The Bassmaster Elite Series tournament at Lake Tenkiller was a good, old fashioned, shallow, power fishing beatdown. I wish I had finished better than 40th place, but the tournament was a huge win in the fun department.
The water level was 3 to 7 feet high and up in the bushes. I believe every power fisherman who competed in the tournament or watched it as a fan enjoyed it immensely.
Most of the guys fished flooded bushes up along the bank with heavy line and meat-and-potatoes bass fishing tactics. There’s nothing better than flipping a jig into a gnarly bush, feeling that thump and flipping a bass over 3 pounds into your boat with $100,000 on the line.
It’s way more fun than pinging a minnow. With the recent trend of fishing offshore with forward-facing sonar, I can’t tell you how refreshing Lake Tenkiller was. Speaking as a fan of this sport, it was nice to see that the Top 10 did not consist of anglers who caught their bass staring at a screen with a spinning rod in hand.
I think B.A.S.S. should have events like this in the schedule every year. They are much more interesting to participate in and to watch.
How I fished Tenkiller: I sacked my bass with two power fishing techniques that employed 25-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon line. Although I wasn’t catching monsters, I needed heavy line to horse 2- and 3-pounders out of the dense cover.
I flipped a green pumpkin/blue 1/2-ounce Arkie style jig with a Googan Baits Bandito Bug trailer into the heart of the bushes. I also cast the shallow version of Bass Mafia’s 6-inch Daingerous Loaded Swimbait around floating docks for suspended bass. The cloudy, rainy conditions kept the shad spawning around the docks just about all day.
Several fellow Elite pros sponged some of my swimbaits during the tournament. It was rewarding to see a bait I designed working so well.
The water level, water clarity and fishing pressure changed so rapidly during the tournament that I had to adjust where I fished hour to hour. The biggest thing was identifying stretches of bank where shad were in the bushes. If the baitfish were there, the largemouth and smallmouth would be in and around the cover gorging on them.
Another key was to avoid getting discouraged when someone fished down a productive stretch ahead of me. I found in practice that there were short bite windows. If I was in a good area during a bite window, I’d still catch bass even when fishing used water. I couldn’t predict a bite window. I just had to keep my head in the game and tell myself the bites would come.
I boated roughly 10 to 15 bass on all three of the days I fished. About 80% came on the jig.
I left Tenkiller with some good points, but not enough to dig myself out of the hole I’m in. Realistically, my only chance to make the 2026 Bassmaster Classic will be to win the final Elite Series event on the Mississippi River out of La Crosse, Wis.
I’ve done well there in the past. As with Tenkiller, it will be a fun one to watch because old school power fishing should win there. The current flow and other conditions on the Mississippi are in a constant state of flux. It will be won by the angler who makes the best adjustments.
When the dust settles after that event, I need to be the one clutching that blue trophy if I’m to fish the next Bassmaster Classic.
