By Josh Barlow
“Practice makes perfect” is the adage. Though far from perfect,
the practice I had was a big confidence booster. Driving home from the previous
tournament at Lake McMurtry, I audibly told myself, “I have 49 days to get
ready for Lake Tenkiller“. The practice started that night and for a month, it
was a constant barrage of map reading, weather watching, digging up old
tournament weights/lengths, watching the professional tournament held there,
and even joining the local Tenkiller scuba blogs/pages. My thirst for another
win was unrelenting. I was going to do as much off the water research I could
do since I had never fished it.
The size of the lake was daunting, even if I had a boat, I could not fish 13,000 acres in 5 days of practice. In my research, I had found several areas that held many different types of structure and cover. I whittled my list down to 4 areas and planned to cover an area each day of practice. After almost a month of research, it was time to get on the water. The first day out I explored Pettit Bay. Early morning the largemouth were up shallow in the buckbrush and around 10am they moved out to the nearest drop off. I liked the area and spent most of my day graphing and making sure my pattern was holding true.
Thursday morning, 2 am, I poured over my pre-tournament/camping checklist while inhaling my “road-trip-sized” coffee. With my list made, and checked twice, I hopped into the bass-sleigh and flew to the lake. After linking up with some friends, l went out and fished Needle Point. I caught an 18.75” smallmouth first thing. Shortly after I went to the bank and started catching largemouth, I noticed the water had come down and the buckbrush was only a foot deep in most places. The baitfish were still there so I was confident the bass would be nearby. Sure enough, I found them to be suspended just outside the shallow brush, but it was mostly small fish, with the occasional big fish. I came to the realization that the big fish I had caught, were in the same depth as the small fish but they had deep water nearby. I put that pattern in my back pocket and went to figure the smallmouth out. I knew that if they were drawing water from the lake, anyone on the smallmouth bite would be a force to be reckoned with. I spent about an hour in search of smallmouth before they stopped pulling water from the lake. When the current stopped, all fishing came to a crawl.
That night the camp talk was of big main lake smallmouth and plans to portage our group so we could fish the river the next day. I knew that the river could be a major player. We looked at the gauges up stream and determined it would likely be too shallow in places to pass so we decided against it. After hearing stories of mega-schools of bait near Standing Rock, that quickly became the plan for our last day of practice.
I woke up early that morning and checked the lake level. They had pulled water all night and the lake was lower than I had seen it. It wasn’t a drastic change but the buckbrush that had been holding bait was already really shallow and would now be in even less water. I was worried, I hit the road before anyone, I was bound for Standing Rock but Pettit Bay just kept weighing on my mind. I drove down the dark windy road just wondering if my buckbrush pattern would still play with the low water. It was my most productive pattern, if it disappeared, I would have to figure something out on the fly. As I came up on my turn for Standing Rock something in my gut told me to go back to Pettit Bay. In the past I’ve ignored my gut and would just stick with the plan, but it wasn’t the case that day. I turned the blinker off, put the foot back on the gas and went to spend another day at Pettit. I had not found any good smallmouth there previously but there were still a couple areas I had yet to explore. My plan was to explore the remainder, check my largemouth pattern, and figure out the smallmouth.
I was crossing the main lake when out of nowhere the water depth went from 80’ to 12’ in a hurry. I inquisitively looked down at my graph, and this drastic depth change was not on any of my maps. I knew I had to check this out. Almost immediately I found several mega schools of bait. There were a couple 5 minutes periods where my graph was just blacked out with bait. I started throwing a lipless crank around and started catching smallmouth. They were all around the 10-12” range. I knew there had to be bigger fish there, so I stopped throwing the lipless crank and tied on a craw. I have always known that big fish are lazy, why chase down 20 individual small baitfish when you can just mosey over to a craw and get the same amount of food? My second cast, something hammered my craw and would not let go. I tried to shake that fish off for what seemed like an eternity. It got to the point where I felt like the fish would be at risk of swallowing my lure so I set the hook. To no surprise it was a good smallmouth, 18.75” and fat. I was able to shake off what felt like one more good smallmouth, so I left the area and called it a day. I felt like I had really dialed in the bait selection and colors for that area and was happy with my results. I was confident that Pettit bay would give me a good shot at winning the tourney.
Tournament day I found a couple of largemouth near the brush but most of them were gone. I moved out from the bank and started fishing In 6’ of water and found a 16” and a 19.25” largemouth. By 8am I had around 75” I knew I needed an upgrade, so I put a Texas rigged craw in my hand and went to work. I fished a couple points and made my way around “The Real Goat Island”. After coming up empty handed, I checked the lake level. They were still pulling water; I knew that my offshore ledge was near the creek channel and would have current being pulled across it. I pedaled over and right off the bat I started upgrading. I hooked into a 17.5” largemouth and when she came near the boat there was an even bigger smallmouth at her side. I had the net handy and went for the largemouth. I got her in the net and the smallmouth almost followed her in! After seeing that, I knew there was at least one big dumb smallmouth there, so I spent the rest of my day on that ledge culling fish and giving free lip piercings to dumb smallmouth.
During my last upgrade I checked the standings. I was in first and saw some of the squad doing well too. I glanced quickly through the list, there were lots of quality anglers who had not submitted fish yet, I knew I would have to wait for the weigh in to see their scores. I knew they would not just let me have it. So, I put the gas down and made one more upgrade. As quick as it started it was over, time was up. The culmination of weeks of work was over and had paid out exactly 85.75”. The standings were turned off, I knew that I was sitting in first at 1:30pm, but it was now 2:00pm and a lot can change in that time.
On the way to the weigh in my brain was going a million miles per hour, was 19.25” big bass? Did I win 1st and get Big Bass? Does this finish put me in first for AOY? I started getting excited thinking “If I’ve got big bass and first place and the other contenders didn’t do so well, I could win AOY too! Am I seriously going home with $3,000?!” I had to reassure myself that this would not happen, the playing field was stacked with good anglers, I knew they would not let me off that easy. I felt good, I knew I did not leave anything on the table and that whatever happened next was out of my control.
I had 85.75” for my best 5 fish, I had heard through the grapevine that another angler had “85 and change”. I heard stories of big fish caught up in the river and started getting worried. I quietly kicked myself, lamenting the fact that I did not cover the river in practice. The results came in and I was in the lead by the smallest margin you can be, just 1/4”, and the angler in second, fished the river. If it were not for my days of practice, I know I wouldn't have won this event. I was super thankful for all the support I got from my friends and family that weekend. There were lots of “you’ve got this” from the squad as they reassured me and kept me from overthinking too much. If you ask me, they deserve part of this win too. Practice did not make me perfect but without it, I never stood a chance
Place Winners
1st Place - Josh Barlow - 85.75" - $981
2nd Place - Nathan Henthorn - 85.50" - $490
3rd Place - Chris Metcalf - 84.25" - $368
4th Place - Mike Ring - 82.75" - $245
5th Place - Nic Gilliland - 82.50" - $122
6th Place - Avery Metcalf - 77.75" - $122
7th Place - Jason Ray - 77" - $122
Big Bass - Chris Kobza - 19.50" - $720 & Dobyns Rod
Nice write-up Josh, and even better job in the tourney. Congrats!
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