COLUMN: NEWELL’S NOTES
The Flurries and Funks of
Real-Time Scoring
Live tournament coverage reveals previously unknown factors that affect fishing success
ince the advent of real-
time scoring in profes-
sional bass tourna-
ments more than a decade ago,
I’ve become a believer in the
idea that bass go through daily
flurries and funks of activity.
Real-time scoring proves it.
During each fishing day, there
are periods when the bite is on
lakewide, and, conversely,
there are periods when feeding
activity becomes anemic.
These sudden swings will
sometimes even defy weather
conditions, moon phases, or
fish and game forecasts that
“predict” when fish “should”
bite. The crests and lulls in
activity might last 15 minutes
S
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a freelance writer
and photographer,
Rob Newell has been
reporting on fish and
fishing tournaments
for 20 years, finding
the stories between
fish and angler to be a
stretched line of
heroes, heartache, tri-
umph, torture, inspira-
tion and exasperation.
20
or two hours. There might be
several bursts during the day,
or maybe just one. But the
most amazing thing real-time
scoring has revealed is that this
phenomenon happens
lakewide, and with that comes
a whole new frontier of tourna-
ment strategy at the top levels
of the sport.
I first experienced the daily
ebb of the flurry and the funk
several eons ago as a co-angler
on the FLW Tour. Whenever
the Tour would visit lakes with
historical hot spots – Lake
Okeechobee’s north shore or
the Mile Roads at St. Clair, for
example – dozens of boats
would fish around each other
all day. Back then, real-time
scoring came in the form of
other competitors hurriedly
shuttling landing nets through
the boat. Fishing would be
lackluster for a while, and then,
like a switch was flipped, every-
one within sight would have a
fish on at the same time. These
miraculous fish-catch windows
would last an hour or so before
they slammed shut. In those
days, we chalked up the crests
and valleys to “waves” of fish
“moving in” to those particular
areas.
It wasn’t until the early
Toyota Texas Bass Classic
(TTBC) events held more than
a decade ago that real-time
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