Only three events remain on the 2023 St. Croix Bassmaster Opens schedule — after Watts Bar this week there will be just two. Three more 2024 Bassmaster Classic qualifications will be decided in the coming weeks.
The winner of each of these last three Opens will qualify, if he or she has fished the previous two Opens in the respective division. If the angler that wins has not competed in all three events in the division, an additional Classic qualifier will advance from the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year points race.
Additionally, at the end of this week, a dozen or so Opens EQ (Elite Qualifier) anglers will find themselves still in contention for one of nine berths into the 2024 Elite Series. With a lot on the line, we caught up with Logan Parks on Monday to see how his official practice has been going.
“It’s a little bit easier to get bites than I thought It would be,” said Parks. “But it’s very hard to catch a keeper.”
A keeper this week on Watts Bar is a solid fish on most places. There’s a 15-inch limit on both spots and largemouth for this week’s event, and a smallmouth must measure more than 18 inches to enter the livewell.
Expectations and predictions
“I didn’t catch a keeper today (Monday). I actually did have a limit yesterday. But I think the day before that I only had two or three (keepers).”
When asked what that limit would have weighed, Parks estimated in the 8- to 9-pound range.
“I think 10 pounds a day will be pretty dang good. I think 13 (pounds) a day, you’d have a pretty good chance winning with that. That’s strong, over three days in a row. I would definitely be happy if I could catch north of 12. At this point, I’d just be happy to get five keepers and work from there.”
Though Parks says he’d be happy with just a limit to start with, don’t mistake that for him deciding to lay up. Parks is in decent position in the points, in 15th place. But he’s far from comfortable and knows he’ll need to finish the year strong to make the Elites.
“I’m just going to give it all I got. I don’t really believe in the whole fishing-for-points, playing-it-safe mindset. I need to win. I need high finishes if I’m going to qualify, based on how everyone’s done this year. The only time I played it safe all season was Day 2 of the St. Lawrence, and it screwed me. So I’m over that. I need to figure out how to catch some keeper smallmouth.”
The lingo this week can be a little misleading. In the same breath Parks stated he’s not playing it safe, but he needs to figure out how to catch “keepers.” That statement alone is very telling for how tough the fishing is and how much of a strain the longer length limits are putting on the anglers.
“You might catch a 3 1/2 and have to throw it back,” remarked Parks, in regards to putting a 17 7/8-inch smallmouth in the boat. In theory, an angler could catch 13 to 14 pounds on Watts Bar and not bring a keeper back to the scales.
And in reality, “laying up” and fishing for a small limit isn’t even an option if Parks wanted it to be, with spots and largemouth needing to be more than 15 inches in length. Those would be 2-pound squeakers to put it into context.
“It’s one of those places where, it’s still the Tennessee River. There are still 3- and 4-pounders and people are going to catch them. And if you fill your limit with pound-and-a-half, pound-and-three-quarter fish, but you’ve got a 4-pounder, shoot you’ve got 12 pounds.”
Lay of the land
Situated in east Tennessee and encompassing some 39,000 acres of water, this Tennessee River fishery looks a little different in comparison to some of the household names that share its headwaters.
“There’s a lot of bluffs. It seems to be a lot steeper than a lot of the Tennessee River lakes. There’s not much to the flats; the ledges are kind of weird. I think they get grouped up out here, but not like they would on Guntersville or Pickwick. A lot of steep banks, very few flats and then there’s like three or four rivers that feed into it. Which is kind of cool. Probably going to go check one of those out tomorrow.”
Parks has some experience fishing Watts Bar, having been here this past spring and having fished the lake one September prior.
“This time, there’s as much grass as I’ve ever seen out here. There’s a ton of grass. All of it really, coontail, hydrilla, milfoil. There’s a lot of that pepper grass too.”
With such an abundance and variety of aquatic vegetation, Parks feels confident this cover will play a big role on Watts Bar.
“I think a lot of guys will catch them out of that shallow grass. I think a lot of guys will catch them out of brushpiles. I think that will be the majority of how they are caught.”
Offshore fishing this week looks like targeting bass related to brush, according to Parks. When asked then if forward-facing sonar would again be the dominant tool of the trade this week, Parks was hesitant to go that far.
“It’s weird because there are so many catfish here. Like crazy amounts of catfish. So I think that kind of hurts the scopers a little bit. It’s hard to get out there and target bass when there are catfish acting like they’re bass out there everywhere.”
That being said, Parks doesn’t doubt some anglers will excel this week looking at their graphs. He just doesn’t believe it will be as influential as we’ve seen most of the year. Instead, this one will be a good old junk-fishing grinder.
“If you’re going down the bank throwing a spinnerbait and there’s a mat, then you better have a frog tied on to throw at that. And if there’s a laydown, you better have a jig to flip on it. If they come up schooling, you better have a Spook tied on. It’s just typical junk fishing. Say your prayers in the morning and hope you get five bites.”
Fall turnover
“The water temps have been steady, like 75/74 in the morning. Gets up to 82/83 in the afternoons. So, it’s still pretty hot. But looks like the cooler weather is coming in. It can’t make it much worse. Hopefully it’ll get some shad fired up or something.”
September typically sees the first few cool nights of the year for this part of the country. And when those cool nights start stacking up, the surface temps drops, that section of the water becomes heavier than that which is below it, and the fall turnover occurs.
This can absolutely decimate a fishery for a short period of time, stirring up sediment and jacking up the oxygen levels. Will this happen this week?
“I’ve seen a thermocline in 25 feet in some places and deeper than that in a lot of places. I think it hasn’t quite cooled off enough, but it is supposed to cool off some. It’ll be interesting to see what’s going to happen with that.”
The story will really start to take shape Thursday, when the Opens anglers take the training wheels off and fire out their first casts. You can follow along with all of the action on Bassmaster.com, including Bassmaster LIVE coverage on the final day (Saturday).
