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Eufaula: Social media roundup

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Captions by
Shaye Baker
We’ve reached the midway point of the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens as we head to Lake Eufaula Oklahoma for stop number 2 of division 2. This is the 5th stop of the 9 event 2023 season. We sent out a few texts to the anglers and scoured social media to put together a practice gallery from the last few days.
A shot from Kyle Patrick’s boat of the sun trying to peak through ominous clouds.
One of the main themes throughout practice, frequent summer storms.
Nasty Oklahoma storms have plagued the area since practice started on Saturday.
James Niggemeyer with some pretty eerie shots.
And another from Niggemeyer. Though the storms are forecasted to clear out for the tournament, it’s been a pretty nasty practice.
Here’s another from JT Thompkins of a storm front rolling in.
Elite Series Pro Luke Palmer lives nearby and decided to try his hand on Eufaula. You can read a full writeup on how he thinks this one will play out on bassmaster.com.
The storms ran Brad Luethener and some of his compadres off the water and into a local diner.
James Niggemeyer finally got out on the water and apparently spotted Sasquatch.
Palmer and company doubling up on the wrong species.
Bassmaster Classic Champ Jason Christie with a muscled up catfish that no doubt put up a fight.
Casey Scanlon with a big flathead as well.
Trevor McKinney getting in on the catfishing action.
Apparently, there are lots of catfish here in Oklahoma.
But Leuthner shows us there are some bass too.
Palmer with a solid one. Austin Cranford, another local to the area fishing here this week, predicted 16 pounds a day to make the Top 10 cut and 17- to 18- pounds a day to win. You can read a full writeup on how Cranford thinks this Open will go on Bassmaster.com.
Cranford mentioned that most of the bass he’s caught throughout practice have been healthy, appearing to have fed up and healed well from the spawn. By the looks of this fatty caught by Blake Smith, Cranford is right.
Smith offered up this update from practice, “This week, I’ve been looking for two patterns: a high sun pattern and a wind pattern. These fish have been highly pressured with tournament anglers and storms changing the water conditions. I’m having a rough time catching them in dirty water but the moderate stain has shown promising results. These fish have seen everything but showing them something different gets you a bunch of bites. Here is a picture of everything I’ve been bit on this week.”
The Yamatanuki is a heavy soft plastic that’s on the craze lately. The small ones seem to like it…
… but Smith is getting big bites too.
James Niggemeyer with a quality fish. Per reports, anything over 3 pounds is a good one here.
Ish Monroe with a chunk.
JT Thompkins with a real big one.
Joey Nania appeared to have had a great day at the start of practice.
And though the bite has sizzled a bit, he’s still seeing a few big ones as practice winds down.
We leave you with this stud from Trevor McKinney. There are definitely big bites to be had on Eufaula. Tune in to Bassmaster.com tomorrow so you can follow along on BassTrakk to see who can put together a pattern and make a run at the 2023 St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Lake Eufaula Oklahoma.

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