 Classic, has lots of experience on Grand Lake in April. But not when the water was at normal pool, which it is now, instead of up in the bushes from springtime rains, not when the water surface temperature was in the mid 50s and not when the lake was both at normal pool and off-color and cold in April.
“Don’t ask me what it’s going to take to win,” said Christie. “I’m still looking for my first fish. It was my worst three days of practice ever. I’m trying to catch them where they’re not.”
You hear that from one angler, and then you hear Kevin VanDam say it will take “19 or 20 pounds a day to win.” VanDam won an Elite Series event here in late June 2007. His winning weight of 78-2 almost matched McClelland’s winning weight of 79-7 the previous year.
“The fish are really fat,” VanDam said. “The majority of them haven’t spawned yet. They want to but that water temperature of 55 to 57 degrees is holding them back. They’d prefer it to be a little warmer, but there are some fish spawning now.”
The dinginess of the water is a particular obstacle for what VanDam would like to do.
“There are so many rock flats here, and the water is so dirty that you can’t see them,” he said. “It’s hard to know where to cast. The fish are scattered all over the flats, and you can’t see that one rock they’re sitting by.”
That’s why you heard the word “random” often in the pre-tournament talk. The pros that have caught big bass in practice, haven’t been able to key on particular shallow pieces of structure.
But several days of sunshine and warm weather are predicted this week. Grand Lake is too good a bass fishery to hold this mystery much longer. As Evers said, “if those fish move up, it could get ugly.”
Wolf Creek Park will be the site of the daily takeoffs (6:15 a.m. CT) and weigh-ins (3:00 p.m. CT).