My first visit to Lake Tenkiller Lake was not very productive, but it reinforced a truth that all anglers need to consider — fluctuating water presents a big disruption.
It’ll mess with the deep bite; it’ll scatter fish out more. Obviously, rising water can make the shallow bite good, but we had falling water the first two days. Then toward the end of the second day, the water started coming back up because of the rain we got.
Tenkiller is such a small lake that it fluctuates a lot — and really quickly — so you had to change your game plan. Also, considering the lake’s small size, the pressure of an Elite field meant a lot of the stuff that had fish on it was getting hit over and over.
Typically, practice is when you figure out what you think you’ll need to do in the tournament, but we saw significant changes from what we had before the tournament started. The water was up, then the tournament came around and it dropped like 3 feet.
Basically, I had to abandon everything I found for my flipping bite and go find some deeper stretches where there was something I could flip.
There was still some cover in the water, so I fished deep the first day because the water had dropped. The second day, the water came up, and I fished deep for the first quarter of the day until I realized, “This ain’t gonna happen.”
I went back to flipping the bushes, but there were only so many of those stretches that had fish in them and with all the pressure, it just made it tough. I think if the water had been stable, we would have seen the offshore bite play more.
To be honest, the entire time I fished, I felt like I was a step behind. It was so inconsistent; I didn’t feel confident. The way everything was moving and everything was unstable, I wasn’t able to establish a solid set of expectations.
I knew what to do, but I never really had a clear picture of what to expect. It felt like everything was completely random. I never got dialed in.
Even though I finished terribly, I felt like I made the right decisions for the scenario. I should have done better, but I lost a couple good fish on Day 2. I’m not saying I would have made the cut with the fish I lost, but they would have moved me up in the standings, and that’s really important, especially at this point in the season.
Looking back, I can say that I trusted my gut instinct on the water, and I adjusted the way I thought I needed to. Obviously, the outcome was not what I wanted, but it easily could have been much better.
Fishing is tough sometimes, but you do the best you can with what you’re given.
I felt good about what I did at Tenkiller. I don’t think I would have changed anything. The key to handling tough tournaments is to stay positive and don’t second guess yourself.
